Tucker Carlson


Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson is an American right-wing political commentator who hosted the nightly political talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News from 2016 to 2023. Since his contract with Fox News was terminated, he has hosted Tucker on X and The Tucker Carlson Show. An advocate of President Donald Trump, Carlson has been described as a high-profile proponent of Trumpism, and an influential voice in right-wing media.
Carlson began his media career in the 1990s, writing for The Weekly Standard and other publications. He was a CNN commentator from 2000 to 2005 and a co-host of Crossfire, the network's prime-time news debate program, from 2001 to 2005. From 2005 to 2008, he hosted the nightly program Tucker on MSNBC. In 2009, he became a political analyst for Fox News, appearing on various programs before launching his own show. In 2010, Carlson co-founded and served as the initial editor-in-chief of the right-wing news and opinion website The Daily Caller, until selling his ownership stake and leaving in 2020. In the 2021 Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network defamation lawsuit, Carlson was among the hosts named for broadcasting false statements about the plaintiff company's voting machines. In April 2023, Fox News canceled Tucker Carlson Tonight, leading Carlson to launch his own program, The Tucker Carlson Show.
Carlson is a critic of immigration. Formerly an economic libertarian, he now supports protectionism. In 2004, he renounced his initial support for the Iraq War, and has since been skeptical of U.S. foreign interventions. Carlson is known for introducing far-right ideas into mainstream politics and discourse. He has been noted for false and misleading statements on some topics and for promoting conspiracy theories on demographic replacement, COVID-19, the United States Capitol attack and Ukrainian bioweapons. Some of Carlson's remarks on race, immigration, and women have been described as racist and sexist, and provoked advertiser boycotts of Tucker Carlson Tonight. He is said to have influenced Trump's decision-making; he has also criticized Trump for straying from "Trumpism". Carlson has defended Russian president Vladimir Putin, and in February 2024 became the first Western journalist to interview Putin since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He has written three books: Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites, Ship of Fools, and The Long Slide.

Early life and education

Tucker McNear Carlson was born at the Children's Hospital in San Francisco, California, on May 16, 1969. He is the elder son of Lisa McNear, an artist from San Francisco, and Dick Carlson, a former "gonzo reporter" who became the director of Voice of America, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles, and more recently a director at the lobbying firm Policy Impact Strategic Communications. Carlson's brother, Buckley Peck Carlson, later Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson, is nearly two years younger and has worked as a communications manager and a Republican Party political operative.
Carlson's paternal grandparents were Richard Boynton and Dorothy Anderson, who were teenagers when they placed his father at The Home for Little Wanderers orphanage, where he was fostered by Carl Moberger of Malden, near Boston, a tannery worker of Swedish descent, and his wife Florence Moberger. Carlson's father was adopted at the age of two by upper-middle-class New Englanders, the Carlsons, an executive at the Winslow Brothers & Smith Tannery of Norwood and his wife.
Carlson's maternal great-great-great-grandfather was Henry Miller, the "Cattle King". Carlson's maternal great-great-grandfather Cesar Lombardi immigrated to New York from Switzerland in 1860. Carlson is also a distant relative of Massachusetts politicians Ebenezer R. Hoar and George M. Brooks. Carlson himself was named after his great-great-great-grandfather J. C. Tucker and his great-great-grandfather George W. McNear. Carlson is of one thirty-second Italian-Swiss ancestry.
In 1976, Carlson's parents divorced after the nine-year marriage reportedly "turned sour". Carlson's father was granted custody of Tucker and his brother. Carlson's mother left the family when he was six and moved to France. The boys never saw her again.
When Carlson was in first grade, his father moved Tucker and his brother to the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, and raised them there. Carlson attended La Jolla Country Day School and grew up in a home overlooking the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. His father owned property in Nevada and Vermont, and islands in Maine and Nova Scotia. In 1984, his father unsuccessfully challenged the incumbent Republican Party mayor Roger Hedgecock in the San Diego mayoral race.
In 1979, Carlson's father married Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to Swanson Enterprises, daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson and niece of Senator J. William Fulbright. Though Patricia remained a beneficiary of the family fortune, the Swansons had sold the brand to the Campbell Soup Company in 1955 and did not own it by the time of Carlson's father's marriage. This was the third marriage for Swanson, who legally adopted Tucker Carlson and his brother.
Carlson was briefly enrolled at Collège du Léman, a boarding school in the Canton of Geneva in French-speaking Switzerland, but said he was "kicked out". He attained his secondary education at St. George's School, a boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island, where he started dating his future wife, Susan Andrews, the headmaster's daughter. He then spent four years attending Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, but achieved only a 1.9 GPA and failed to graduate. Carlson's Trinity yearbook describes him as a member of the "Dan White Society", an apparent reference to the American political assassin who murdered San Francisco mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. After college, Carlson tried to join the Central Intelligence Agency, but his application was denied, after which he decided to pursue a career in journalism with the encouragement of his father, who advised him that "they'll take anybody".

