Who is Tucker Carlson and what does he tell us about the future of MAGA?

0:00Anthony:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. How has America shaped the world? I'm Asma Khalid, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. As the United States marks its 250-year anniversary, we've been exploring the surprising and often hidden ways the US has shaped the modern world. And today on the show, we answer your questions about this moment and what to expect in the years to come. From the BBC, it's the United States at 2.50. Listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:57Anthony:where their future support comes from. Is it going to be at all mainstream or is it going to be extreme? We're going to focus today on one particular man, Tucker Carlson, whose story tells a larger one about just how much conservative media has changed the United States and the direction of conservatism itself. Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that, Jim? I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. Nicolas Maduro, he effed around and he found out. This is a big cover-up and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump derangement syndrome.

1:38I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

1:48Anthony:Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England. And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of AmeriCast in Washington, D.C. And we're going to talk about Tucker Carlson largely today, Anthony, simply because he is such an interesting case study. He's an interesting person in himself, but he's also interesting, isn't he, because he brings to our mind the kind of broader trajectory of the American right in the last, I don't know, couple of decades, but particularly, I suppose, the last decade or so. Yeah, the evolution of Tucker Carlson from kind of an establishment conservative in the George W.

2:25Bush wing of the Republican Party to this populist rabble rouser who moved closer to the right, the populist right with Donald Trump, but has had his differences with him as well. It really does tell us a lot about where the Republican Party, where the conservative movement is in America over the past two decades. Yeah.

2:45Anthony:And we've got a writer who's going to come on and talk to us. I've been talking to him. Jason Zengele is his name. He's a contributing writer at The New Yorker. He's just written a book about Tucker Carlson. But for people who aren't aware of him, or at least don't sort of follow his work with the care that Anthony and I do, let's get just a bit of a taste of what he's like, what he says. Now, I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term replacement. If you suggest the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots with new people, more obedient voters from the third world.

3:24But they become hysterical because that's that's what's happening, actually. Let's just say it. That's true. We are going to find that people did illegally vote. That's going to happen. That is the official account before even counting the votes from a key swing state in the middle of a contested election. The right of every person to express what he believes that is rooted in Christian faith. We believe people should be able to say what they think because they have souls. They're human beings created by God. They are not slaves. They are not animals. They are not objects. You cannot tell another human being to shut up, even shut up racist.

4:05because you don't own him. He is an independent, autonomous person created by God as an individual. OK, so that's where that belief comes from. That's where free speech comes from. So that was a montage of Tucker Carlson talking on Fox News on his television program. The first thing he kind of discusses is this idea of a great replacement theory, which is a conspiracy theory that there's some kind of a shadowy cabal of people who is trying to change the character of the United States by bringing in immigrants from underdeveloped countries, and that is undermining so-called Western culture. He also touches on voter fraud and allegations that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, that there was going to be all of this evidence found of voter fraud.

4:51Of course, there hasn't been any evidence found of that just yet, but it does give a flavor of exactly how controversial and how willing to dabble in conspiracy theories Tucker Carlson has been over his career. I just wonder the extent to which with Tucker, he actually means the stuff that he says,

5:10Anthony:or the extent to which it's just part of a shtick. I mean, I got a friend, for instance, Anthony, who buys his chewing tobacco, which I think is quite profitable for him. He's got this sort of chewing tobacco sideline and all these things. You know, he's a huge presence on the right and makes money out of it. I mean, he wouldn't hide that at all. He'd be perfectly happy to say, yeah, he makes a fair living. But is this all about the living or is it actually genuinely? Is he trying to change America, I suppose, is the question. Yeah. And if you look at his background, he grew up in incredible wealth.

5:49He is born into the family that made all of its money in Swanson's food, frozen food. And he went to prep schools, Ivy League prep schools. He is a child of privilege. And then to be this kind of rabble-rousing populist now, it is, as you say, quite a journey. It has led a lot of people to say that this is insincere. And actually, we got a little window into Tucker Carlson and what he was saying when he wasn't on camera in those lawsuits that were brought against Fox News after the 2020 election, the defamation lawsuits brought by voting companies. And you could see Tucker Carlson kind of bluntly say he didn't like Donald Trump, had some real criticisms of Donald Trump, seemed to be a little bit more like the Tucker Carlson we saw earlier in his career.

