Conspiracy theories, a discrimination lawsuit, and a sudden firing. Forget
fake news—here's the truth about the controversial talk show personality.
If Tucker Carlson ever had doubts about his career path,
all he had to do was look to his father as an example. His dad, Dick Carlson, worked as the
director of Voice of America and as the CEO of The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
While his father's work clearly gave him access to the journalism world, Carlson didn't immediately
gravitate toward that career path. He attended Trinity College and studied history — sort of.
In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review,
Tucker revealed that he could typically be found drunk while in undergrad, though he did manage to
graduate in 1991. After marrying his wife, Susan Andrews, Carlson applied to the CIA,
but was turned down. Thinking that the news industry would be a good fit, Tucker's father
gave him a piece of his mind when ruminating about the professional decision, saying,
"You should consider journalism. They'll take anybody."
From there, Tucker Carlson landed his first media job at Policy Review,
working as a fact-checker. He told the Columbia Journalism Review of his very first gig,
"I ended up working for this magazine because the standards are so low."
Tucker Carlson found his way to CNN by 2000. Offering his thoughts on the Lieberman-Cheney
vice-presidential debate at the time, Carlson found his niche at the network and eventually
landed his own show, "The Spin Room," alongside co-host Bill Press. From there,
Carlson jumped to the network's popular show, "Crossfire," and was made the co-host in 2001.
Carlson seemed to be panning out well as the talking head for "Crossfire" until
an encounter in 2004 changed everything. Welcoming fiery comedian and then-"Daily
Show" host Jon Stewart to the program, Carlson and Stewart got into it on camera.
"I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion."
"You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a d--k on your show as you are on any show."
The moment did not bode well for Carlson, and by January 2005, then-CNN President Jonathan
Klein told The New York Times that "Crossfire" was being canceled. Klein said of the news,
"There are outlets for the kind of show Tucker
wants to do and CNN isn't going to be one of them."
From there, Carlson jumped to MSNBC, but his show there was canceled by 2008.
Going into business for himself, Carlson launched The Daily Caller with Neil Patel.
CNN wasn't the right fit, and neither was MSNBC, but Tucker Carlson eventually found
a home for a time at Fox News. His show, "Tucker Carlson Tonight," ran from 2016 until 2023. With
the launch of the show coinciding with Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Carlson wasted no
time aligning himself with the eventual president. The talk show host interviewed Trump on a number
of occasions, and he even spread some of Trump's conspiracy theories on his show. And the president
seems to have closely followed Carlson's own theories even when he wasn't on the show.
For instance, back in 2017, Carlson said on his show that immigration — notably from Sweden — was
the reason for rising crime rates. The then-president was definitely watching,
because shortly thereafter during a rally in Florida,
Trump referenced a terror attack that supposedly happened the day before. The truth was, however,
that nothing actually happened in the relatively quiet country.
"Sweden! Who would believe this? Sweden!"
"No one."
That wasn't the only time Carlson promoted conspiracy theories on his show. Throughout
the course of "Tucker Carlson Tonight," the anchor pushed a number of falsehoods into the public eye.
He told his viewers that immigration, quote, "makes our own country poorer, and dirtier, and
more divided." He once said that the concept of white supremacy was a "hoax" and that hate speech
is, quote, "a made-up category designed to gut the First Amendment and shut you up." Carlson went
as far as to promote historically racist ways of thinking such as the "great replacement" theory,
a false narrative that argues that people of color will replace white people as citizens and voters.
It was a dark day in United States history when Donald Trump addressed his supporters
at a Washington, D.C. mall, telling them to take their country back after peddling
conspiracy theories about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. What followed was a
terrifying attack on the Capitol Building in order to stop the certification of Joe
Biden's 2020 victory. Trump was eventually impeached — for the second time — due to
what transpired on January 6th, 2021, but Tucker Carlson continued to defend Trump.
Presenting viewers with images from the day, Carlson's three-part series called "Patriot
Purge" asserted that it was Trump's enemies — not supporters — who stormed the Capitol,
placing the blame on left-leaning groups and, shockingly, the FBI. Commenting on
Carlson's series and defense of Trump, extremism expert Jared Holt told NPR:
"These kinds of conspiracy theories about Jan. 6 used to be relegated to weird blogs and known
conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones. In a way, you don't need conspiracy theorists like Alex
Jones to even exist if Tucker Carlson is going to do the job of conspiracy theorists for them."
The conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and its legitimacy continue to
circulate to this day, thanks in part to Tucker Carlson. He has maintained that the election
in which Joe Biden beat Donald Trump was not legitimate. In a profile with Time magazine,
Carlson responded to a question about the election's results, saying,
"[Biden] did win the election. Do I think the election was fair? Obviously it wasn't."
He then went on to list his own reasons why the former vice president won the election.
According to him, the media was against Trump and for Biden the entire time, conservative
news platforms were silenced by social media, and voter-ID laws let fraud slip through the cracks.
When Time reminded Carlson that the Department of Homeland Security and Trump's own attorney general
found zero evidence of election fraud, Carlson quipped that his example may be a bit shallow.
"No one's ever proved that. I don't know if it's provable. This weird insistence on
pretending the election was fair when everyone knows that it wasn't, even people who are happy
about the outcome, is part of a much larger ritual that makes me very uncomfortable."
Given how synonymous Tucker Carlson and Fox News became over the years,
it was a shock when the network announced they were parting ways with the talk show
host. Announcing the news on April 24th, 2023, Fox News said in a statement:
"We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor."
The network offered no reasoning behind the decision in their statement,
adding more fuel to the speculation fire.
A person close to the situation told CNN that the decision was made by
chief executives Lachlan Murdoch and Suzanne Scott, noting that
Carlson was told about his departure on the same day the public found out.
Within Fox News, a source told CNN that some colleagues praised the decision, while others
were genuinely surprised at the shake-up. An anonymous employee said of Carlson's departure.
"[There's] a lot of relief generally,
surprise they had the nerve to do it, and hope for a culture change."
With such a high-profile firing comes risk, especially given Tucker Carlson's long-standing
connection to Donald Trump and his influence over conservative politics. In the fallout of
Fox News parting ways with the popular host, eight separate sources confirmed to Rolling
Stone that the network's executives have an "oppo file" on Carlson as a kind of insurance.
When Carlson and Fox called it quits, the network put out a blanket statement thanking
him for his work, but one of the insiders told Rolling Stone that the departure occurred on,
quote, "the worst [and] messiest possible terms." With such risk,
executives are said to have collected damaging information regarding Carlson in preparation for
a worst-case scenario fallout. Two sources confirmed that Fox is ready to dispel the
information in the file if Carlson takes aim at the network in the aftermath of his departure.
Within the file are said to be complaints lodged by employees detailing the hostile
workplace environment created by Carlson, the former host's comments regarding higher-ups,
and allegations regarding his own conduct in the workplace.
On top of his other troubles, Tucker Carlson is facing a lawsuit lodged against him by a
former senior booking producer of "Tucker Carlson Tonight," Abby Grossberg. She filed
two different suits against the former host, alleging that Carlson not only
created a hostile work environment at Fox but maintained a culture of sexism and harassment.
Providing detail in the suit, Grossberg alleged that Carlson kept a photo of former House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi in the newsroom, quote, "in a bathing suit revealing her cleavage."
Grossberg also alleged that the newsroom staff were polled about which Michigan
gubernatorial candidate they would want to have intercourse with — twice. In the
wake of Carlson's departure from Fox, one of Grossberg's attorneys commented on the matter,
highlighting the supposed toxic work environment that was created
by the host. Attorney Tanvir Rahman said in a statement on the afternoon of April 24th, 2023:
"Tucker Carlson's departure from Fox News is, in part,
an admission of the systemic lying, bullying, and conspiracy-mongering claimed by our client."
Carlson has yet to explicitly comment on his departure from the network as of publication,
instead giving a quick quip to the Daily Mail which read in part:
"Retirement is going great so far."
But that hasn't stopped allies from expressing their support of the controversial media figure,
with former Fox host Glenn Beck saying on his own radio show,
TheBlaze, that Carlson has a job with him if he's interested.
"We would love to have you here. You won't miss a beat. And together,
the two of us will tear it up. Just tear it up."
Carlson also recently released a video on his Twitter account which
features some sentiments that his critics might find ironic.
"The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid
most of the debates you see on television are. They're completely irrelevant."