Carlson was born Tucker McNear Carlson (later, Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson) in San Francisco, California. He is the elder son of Richard Warner Carlson, a former "gonzo reporter"[3] who became the director of the Voice of America, the president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. Ambassador to the Seychelles.[4] Carlson's paternal grandparents were Richard Boynton and Dorothy Anderson, teenagers who placed his father in an orphanage where he was adopted when he was two years old by the Carlsons –– a wool broker and his wife.[5][3][6]
Carlson's mother was artist Lisa McNear (née Lombardi). He also has a brother, Buckley Peck Carlson (later, Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson), who is nearly two years younger and was born two months premature.[7]
In 1976, Carlson's parents divorced after the nine-year marriage reportedly "turned sour."[7][8] Carlson's father was granted custody of him and his brother. Carlson would later claim that his mother left the family when he was six, wanting to pursue a "bohemian" lifestyle.[9][4] She eventually split her time between Beaufort County, South Carolina and Cazac, France, where she had little contact with Carlson's family and later married artist Michael Vaughn.[10][11][12][13]
Dick Carlson was said to be an active father who had a specific outlook in raising his sons:
I want them to be self-disciplined to the degree that I think is necessary to find satisfaction ... you measure a person on how far they go, on how far they've sprung. My parents, the Carlsons, they instilled a modesty in me that, at times, gets in my way ... I know it's immodest of me to say it, but it's difficult sometimes when you want to beat your own drum and say what you really think.
In 1979, Carlson's father married divorcée Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to Swanson Enterprises. Swanson is the daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson and the niece of Senator J. William Fulbright.[4][14] This was the third marriage for Swanson who legally adopted Carlson and his brother.[12][14]
When Carlson was in first grade, his father moved him and his brother to La Jolla, California and raised them there.[15][16] In La Jolla, Carlson attended La Jolla Country Day School and grew up in a home overlooking the La Jolla Beach and the Tennis Club.[17] His father owned property in Nevada, Vermont, and islands in Maine and Nova Scotia.[17][3]
Carlson attained his secondary education at St. George's School, a boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island. He then went to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he graduated in 1991 with a BA in history.[4]
Carlson began his journalism career as a fact-checker for Policy Review,[4] a national conservative journal then published by The Heritage Foundation and since acquired by the Hoover Institution. He later worked as a reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, before joining The Weekly Standard newsmagazine in 1995.[4]
As a magazine and newspaper journalist, Carlson has reported from around the world. He has been a columnist for New York and Reader's Digest. He also wrote for Esquire, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, and The Daily Beast.[4]
.jpg)
In 2000, Carlson co-hosted the short-lived show The Spin Room.[4] In 2001, Carlson was appointed co-host of Crossfire. On the show, Carlson and Robert Novak represented the political right (alternating on different nights), while James Carville and Paul Begala, also alternating as hosts, represented the left.[4] During the same period, he also hosted a weekly public affairs program on PBS, Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered.
In October 2004, Carlson had an exchange with Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central.[18][4] Stewart argued that Carlson and the nature of Crossfire were harmful to political discourse in the United States.[4] Carlson later recalled that Stewart had stayed at CNN for hours after the show to discuss the issues he had raised on the air. "It was heartfelt," Carlson said, "He [Stewart] needed to do this."[19] In 2017, The New York Times referred to Stewart's "on-air dressing-down" of Carlson as an "ignominious career [moment]" for Carlson.[20] According to the Times, Stewart's criticism "led to the cancellation of [the show]".[20]
In January 2005, CNN announced they were ending their relationship with Carlson and would soon cancel Crossfire.[21][22] CNN chief Jonathan Klein told Carlson on January 4, 2005, that the network had decided not to renew his contract.[23] Carlson has said that he had already resigned from CNN and Crossfire long before Stewart was booked as a guest, telling host Patricia Duff: "I resigned from Crossfire in April [2004], many months before Jon Stewart came on our show, because I didn't like the partisanship, and I thought in some ways it was kind of a pointless conversation ... each side coming out, you know, 'Here's my argument', and no one listening to anyone else. [CNN] was a frustrating place to work."[24]
Carlson's early evening show, Tucker (originally titled The Situation With Tucker Carlson) premiered on June 13, 2005, on MSNBC. He also hosted a late afternoon weekday wrap-up for MSNBC during the 2006 Winter Olympics, during which he attempted to learn how to play various Olympic sports. In July 2006, he reported live for Tucker from Haifa, Israel, during the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. While in the Middle East, he also hosted MSNBC Special Report: Mideast Crisis. He appeared regularly on Verdict with Dan Abrams as a panelist in political discussions.