6:44So, you know, take that as a data point that maybe some of this is an act. Although, I mean, if it's an act, he's been sticking with it for quite some time now. And he's been very effective, very compelling as a speaker. He's very popular because of what he's saying. And he's developed quite a movement. Even after he left Fox News, when people thought his audience would wither away, he has successfully managed to continue to have a platform, a very visible platform for advancing his political views.

7:16Anthony:And he can mix it with politicians and do so in quite a compelling way. There's an interview. In fact, we should hear a bit of it. This interview with Ted Cruz. So Ted Cruz, who may well be a presidential candidate at the end of this administration, Republican, Texas senator, who supports regime change in Iran. And this is what Tucker did to him. How many people live in Iran, by the way? I don't know the population. At all? No, I don't know the population. You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple? how many people live in Iran 92 million okay yeah how could you not know that I don't sit around memorizing population tables well it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government why is it relevant whether it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million why is that if you don't know anything about the country I didn't say I don't know anything about okay what's the ethnic mix of Iran they are Persians and predominantly Shia OK, no, you don't know anything about Iran.

8:22OK, I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran. You're a senator who's calling for the overthrowing.

8:28Anthony:And the point there, Anthony, is when you look back at the Iraq war, which both of us remember from the American perspective, and I was doing Sarah's job during that time, and you think of the ignorance that there was about the ethnic makeup of Iraq and the way in which they just thought, oh, this will be fine. and we'll just blast through and they like freedom like everyone else, et cetera, et cetera. And just before we hear the interview that I've done with this guy who's written a book about him, when we say he matters in the Republican Party and on the broader American right, that is true, isn't it?

9:03Anthony:Because you could think, well, he's just one man. I mean, he's literally one man and he's got his own platform now. And I'm going to talk a bit about that with Jason Zengeli, how he got to be where he is now. But where he is now does matter. There's no doubt about that, is there? Definitely. And I think his name has been bandied about as a potential presidential candidate in 2028 because of the base that he has developed, independent of Donald Trump, the following that he has developed. We've had these conversations before about Marjorie Taylor Greene and other members of the Trump movement and wither the movement, the MAGA movement after Trump invariably, inevitably exits the scene.

9:49Carlson is one of those names that comes up and one of those people who has kind of positioned himself to claim that mantle as the true MAGA, the real MAGA, the philosophical heir to Trumpism. And so I think he's definitely, I'm glad we're doing a show on this. Definitely someone that is worth understanding and understanding where he comes from, because he's youngish. He's not going away. He's going to have a role in the conservative world after Donald Trump exits stage left.

10:20Anthony:So without further ado, let's hear the interview, the interview we promised that I did earlier with Jason Zengel.

10:34Anthony:so jason first of all thanks a lot for coming on and talking to us oh thank you so much for having me and second of all why are we talking about tucker carlson why have you written a book about him why does he matter so much well the thing that tucker and he did this at fox too he's doing this still. He's very good at taking fringe ideas, ideas that exist on the far, far, far, far, far right, oftentimes on the internet, taking those ideas and smuggling them into the mainstream and presenting them in such a way he makes them more palatable. They're still extreme, but he presents them in such a way that they seem a little bit less extreme.

11:15I mean, the most sort of famous instance of this is the great replacement theory, this idea that elites, oftentimes Jews, are bringing immigrants into the United States to replace white voters and therefore support the Democratic Party. I mean, this is a theory that has been bumping around on the far, far, far right for decades. When Tucker was at Fox, he started putting it on his air and he would do it in such a way that it didn't seem as crazy and as offensive as it clearly is. And, you know, I think that's now become a mainstream conservative view in a lot of instances. And he has done that a number of times.

11:55He's able to take these, you know, ideas and oftentimes conspiracy theories and even just news stories and put them in front of mainstream conservative audiences and get them to agree with them. And, you know, and that is something that other people are not doing.

