MILWAUKEE — When Donald Trump made his triumphant return to the spotlight Monday night after surviving an assassination attempt just days earlier, Tucker Carlson was the first person to welcome him into the VIP box at the Republican National Convention.
The former president shook Carlson’s hand firmly and rested his left arm on the former TV host’s shoulder. Carlson nodded, leaned forward and smiled. It wasn’t a bad place to be for a man who was fired from Fox News 15 months ago, losing the biggest platform in conservative media.
“I think Fox thought they were going to limit his reach” by canceling his show, said Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime adviser and self-described “good friend” of Carlson, as he pushed through a huddle of reporters on the convention grounds. “If anything, they’ve amplified his reach and influence 20-fold.”
Carlson is having a moment at the RNC. He’s being followed by a documentary crew. He’s expected to give a prime-time speech before the festivities wrap up Thursday. And to top it all off, he’ll get to celebrate the endorsement of his friend and conservative nationalist colleague, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), to be Trump’s running mate — an outcome Carlson had secretly lobbied for. (According to a New York Times report, Carlson had warned Trump that if a “neocon” — a Republican with an interventionist foreign policy — as vice president would be more likely to try to provoke the forces of the deep state (Kill Trump.)
Carlson or Vance “would be the two people I would have liked to have as vice president,” Donald Trump Jr. said during a live event hosted by Axios at the RNC after Vance became the nominee.
Carlson did not respond to The Washington Post’s text message request to explain his presence and purpose in Milwaukee this week. Instead, he responded with a 93-word tirade against The Post.
Carlson told the crowd at an RNC event hosted by the Heritage Foundation that he initially didn’t want to attend the convention, but is now glad he did.
Now, the reluctant visitor seemed to be everywhere. At the Trade Hotel, Carlson was spotted walking past his former boss, Rupert Murdoch, with a smile, according to Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News. College-age clones of Carlson, with the same shaggy hair and khaki pants, are seen drinking free beer at the afterparties. On Tuesday, he followed his buddy Don Jr. into the Fox News green room, uninvited by the network but welcomed by at least a few of his old colleagues, according to NOTUS.
“I saw him yesterday,” said former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson on Wednesday. “Tucker was Tucker.” Asked to elaborate, Carson would say only: “Tucker has a lot of opinions that sometimes get ahead of a society that’s still catching up.”
Does Trump’s choice of Vance mean that society—or at least the Republican Party—is catching up with Carlson in real time? Both Carlson and Vance share an anti-elitist ideology (despite their elite status), with isolationist and populist tendencies that can sometimes seem xenophobic.
“You really understand what’s wrong with the country,” Carlson told Vance on Carlson’s eponymous Fox show in 2021, when Vance announced his candidacy for Senate. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m very glad you’re doing it. I admire you and I wish you the best of luck.”
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” averaged 3.3 million viewers in 2022, but Fox abruptly canceled it in April 2023 the show, despite its popularity. The network never explained the decision, but it came less than a week after Fox agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit. Emails and text messages released as part of that lawsuit showed Carlson had disparaged Fox executives, his colleagues and prominent Republicans, including Trump, who called Carlson “a demonic force.”
In December, Carlson launched his own company, the Tucker Carlson Network, and began charging superfans $9 a month (or $72 a year). Still, Carlson struggled with lagging ratings on X, according to Mashable. In February, he traveled to Russia for a bizarre interview with President Vladimir Putin and posted videos that appeared to be pro-Kremlin propaganda.
But even a somewhat weakened Carlson remains a powerful force in the conservative media.
“He’s important to the movement in so many ways because he’s asking the questions that so few dare to ask,” Trump’s former deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said. “Donald Trump likes fighters. Someone like Tucker has fought for the president for a long time.”
How much does Trump actually hate him?
“There are very few people in that box” at the RNC arena, Gidley said. “I’ll leave it at that.”
Terris reported from Milwaukee. Barr reported from Washington.