Tucker was cancelled by the network on March 10, 2008, due to low ratings,[25] and the final episode aired on March 14, 2008. Brian Stelter of The New York Times wrote that "during Mr. Carlson's tenure, MSNBC's evening programming moved gradually to the left. His former time slots, 6 and 9 p.m., were then occupied by two liberals, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow." Carlson said the network had changed a lot and "they didn't have a role for me."[26]
In May 2009, Fox News announced that Carlson was being hired as a Fox News contributor. He was a frequent guest panelist on Fox's late-night satire show Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld, made frequent appearances on the All-Star Panel segment of Special Report with Bret Baier, was a substitute host of Hannity in Sean Hannity's absence, and produced a Fox News special entitled Fighting for Our Children's Minds.
In March 2013, it was announced that Carlson would co-host the weekend editions of Fox & Friends; he had been a contributor and frequent guest host on the program.[27] He replaced Dave Briggs, who left the news channel to join the NBC Sports Network in January 2013. Beginning in April, Carlson officially joined co-hosts Alisyn Camerota and Clayton Morris on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
On November 14, 2016, Carlson started hosting Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News. Tucker Carlson Tonight was created to replace the show On the Record.[28] The show debuted as "the network's most watched telecast of the year in the time slot".[29] The program's premiere episode, viewed by 3.7 million,[29] was rated higher than previous editions of On the Record.
Tucker Carlson Tonight aired at 7 p.m. ET each weeknight until January 9, 2017, when Carlson's show replaced Megyn Kelly at the 9 p.m. ET time slot after she left Fox News. In January 2017, Forbes reported that the show had "scored consistently high ratings, averaging 2.8 million viewers per night and ranking as the number two cable news program behind The O'Reilly Factor in December [2016].[30] In March 2017, Tucker Carlson Tonight was the most watched cable program in the 9 p.m. time slot.[citation needed]
On April 19, 2017, it was announced that Tucker Carlson Tonight would air at 8 p.m. following the cancellation of The O'Reilly Factor.[31] Tucker Carlson Tonight was the third-highest-rated cable news show as of March 2018.[32]
In October 2018, Tucker Carlson Tonight was the second-highest rated cable news show in prime time, after The Sean Hannity Show with Sean Hannity, with 3.2 million nightly viewers.[33] By the end of 2018, the show had begun to be boycotted by at least 20 advertisers after Carlson said U.S. immigration makes the country "poorer, dirtier and more divided". According to Fox News, the advertisers only moved their ad buys to other programs.[34]
By January 2019, his show dropped to third with 2.8 million nightly viewers, down six percent from the previous year.[35] The show had lost at least 26 advertisers.[36][37] There were calls to fire Carlson from Fox News, but his ratings had risen 8% despite the boycotts.[38] By August 2019, Media Matters calculated that some companies had fulfilled their media buy contracts and advertising inventory for the time slot and had now begun their purchases for other time slots on Fox News.[39][40]
As of the close of 2019, Fox News had it highest ratings in the company's 23 year history, it's ratings up 2% from 2018 while other competing networks were down 2% (CNN and MSNBC). According to Nielsen Ratings, Carlson's ratings among all viewers 25-54 placed him second overall only to another Fox News Show, The Sean Hannity Show with Sean Hannity. Rachael Maddow of The Rachael Maddow Show on MSNBC placed third, and another Fox News journalist , Laura Ingraham of The Laura Ingraham Show placed fourth. Ratings for all three of the networks were down compared to 2018, with Fox News showing the least of the decline at 16%, MSNBC down 20% and CNN down 21% overall.[41]