12:15Anthony:And he came to prominence, didn't he, on CNN? I mean, I can remember I was based in Washington, D.C. in the early part of the century. And I remember him almost as a slightly rather cuddly figure, entertaining figure on CNN. Yeah, well, he recognized pretty early, you know, earlier than a lot of people, including myself, that print was going to be not going to have the greatest future. And he – one of the through lines throughout his career is I think he very much wants status. He wants fame. He wants power. He wants money. And I think he realized that he wasn't going to be able to achieve that in print journalism.

12:56And so he went to cable news and he went to CNN originally. And he was the host – one of the hosts of Crossfire, which was the venerable CNN debate show. There's a host on the left and a host on the right. He was on the right. And he did that for a number of years. And, you know, he was he sort of had this kind of preppy air about him. He always wore a bow tie and he had, you know, a prep school haircut. And he was very much kind of reflecting the conservative mainstream, the Republican establishment. He would hit those talking points on that show. And that's how that show worked. The host on the right needed to be a mouthpiece, basically, for conservatives, for Republicans.

13:37And Tucker did that job well.

13:40Anthony:There was a moment, though, wasn't there, when a certain late night host was the guest on Crossfire. Tell us about it. Yeah, there's a whole alternative history if Jon Stewart isn't a guest on Crossfire, I guess. But Jon Stewart, who at the time was the host of The Daily Show, which was a very popular satirical news program in the U.S., he was a very big critic of Crossfire and of cable news in general. And, you know, this is after the U.S. has gone to war in Iraq. There's a lot of public backlash against the way the media handled that, the way they reported it, the way they talked about how Iraq had WMDs.

14:18So Jon Stewart becomes probably the most prominent critic of cable news. And Crossfire wanted him to come on their show, and they thought that he would be part of the act. And Tucker Carlson was actually friendly with Stewart. They used to share cigarette breaks outside of a studio, so they knew each other. But when Stewart came on the show, he wasn't pretending. He wasn't playing. He gave his critique of Crossfire, but he did it in such a personal and just kind of harsh way and crossed lines that people didn't usually cross on that show, that it really shocked, I think, the Crossfire producers, the Crossfire hosts.

14:58And Tucker tried to debate him, and Stewart just eviscerated him. I made a special effort to come on the show today because I have privately, amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows,

15:12Anthony:mentioned this show as being bad. and and and i wanted to i felt that that wasn't fair and i should come here and tell you that i don't it's not so much that it's bad as it's hurting america so i wanted to come here today let me and say wait wait here's just what i wanted to tell you guys yeah stop stop stop stop stop hurting america okay now and and come work for us because we as the people how do you pay The people, not well. Better than CNN, I'm sure. But you can sleep at night. See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now you're helping the politicians and the corporations, and we're left out there to mow our lawns.

15:59You just said we're too rough on them when they make mistakes. No, no, no, you're not too rough on them. You are part of their strategies. You're partisan, what do you call it, hacks. Wait, John, wait, let me tell you something. I mean, it was just public humiliation. And the humiliation was compounded when a couple months later the president of CNN canceled Crossfire and said, you know, I'm canceling it because I agree with Jon Stewart's critique of it. I mean Jon Stewart said, you're hurting America. And the CNN president said he agreed with that, canceled Crossfire, let Tucker Carlson's contract run out.

16:32And it was sort of a personal and professional humiliation. It's funny. You know, he – I mentioned the bow tie. Like he stopped wearing a bow tie after that, I think, to try to sort of change his image. But no one – and people still see him with a bow tie. I think one thing it really did though was it planted a seed of resentment I think that he felt towards that club that he was a member of and that he was a part of, sort of the clubby DC political and media elite crowd. I think Tucker felt that they didn't defend him and support him as much as he would have liked. and I think that made it a lot easier for him you know a decade later when bashing the the political and media elite became a successful you know political and media strategy made it easier

17:22Anthony:for him to to join in on that it's a really interesting one that isn't it a lot of people who are who rail against elites in the United States and I've heard John Stewart actually say this a lot of them have been dissed they feel by those elites that they haven't been at all You could always say this about Donald Trump as well, actually. They've wanted to be part of an elite, and the elite has rejected them, and their anger knows no bounds because of the rejection. Is that too much of a psychotherapy session, or is that, do you think, true? No, no. I think you're on to something. I think the same thing you can say about J.D.