Career

1995–2006: Early career

Carlson began his career in journalism as a fact-checker for Policy Review, a conservative journal then published by the Heritage Foundation and later acquired by the Hoover Institution. He then worked as an opinion writer at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, before joining The Weekly Standard news magazine in 1995. Carlson sought a role with the publication after hearing of its founding, fearing he would be "written off as a wing nut" if he instead joined The American Spectator.
In 1999, Carlson interviewed then-Governor George W. Bush for Talk magazine. He quoted Bush mocking Karla Faye Tucker, who was executed in Bush's state of Texas, and frequently using the word "fuck". The piece led to bad publicity for Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. Bush claimed that "Mr. Carlson misread, mischaracterized me. He's a good reporter, he just misunderstood about how serious that was. I take the death penalty very seriously." Among liberals, Carlson's piece received praise, with Democratic consultant Bob Shrum calling it "vivid". Carlson said of the interview, "I thought I'd be ragged for writing a puffy piece. My wife said people are going to think you're hunting for a job in the Bush campaign."
Further into his career in print, Carlson worked as a columnist for New York magazine and Reader's Digest; writing for Esquire, Slate, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Daily Beast, and The Wall Street Journal. John F. Harris of Politico would later remark on how Carlson was "viewed... as an important voice of the intelligentsia" during this period. While working on a story for New York covering the Taliban, Carlson, alongside his father, was involved in a plane crash as it made its landing on a runway in Dubai on October 17, 2001. Carlson's 2003 Esquire profile on his journey to Liberia alongside Reverend Al Sharpton and other civil and political rights activists would garner a nomination at the National Magazine Awards.
In his early television career, Carlson wore bow ties, a habit from boarding school he continued on air until 2006.
On June 21, 2021, New York Times reporter Ben Smith reported that Carlson was a media source for several journalists and authors, including Michael Isikoff, Michael Wolff, Brian Stelter, and others who wrote critically of Donald Trump.

2000–2005: CNN

In 2000, Carlson co-hosted the short-lived show The Spin Room on CNN. In 2001, he was appointed co-host of Crossfire, in which Carlson and Robert Novak represented the political right, while James Carville and Paul Begala, also alternating as hosts, represented the left.
Carlson's 2003 interview with Britney Spears, wherein he asked if she opposed the ongoing Iraq War and she responded, "e should just trust our president in every decision he makes", was featured in the 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11, for which she won a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress at the 25th Golden Raspberry Awards.

Jon Stewart debate

In October 2004, comedian and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart appeared on Crossfire, ostensibly to promote America , but he instead launched into a critique of Crossfire, saying the show was harmful to political discourse in the U.S. Carlson was singled out by Stewart for criticism, with Carlson in turn criticizing Stewart for being biased toward the left. Carlson and Begala later recalled that Stewart and one of the book's co-authors, Ben Karlin, stayed at CNN for more than an hour after the show to discuss the issues he had raised on the air, with Carlson saying, "It was heartfelt. needed to do this." In 2017, The New York Times referred to Stewart's "on-air dressing-down" of Carlson as an "ignominious career " for Carlson, leading to the show's cancellation. The Atlantic suggested that Stewart's appearance was a turning point leading to how Carlson remade himself.
On January 5, 2005, CNN chief Jonathan Klein told Carlson the network had decided not to renew his contract. CNN announced that it was ending its relationship with Carlson and would soon cancel Crossfire. Carlson later said: "I resigned from Crossfire in April , many months before Jon Stewart came on our show, because I didn't like the partisanship, and I thought in some ways it was kind of a pointless conversation."