On January 11, 2010, Carlson and former vice president Dick Cheney aide Neil Patel launched a political news website titled The Daily Caller. Carlson served as editor-in-chief, and occasionally wrote opinion pieces with Patel.[42] The website was funded by the conservative activist Foster Freiss.[4] By February The Daily Caller was part of the White House rotating press pool.[43]
In an interview with Politico, Carlson said The Daily Caller would not be tied to ideology but rather will be "breaking stories of importance". In a Washington Post article, Carlson added, "We're not enforcing any kind of ideological orthodoxy on anyone." Columnist Mickey Kaus quit after Carlson refused to run a column critical of Fox News's coverage of the immigration policy debate due to his contractual obligations to Fox News.[44][45][4]
Carlson was a contestant on season 3 of the reality show Dancing with the Stars, which aired in 2006; he was paired with professional dancer Elena Grinenko. Carlson took four-hour-a-day ballroom dance classes in preparation for the competition. In an interview a month before the show began, he lamented that he would miss classes during a two-week-long MSNBC assignment in Lebanon, noting that "It's hard for me to remember the moves."[46] Carlson said he accepted ABC's invitation to perform because "I don't do things that I'm not good at very often. I'm psyched to get to do that."[46] Carlson was the first contestant eliminated, on September 13, 2006.[4]
In 2003, Carlson authored the memoir Politicians, Partisans and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News, about his television news experiences; the publisher was Warner Books.[47] One of the book's revelations was Carlson's description of being falsely accused of rape by a woman he did not know who suffered from severe mental illness and displayed stalker-like behavior. Carlson wrote in the book that the incident was emotionally traumatic.[48]
In February 2012, The Daily Caller published an "investigative series" of articles co-authored by Carlson, purporting to be an insiders' exposé of Media Matters for America (MMfA), a liberal watchdog group that monitors and scrutinizes conservative media outlets, and its founder David Brock.[49] Citing "current and former" MMfA employees, "friends" of Brock's and a "prominent liberal" — none of whom are named — the article characterized MMfA as having "an atmosphere of tension and paranoia" and portraying Brock as "erratic, unstable and disturbing," who "struggles with mental illness," in fear of "right-wing assassins," a regular cocaine user and would "close [local bars] and party till six in the morning." Reuters media critic and libertarian Jack Shafer, while noting "I've never thought much of Media Matters' style of watchdogging or Brock's journalism," nevertheless sharply criticized The Daily Caller piece as "anonymously sourced crap," adding "Daily Caller is attacking Media Matters with bad journalism and lame propaganda."[50]
In May 2017, Carlson, represented by the literary and creative agency Javelin, signed an eight-figure, two-book deal with Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions.[51] His first book in the series, Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution, was released in October 2018.[52] It debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list.[53]
Carlson is generally described as a conservative[54][55] or paleoconservative,[56][57] although not all paleoconservatives agree that Carlson is a paleoconservative.[58] Writing for New York's Intelligencer, Park MacDougald called Carlson a "Middle American radical", which he described as someone who holds populist economic beliefs, hostililty to corporatocracy, fervent positions on nationalism, race and immigration, and a preference for strongmen in political authority. MacDouglad identified this form of radicalism as the ideological core of "Trumpism."[59]
Carlson has espoused a libertarian view of economics. He supported Ron Paul's 1988 presidential candidacy, when Paul ran the candidate for the Libertarian Party, along with Paul's 2008 presidential candidacy, when Paul ran as a Republican.[60][61]
In 2009, Carlson became a senior fellow at libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute.[62] As of 2017, he is no longer affiliated with the organization.
