Tucker Carlson’s too-little, too-late mea culpa for supporting Trump
Former Fox News host and former Trump apologist Tucker Carlson regrets the role he and others played in publicly promoting Donald Trump as a candidate and president.
“In very small ways, but very literally, you and I and millions of people like us are the cause of what’s happening right now,” Carlson said. on his podcast Monday.“The Tucker Carlson Show.” He was chatting with his brother and a former Trump speechwriter, Buckley Carlson, about the erosion of conservative values within the Republican Party under Trump.
“I think this is a moment where we have to wrestle with our own consciences,” Carlson said. “You know, we’re going to suffer for a long time because of this. I will, and I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people. It wasn’t intentional, and that’s all I have to say.”
After whining about Trump’s greatness every night for nearly 10 years, Carlson Now Cutting the conversation short?
There’s more to say, but this time it’s about Carlson’s too-little, too-late flaw. His claim that he did not deliberately mislead the public is misleading in itself. While Carlson promoted Trump and the Big Lie ad nauseam on Fox News’ flagship show “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” he was privately disparaging the president and refuting Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
His off-camera musings came to light when internal communications between Fox employees became public in 2023 due to a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News for broadcasting knowingly false claims that its machines rigged the 2020 election. Texts and emails from Carlson and other high-profile hosts showed they knew Trump’s claims of election fraud were false, but pushed the “rigged” narrative anyway.
In one such example, Carlson texted Trump saying he should concede and concede that “there was not enough fraud to change the outcome of the election,” according to the filing. But three nights laterwas on air claiming there were “legitimate concerns” about election integrity. There were several other communications from Carlson in which he expressed doubts about Trump’s claims. But he continued to publicly attack the election results and the legitimacy of Biden’s victory.
The Fox News host also privately disparaged Trump’s first presidency as a “disaster,” then turned around and marveled at Trump in 2024, praising him as a “national leader” at the Republican National Convention and campaigning with him in Arizona just days before the election.
If this is not deliberately misleading the public, what is?
Maybe Carlson should have listened to his first instincts about Trump. Before she rose to fame on the Fox show, she posted about Trump on the website Slate in 1999, referring to him as “the single most unattractive person on the planet.”
Today, the podcaster is among a growing number of right-wing influencers who are hostile to their former leaders. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones want to impeach Trump. 25th Amendment. Carrie Prejean Boller, who was appointed by Trump to the Commission on Religious Liberty until February, described it simply as “ “evil psychopath”.
Carlson criticized the Trump administration’s decision to go to war in Iran in March, calling it “absolutely disgusting and evil” and later said it was the “biggest mistake” of Trump’s presidency. And when Trump demanded on Truth Social that Iran “open the Strait of F—–, you crazy bastards,” Carlson said the post was “despicable on every level” and “the most revealing thing the president has ever done.” …Who do you think you are? Are you tweeting the F word on Easter morning?,” Carlson said on his podcast.
The president responded to Carlson’s criticism by telling the New York Post that his critic was one person. A “low IQ person” who “has absolutely no idea what’s going on.”
But Carlson isn’t the only American experiencing buyer’s remorse. A recent NBC poll found that Trump is facing: lowest job approval rating This came into his second term largely due to strong disapproval of how the president was handling inflation and the cost of living. Carlson, unlike the rest of the country, rode the MAGA wave to prosperity. His show launched in 2016, a few weeks after the election, and was propelled by the fervor of Trumpism. Supporting Trump was a family business. From his Republican operative brother, who previously wrote speeches for Trump, to his son, who until recently worked in Vice President J.D. Vance’s press office.
Now Carlson returns to the conversation, taking issue with the man he once claimed to respect.
He begs forgiveness for endorsing a defective product and also claims to have fallen victim to her seductive charms. “You and I and everyone who supported him… you wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him. We’re definitely in this together,” Carlson told his brother on the podcast. “It’s not enough to say, ‘Well, I changed my mind’ or ‘Oh, that’s too bad. I’m out.'”
True, this is not enough. Carlson should apologize for deliberately misleading the public.