17:59Vance. There is a genuine resentment there towards these people. There are reasons for the resentment. And I think in Tucker's case, you know, the Stewart debacle kind of sent his career into a tailspin. And I think he struggled for a while after that. And I think that he felt that the TV executives weren't really sort of appreciating his talents. Yeah.

18:19Anthony:And you say he struggled for a bit and then he goes to Fox and Fox really makes him, doesn't he? It becomes a very big noise on Fox. But not immediately. Not immediately. I mean, not immediately. That's an interesting point. Why not immediately? Does he feel that he has to go somewhere to get that audience? Yeah. So he, you know, he goes to Fox and he's he's like a third tier pundit there. And he's he's the hosting the weekend morning show. And which is, you know, not even like doesn't really do politics. And it isn't really until Donald Trump comes along that Tucker's star starts to ascend. And the reason for that is because at the same time he was doing the Fox morning show on weekends, he was also editing a website, a conservative website called The Daily Caller.

19:07And through that website, I think he gained a real appreciation and understanding of what conservative voters wanted because he saw what articles they clicked on. And so when Donald Trump ran for president for the first time in 2015, most conservative pundits just dismissed him. They didn't think he was a serious candidate. I mean, one, because he's Donald Trump, but two, just the messages he was he was focusing on, you know, especially, you know, a nativist message, anti-immigrant focusing on white grievance. Most Republicans at that time did not think that that was going to be a successful campaign strategy.

19:38You know, after Mitt Romney lost to Obama in 2012, Republicans thought they had to moderate on immigration. They had to be more modern.

19:45Anthony:It was going to be Jeb Bush. Yeah, exactly. The Jeb Bush campaign was that was the establishment thinking. And Tucker, because of the Daily Caller site, he understood that what the Republicans establishment thought voters wanted and what voters actually wanted, there was a great gap. And he recognized that Trump was going to have a lane in a Republican party. And Fox had this basic TV problem. Most of their pundits were dismissing Trump or criticizing him. And they needed to produce segments on Trump where you would actually have a debate about him. like a pro and a con. And Tucker was one of the few Fox pundits who wouldn't bash Trump.

20:27So he started getting more airtime just because he could fill out a debate show, basically. And that eventually led to him getting his own show.

20:35Anthony:Now, here's the thing, Jason. In the old days, and I'm talking 10 years ago, you lose your place on television. That's it. You're back to writing or whatever, which you very modestly say you've stayed in and you don't have the power. But basically, if you lose your spot on television, it's a really big deal. What is fascinating, I think, about Tucker Carlson is that, in a sense, his huge salience has come since the Fox gig. And that is extraordinary, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, he was important at Fox, too. I mean, he was the highest rated cable show, I think, in history. But he didn't go away. I mean he went away I think in the eyes of a lot of liberal Americans.

21:22When he was on Fox, they paid attention to him in part because he was showing up in their Twitter feed every morning because people would post clips and it was sort of outrage bait. I think when he got fired from Fox like in blue America's mind, he kind of disappeared. But his conservative audience didn't stop paying attention to him. And he – I mean his timing was very fortuitous in a way. Like I'm sure he hated it at the time. His firing was fortuitous for him. I'm sure he didn't like it at the time, but the timing was good because, you know, cable news is kind of a dying industry here the way print once was.

21:53And all the energy now is in this streaming sector. And Tucker was able to enter that at just the right moment. Elon Musk had just purchased Twitter and was turning it into X and was able to boost Tucker's program on that. And conservative viewers were going to that space. They were looking for content there. And Tucker has now, you know, he has a head start over anyone else from the Fox world, certainly, and from the cable news world in this space. And now you have Fox, like Fox is now like buying back these, you know, these podcasts and they have licensing agreements, you know, with people who left Fox, whether it was Tucker or Megyn Kelly.