In 2018, Carlson began to promote a more populist view of economics,[63] attacking libertarianism and saying "market capitalism is not a religion."[64] In an interview, he warned that economic and technological change that occurs too quickly can cause widespread social and political upheaval, and stated his belief that a model to follow is that of President Theodore Roosevelt, whose interventionist role in the economy in the early 1900s may have, in Carlson's view, prevented a communist revolution in the United States.[65]
In 2019, in his monologue on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson said America's "ruling class" are, in effect, the "mercenaries" behind the decline of the American middle class:
"[A]ny economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society".[66]
He also criticized what he called the "private equity model" of capitalism, using the example of Bain Capital to describe a pattern of corporate behavior in such organizations:
"Take over an existing company for a short period of time, cut costs by firing employees, run up the debt, extract the wealth and move on, sometimes leaving retirees without their earned pensions ... Meanwhile, a remarkable number of the companies are now bankrupt or extinct."[67]
He attacked payday lenders for "loan[ing] people money they can't possibly repay ... [and] charg[ing] them interest that impoverishes them."[67]
Carlson has also praised Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's economic plan, and her book, The Two Income Trap, as "one of the best books I've ever read on Economics."[68][69]
Carlson has argued that the extent to which humans contribute to climate change is "an open question",[70] "not settled"[71][72] and "unknowable."[73]
On his show, Carlson frequently hosts guests who downplay the scientific consensus on climate change.[74]
.jpg)
Carlson did not vote in the 2004 election, citing his disgust with the Iraq War, his disillusionment with the once small-government Republican Party and his disappointment with President George W. Bush along with likeminded conservatives:[75]
"I don't know what you consider conservative, but I'm not much of a 'liberal,' at least as the word is currently defined. For instance, I'm utterly opposed to abortion, which I think is horrible and cruel. I think affirmative action is wrong. I'd like to slow immigration pretty dramatically. I hate all nanny-state regulations, such as seat belt laws and smoking bans. I'm not for big government. I think the U.S. ought to hesitate before intervening abroad. I think these are conservative impulses. So by my criteria, Bush isn't much of a conservative.[75]
Carlson criticized 2008 presidential candidate John McCain for being insufficiently ideological. Speaking to Salon, Carlson stated:
"I liked McCain. And I would have voted for McCain for president happily, not because I agree with his politics; I never took McCain's politics seriously enough even to have strong feelings about them. I don't think McCain has very strong politics. He's interested in ideas almost as little as George W. Bush is. McCain isn't intellectual and doesn't have a strong ideology at all. He's wound up sort of as a liberal Republican because he's mad at other Republicans, not because he's a liberal."[76]
In January 2019, Carlson used an op-ed by Mitt Romney, in The Washington Post, to criticize what he described as the "mainstream Republican" worldview, consisting of "unwavering support for a finance-based economy and an internationalist foreign policy," which he argued was also supported by the bulk of Democrats.[67] He cited parallels, in regard to economic and social problems which had befallen inner cities and rural areas, despite cultural and demographic differences between their respective populations, as evidence that the "culture of poverty", which had been cited by conservatives as the cause of urban decline, "wasn't the whole story":
"[Both parties] miss the obvious point: Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined. Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies possible."[67]
Carlson is a registered member of the Democratic Party in Washington D.C.[77] In 2017, Carlson said he registered for the Democratic Party to gain the right to vote in mayoral elections in the district and that he "always votes for the more corrupt candidate over the idealist."[78]
In May 2019, after Robert Mueller gave a statement saying the Special Counsel investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 election did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice, Carlson said Mueller was "sleazy and dishonest."[79]
.jpg)
Carlson is skeptical of foreign intervention, and has stated that he thinks "the U.S. ought to hesitate before intervening abroad."[80][81]
Carlson initially supported the Iraq War. However, a year after the invasion of Iraq, he began criticizing the war, telling The New York Observer:
"I think it's a total nightmare and disaster, and I'm ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it.[...] It's something I'll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who's smarter than I am, and I shouldn't have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I'm enraged by it, actually."[82]
In June 2019, Carlson remained critical of the war, stating:
"We killed hundreds of thousands of people, lost thousands of our own troops, spent more than $1 trillion — all to eliminate a WMD threat that, despite John Bolton's assurances, never existed in the first place."[83]
In July 2017, Carlson said that "[w]e actually don't face any domestic threat from Iran." He asked Max Boot to "tell me how many Americans in the United States have been murdered by terrorists backed by Iran since 9/11?"[84] According to The New York Times, Carlson played an influential role in dissuading Trump from launching military strikes against Iran in response to the shooting down of an American drone in June 2019. Carlson reportedly told Trump that if he listened to his hawkish advisors and went ahead with the strikes, he would not win
No Stickers to Show