Speaker 1: It was a relationship that saw both Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: Tucker Caulson rise to power.
Speaker 2: You and I and everyone else who supported him. He
Speaker 2: wrote speeches forum, I campaigned for him. I mean, were
Speaker 2: implicated and this for sure in very small ways, but
Speaker 2: in real ways, you and me and millions of people
Speaker 2: like us are the reason this is happening right.
Speaker 1: Now now that Tucker Trump romance is officially over.
Speaker 2: So I do think it's like a moment to wrestle
Speaker 2: with our own consciences. You know, we'll be tormented by
Speaker 2: it for a long time. I will be.
Speaker 1: Conservative media powerhouse. Tucker Culson has offered this apology to
Speaker 1: voters for backing the president as their relationship turned sour.
Speaker 2: And I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people.
Speaker 2: It was not intentional, That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM today.
Speaker 1: Jason Zangly, staff writer for The New Yorker, on the
Speaker 1: end of Tucker and Trump and what it means for
Speaker 1: the MAGA movement. It's Thursday, April thirty. Jason. To start off,
Speaker 1: you met Tucker Carlson decades ago when you were an intern.
Speaker 1: He was a reporter. What was he like and why
Speaker 1: has he gone on to become just such a big
Speaker 1: deal in America since then?
Speaker 3: Well, he's someone has been around for a long time.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was a very successful magazine writer as
Speaker 3: a young person, and then he moved into television and
Speaker 3: he was very successful on television.
Speaker 2: Good Evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson tonight. Imagine being
Speaker 2: a historian one hundred years agow trying to figure out
Speaker 2: what happened.
Speaker 3: He had some pretty big career setbacks where he got
Speaker 3: canceled from his cable news shows, and you had some
Speaker 3: other sort of mishaps. But he's someone who just kind
Speaker 3: of hung around, and so I think he's a familiar
Speaker 3: figure to people here. And he's also he's reinvented himself
Speaker 3: several times, and he's really he's very good at sort
Speaker 3: of managing to either find himself in or insert himself
Speaker 3: into the center of the action.
Speaker 1: So, Jason, can we take a look at the history
Speaker 1: of the relationship now between Trump and Tucker Carlson. When
Speaker 1: did Tucker first come across Trump and what did he
Speaker 1: think of him in the early days.
Speaker 3: So Trump has been around obviously longer than Tucker and also,
Speaker 3: you know, similarly, like has had lots of ups and downs,
Speaker 3: but always kind of finds himself, you know, at the
Speaker 3: center of the action. When Tucker was on cable news,
Speaker 3: Tucker made this joke about Trump having bad hair, and
Speaker 3: Trump left Tucker. Trump and Tucker never talked before, but
Speaker 3: Trump called Tucker and left him a message on his
Speaker 3: answering machine. Tucker didn't answer, and the message was, you know,
Speaker 3: you might have better hair than me, but I get
Speaker 3: more pussy than you do.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And I guess that in a weird way. One Tucker
Speaker 3: over he found that to be kind of charming in
Speaker 3: its own way. And you know, they circled around each
Speaker 3: other for a number of years and just you know,
Speaker 3: they kind of vaguely knew each other, but it wasn't
Speaker 3: really until Trump ran for president. People don't remember this
Speaker 3: even in the United States, but I'm sure in Australia
Speaker 3: they forget it as well. Back when Trump was first
Speaker 3: running for president, most conservative pundits were very dismissive of him,
Speaker 3: and they didn't take him seriously. And Tucker was one
Speaker 3: of the few conservative pundits who saw the potential that
Speaker 3: Trump had to be a successful politician. There he is.
Speaker 2: Can you feel the magic? It's the hottest ticket in
Speaker 2: South Alabama tonight. Donald Trump expected to draw the biggest
Speaker 2: crowd of any candidate yet this election season, happening this evening.
Speaker 3: I don't think Tucker particularly liked Trump personally, but he
Speaker 3: understood that his issues, especially on you know, being opposed
Speaker 3: to immigration, kind of running on white grievance, running as
Speaker 3: a sexist. Tucker saw that there was there was an
Speaker 3: audience for that among conservative voters, and he was willing
Speaker 3: to at least entertain the possibility that Trump could be successful.
