Tucker tells all, in his first interview since being canned—kinda sorta, in a left-handed way—by the shitlibs at Unfair, Unbalanced, and Unwatched Faux News.
Carlson sat down with Russell Brand, on his “Stay Free” podcast, and discussed a number of germane issues at length, for almost two hours.
We reported on Friday about a segment of the Brand interview, in which Carlson talked about his interview with the Capitol Police chief with respect to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. But he also talked with Brand about his feelings on covering politics, why he was fired, and his feelings about both former President Donald Trump and 2024 Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A fascinating interview, to say the least. Brand kicked it off by asking Carlson how he’s handled being fired from Fox. Carlson said that while he was surprised, he wasn’t shocked.
This is not the first time I’ve been fired. And I think in our business, when you work for a big company in media, and you know, you say what you think, there’s an expectation that you could get fired. So I’ve always had that. And I’ve always tried to take the long view, not just on media, but on life.
All graves go unvisited in the end. I always think. I was surprised. I didn’t, you know, expect to get fired that morning at all in April. So I was shocked, but I wasn’t really shocked. And I wasn’t mad. It’s not my company. And when you work for someone else, that person reserves the right, in fact, has inherently the right, to decide whether you work there or not.
As for why the top-rated host in cable news was fired, Carlson told Brand he doesn’t really know, and said he wasn’t angry about it. He also wished Fox News well in the future.
Accounts and assumptions about Tucker Carlson’s relationship with — and thoughts about — Trump have varied through the years. Carlson explained his feelings to Brand, and also said he’s “not a very astute political analyst,” surprisingly adding that he’s never been interested in politics, period.
Where am I on Trump? Now? I love Trump personally. I mean, I made a huge mistake last November in getting involved in American politics — something I’ve never done before. And making calls, you know, “This guy’s gonna win. I think this is going to happen in this state. Meet your new governor, New York.” And I was wrong on almost every call. I’m not a very astute political analyst. I’m not interested in politics. I never have been interested in politics. I’m interested in ideas.
So, what does interest the former Fox News star?
I’m interested in people; and so there’s a primary going out in the United States between Trump and a bunch of other people — primarily Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, but others, Vivek Ramaswamy, for example. And I haven’t said word one about it. Don’t plan to.
But when I think about Trump right now, so it’s July of 2023, I’m struck by his foreign policy views. You know, Trump is the only person with stature in the Republican Party, really, who’s saying, “Wait a second, you know, why are we supporting an endless war in Ukraine?” And that, you know, leaving aside whether Trump’s gonna get the nomination or get elected president or would be a good president, and I can’t even assess that. All I can say at this point is: I’m so grateful that he had that position.
I’m in agreement with most of the above.
As am I, with not just most but all of it, actually. Not being a cable-TV subscriber myself for many years now—it’s been digital rabbit-ears and Roku exclusively for me up until about two-three years ago, when I just stopped bothering to even turn my TeeWee on at all; not because I made a conscious decision to, I just lost interest—probably due to the many long hours* I spend nowadays staring at Ye Trustye Auld iMac’s 27-inch screen reading, researching, and hunt ’n’ pecking away for Ye Auld CF Blogge—pretty much anything I knew about Tucker I got second-hand from my brother, who’s always been a big fan.
That said, I think it’s pretty clear that, with his new Twitter venture, Tucker has taken the gloves off at last and unleashed his inner RightWingNaziDeathBeast persona, which is all to the good as far as I’m concerned. Carlson’s ongoing evolutionary progression from more or less-milquetoast mainstream moderation to bare-knuckled Truth-speaker sensation has been interesting as well as entertaining; it’s a compelling story, and I very much look forward to watching as further developments (!!!) transpire. Although YMMV, of course, it’s kind of a Big Deal, I think, one that’s just liable to have much greater impact going forward than we can easily discern from where we’re standing right now.
*Superfluous addendum: Strangely enough, that would be many more hours than I ever spent on blogging back in the days of yore, owing to my unlooked-for and unwelcome status as an involuntary retiree from gainful employment thanks to having had one (1) leg and a significant hunk of the surviving foot sawn off not so long ago; what seems stranger still about the additional hours is that these days, I find myself writing fewer of the longer-form essays I was known for back then, and more of what I call the Pure Bloggery-type stuff—not a conscious decision either, it just…sorta…happened, like. I’m also doing much more research and fact-checking than I used to, seems like, for whatever strange reason. With the ever-increasing decrepitude of both mind and eyesight concomitant with advancing age, I have to do a lot more correcting of typos and grammatical faux pas too. A terrible thing, getting old is
3
- Entries
Tucker seems to be having his epiphany about the same age as I had one during the W Bush years.
One of the biggest one was hoiw many RINOs there really were. I had assumed that a Minority of RINOs were holding a Majority of Republicans hostage by “mavericking” and bolting on crucial, close votes.
That began to change when I saw them do very little when W had the House and Senate on his side and they did basically…nothing but Tax Cuts. Soon enough the whole Domestic Agenda was put on hold as the NeverEnding Wars were started. Fooled by Jingoism and False Promises that we were fighting an Axis of Evil, which soon morphed into a War on a Tactic, that was then sold as a Decades Long Project to bring “Democracy” to Tribal Backwards Society (btw we’re a Republic and did you notice how they always set up Euro style Parliamentary Systems instead of Checks and Balances Republics when they “take over”?), I finally saw the Con for what it was. They had no intention of enacting their Domestic Agenda and no desire to have a peaceful Post-Cold War World. War was what they WANTED.
I had long since given up on most media as hopelessly in the tank for Marxism, so I couldn’t sour on THAT in the 2000s. Tucker was like a fish in the tank that didn’t realize he was wet from the water.
I think the W years cracked open a lot of eggs. I actually thought Bush was OK, until he let the Iraq and Afghanistan shit drag out beyond the date when we were done.
Good point on “they always set up Euro style Parliamentary Systems“. They are, at their very core, anti-American.