What in the world has happened to Tucker Carlson? Since departing from Fox News to form his own independent media empire, the onetime darling of the right has strayed far from the beaten path by promoting contentious conspiracy theories ordinarily associated with the outermost fringes of right-wing thought. And he may now have fully relinquished his credibility with an alarming interview that has created a firestorm among conservatives.
Carlson saw fit to provide a platform for 27-year-old Nick Fuentes on his recent podcast for a discussion in which he asked not a single challenging or probing question, despite the fact that Fuentes is widely viewed as an extremist, a self-described white nationalist, an open antisemite, and an admitted fan of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Fuentes has called himself a “far-right reactionary,” questioned whether the Holocaust happened, and said Hitler was “really f---ing cool.” He has called for a “holy war” against Jews, “Catholic Taliban rule,” and “killing the globalists.” In 2022, Fuentes said, “All I want is revenge against my enemies and a total Aryan victory.”
Tucker Carlson Ignores Extremism
When Fuentes professed to being a fan of Stalin, the Communist totalitarian and mass murderer, Carlson hardly reacted, saying he would discuss the subject later in the podcast, but he never did. Carlson called out Republicans, prominently Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), former president George W. Bush, and ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, for being “Christian Zionists” who have been “seized by this brain virus,” declaring “I dislike them more than anybody.” Cruz, among others, hit back hard: “If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and their mission is to combat and defeat ‘global Jewry,’ and you say nothing, then you are a coward, and you are complicit in that evil.”
Incredibly, Fuentes told Carlson that he did not even vote in 2024 despite calling himself a passionate supporter of the America First movement. Fuentes attacked the Trump campaign in August 2024 for veering too far to the center and called for the dismissal of his campaign co-chairs Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. Trump’s then-running mate JD Vance responded by calling Fuentes a “total loser” in an appearance on CBS, adding that the proper response was to “ignore” trolls like him until they “go away.”
As the insightful writer Christopher Rufo opined in the conservative City Journal, Fuentes is simply a provocateur:
“The tone of his discourse is not authentic, serious, or reflective. It is ironic, cynical, and provocative. When Fuentes lauds Hitler and, in another interview, praises Stalin — irreconcilable ideological enemies — he is not expressing a comprehensible ideology that can be scrutinized in debate. He is engaging in a performance, which only becomes coherent when read as a demand for attention.”
Heritage Hell
But the plot thickens. Placing himself in the eye of the storm, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the nation’s most prominent conservative think tank, jumped to the defense of Carlson, especially about his remarks on Israel. He said conservatives are not required to “reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington … The American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right.”
Roberts added, “I disagree with, even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer either. When we disagree with a person’s thoughts and opinions, we challenge those ideas in debate. We will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”
Roberts, generally respected and admired by his colleagues, has drawn more than 23 million views of his response on X, more than double the 11 million views of the Carlson podcast with Fuentes. He was savaged for his remarks and later responded by issuing a forceful condemnation of Fuentes, but by that time, the damage was done.
To say the response by Roberts was not well-received by fellow conservatives would be an understatement. Internal chats reviewed by the New York Post reveal that high-ranking members of the Heritage Foundation told one another privately how “embarrassed” and “disgusted” they were by Roberts’ “ridiculous” decision to come to Carlson’s defense over platforming Fuentes and throwing him nothing but softball questions. One Heritage staff member said Roberts’ embrace of Carlson made him feel “the most embarrassed I’ve ever been to be a Heritage employee. It’s not close.”
An article by The Washington Post released today reports that five members of Heritage's antisemitism taskforce have resigned.
Extremism in Its Many Forms
The lesson we should be reminded of in all this is that extremists exist not only on the left but also on the right. Particularly distressing was a recently reported group chat among young Republicans laced with a host of blatantly antisemitic and racist comments, which included a Trump nominee, since withdrawn, who said he had a “Nazi streak.” This type of discourse, like Carlson’s, amplified by big media, will serve to divide the GOP. Sources close to Heritage told The Post that it has already been “hemorrhaging” evangelical Christian and Jewish contributors. At the same time, while Trump and the GOP have largely been able to distance themselves from far-right provocateurs such as Fuentes, the Democratic Party has been gripped by its most extreme elements, personified by the socialist mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani.
Tucker Carlson has been hugely popular over the years. His podcast was ranked number one on Spotify in late 2024. With that large an audience, what he says matters. So, what has he done with his outsized platform? Since leaving Fox News and celebrating his newfound independence, Carlson has welcomed not just Fuentes, but another open antisemite and Holocaust denier, Darryl Cooper, and traveled to Moscow to conduct a widely assailed white-glove interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2024. Freedom of speech is a gift that must withstand the foulest characters who engage in it. But with that privilege comes the responsibility to use it wisely, especially when blessed with a massive audience.
In private text messages that became public during a 2023 defamation lawsuit, Carlson stated that he "passionately hated" Donald Trump and considered his presidency a "disaster," referring to him as a "demonic force, a destroyer." And yet somehow, some way, he ingratiated himself with the 45th/47th president, speaking at the GOP convention and appearing with Trump frequently during the 2024 presidential campaign.
But Carlson now appears to have gone off the deep end. While he will likely continue to roll up big numbers for his podcast, Republican politicians in the future will likely take a pass on associating with this mercurial gadfly who makes headlines for all the wrong reasons.
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