Speaker 3: And at Fox, Fox had a really basic problem. They
Speaker 3: wanted to do segments about Trump, but most of the
Speaker 3: pundits at Fox were dismissive of Trump. So they needed
Speaker 3: to find people who would at least, you know, if
Speaker 3: not actually support Trump, at least entertain the possibility that
Speaker 3: he might go somewhere just to make a debate segment work.
Speaker 2: Here's a guy who says exactly he thinks he doesn't care,
Speaker 2: and there's something thrilling about that.
Speaker 3: No, you mean like anchor baby, Yeah, that's exactly.
Speaker 2: What I mean.
Speaker 3: And Tucker was someone who was willing to do that,
Speaker 3: and he ended up getting more and more airtime because
Speaker 3: he was willing to do that, and that's how his
Speaker 3: own star kind of eventually rose at Fox.
Speaker 2: So, Jonah, I know you're not generally a big Trump defender,
Speaker 2: but will you at least concede it is nice to
Speaker 2: hear from the last unafraid man in America who can
Speaker 2: say exactly what he really thinks, and, unlike the rest
Speaker 2: of us, is encowering under the threat of losing his
Speaker 2: job because he's telling the truth.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean, I would pray we can get
Speaker 4: into a debate about how much of what he said
Speaker 4: is actually the truth in terms of the statistics and all.
Speaker 1: And then twenty twenty three comes along. Tucker Carlson is
Speaker 1: right behind Trump. They even spoke at a campaign event
Speaker 1: for him a few days before election night. Why did
Speaker 1: he get on Team Trump? And how strong was the relationship?
Speaker 3: So during Trump's first presidency, when Tucker was a star
Speaker 3: at Fox, he maintained some distance from Trump. He was
Speaker 3: supportive of his policies, not of the person. After he
Speaker 3: was fired from Fox, I think he recognized Tucker, that is,
Speaker 3: recognized that in order to maintain his own kind of
Speaker 3: relevance and managed to stay in American's field of vision
Speaker 3: and keep their attention without having that Fox platform. He
Speaker 3: needed to do something, and I think one thing that
Speaker 3: he realized he could do was he could he could
Speaker 3: attach himself to Trump at the hip, and you're right,
Speaker 3: he became, for all intents and purposes, a part of
Speaker 3: Trump's campaign. He launched his own independent media channel.
Speaker 2: We've decided that we need something new, something relentlessly honest,
Speaker 2: that the corporate gatekeepers can't touch. So we built a
Speaker 2: company called Tucker Carlson Network. We'll be rolling it out
Speaker 2: starting now.
Speaker 3: But at the same time he did that, he would
Speaker 3: go out on the campaign trail of Trump. He spoke
Speaker 3: at the Republican Convention for Trump. He spoke at his rallies.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's gonna win. He's gonna win. I know that
Speaker 2: that's true. Why is Donald Trump gonna win? The people?
Speaker 3: He's an extremely talented and smart political operator, and he
Speaker 3: was someone that I think Trump valued as having on
Speaker 3: his side and someone whose advice Trump ended up valuing.
Speaker 3: I mean, Tucker was very influential in the selection of JD.
Speaker 3: Vance as his running maid. He was very influential in
Speaker 3: terms of some of the cabinet choices that Trump made,
Speaker 3: and I think Trump just came to trust him.
Speaker 1: What type of propaganda did Tucker Carlson spread Trump Gander
Speaker 1: and what sort of false information and how influential did
Speaker 1: that end up being.
Speaker 3: Well, Tucker definitely was a promulgator of the conspiracy theories
Speaker 3: about the twenty twenty election and that you know, Trump
Speaker 3: would actually want it once he started his own streaming service,
Speaker 3: he voiced those views.
Speaker 2: Was their voter fraud? Well, we know there was some
Speaker 2: just ask people, did you personally commit voter fraud? Well,
Speaker 2: that has just been done and the answer is a
Speaker 2: huge percentage of people asked in the poll admitted yes,
Speaker 2: I committed voter fraud. It's remarkable.
Speaker 3: He was a huge spreader of the conspiracy theory about
Speaker 3: the January sixth attacks that Tucker maintained that they were
Speaker 3: a false flag operation by the federal government and the
Speaker 3: Deep State to try to discredit Trump.
Speaker 2: Take it as a whole. The video record does not
Speaker 2: support the claim that January sixth was an insurrection. In fact,
Speaker 2: it demolishes that claim. And that's exactly why the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party and its allies in the METI prevented you from
Speaker 2: seeing it.
Speaker 3: I mean, there are some conspiracy theories that I would
Speaker 3: say he brought to Trump. I mean this idea of
Speaker 3: the great replacement theory, which is this idea that liberal forces,
Speaker 3: oftentimes you know, Jewish forces, are bringing immigrants, third oral
Speaker 3: immigrants into the United States to disempower white voters and
Speaker 3: support the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: New York has lost about four million white people even
Speaker 2: as it gained a million people in population.
Speaker 5: What is that?
Speaker 3: That that was a conspiracy theory that Tucker kind of
Speaker 3: mainstream that he brought into the conservative mainstream, and then
Speaker 3: that Trump ultimately echoed. So it was actually it sort
Speaker 3: of was a two way street.
Speaker 6: People that don't speak our language, they're signing them up
Speaker 6: to vote. And I believe that's why you're having millions
Speaker 6: of people pour into our country and it could very
Speaker 6: well affect the next election, and I believe that's why
Speaker 6: they're doing it.
Speaker 3: You know, Tucker would echo some of Trump's conspiracy theories,
Speaker 3: and Trump would echo some of Tucker's.
Speaker 1: Coming up, Trump and Tucker, how did it all fall apart?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 1: Jason? The big question though, is how did this relationship
Speaker 1: start to break down and what was the final stroll?
Speaker 3: Well, Foreign policy is I think probably the biggest issue
Speaker 3: on which they disagreed. I mean, there were there were
Speaker 3: some fissures before that, the Epstein files. I think Tucker
Speaker 3: was someone who wanted Trump to be more the Trump
Speaker 3: administration to be more forthcoming about those and he was
Speaker 3: critical of Trump. But it really wasn't until the United
Speaker 3: States attacked Iran last summer that those disagreements really started
Speaker 3: to come to the fore. You know, Tucker is a
Speaker 3: real isolationist. He's a real opponent of foreign interventions by
Speaker 3: the US military. That was something that Trump campaigned on
Speaker 3: as well, and I think Tucker really believed that Trump
Speaker 3: believed that too. And when Trump attacked Iran the first time,
Speaker 3: you know, Tucker tried to sort of head him off
Speaker 3: on that. You know, he opposed the potential of a strike.
Speaker 3: You know, both publicly and privately.
Speaker 2: Committing young American men to go die in Iran is
Speaker 2: not in their interest at all, and it would cause
Speaker 2: not simply heartbreak in the families of those killed, but
Speaker 2: it would cause potentially real turmoil here domestically.
Speaker 3: And then when Trump bultimately did it, Tucker criticized it,
Speaker 3: but not quite as forcefully as he might have but
Speaker 3: this second time around, with the second military action against Iran,
Speaker 3: he again tried to head it off both publicly and privately.
Speaker 3: But now he's very critical of it, and and it
Speaker 3: is it basically colors everything.
Speaker 2: At some point, very soon, the United States has to
Speaker 2: say to the government of Israel, you were not in charge.
Speaker 3: You know, Tucker has become a real conspiracy theorist about Israel.
Speaker 3: He insinuates that Trump is acting at that the hest
Speaker 3: of Israel because Trump is either being physically threatened by Israel.
Speaker 3: Tucker's kind of insinuated that they are behind some of
Speaker 3: these assassination attempts. He's either being blackmailed by Israel or
Speaker 3: he's been bought off by Israel in the form of
Speaker 3: campaign donations from Americans who are supporters of Israel.
Speaker 2: There are a bunch of people in the US government
Speaker 2: who do not put the United States before theaters of Israel, period.
Speaker 2: And you saw that very clearly with Mike Huckabee. We
Speaker 2: interviewed him last week in Tel Aviv, and there was
Speaker 2: no sense at all that he represents the United States
Speaker 2: or is any interest in what happens to the United
Speaker 2: States at all. His party is in defending Israel.
Speaker 3: The military action in Iran and then the Trump administration's
Speaker 3: approach to Israel are the two things that have completely
Speaker 3: destroyed their relationship.
Speaker 1: So we've now had this tremendous breakup. Really, is it
Speaker 1: a major loss for Trump no longer having Tucker on board?
Speaker 1: And could you also explain for us how Tucker Kulson,
Speaker 1: how did his earliest support for trumpet He's views some
Speaker 1: sort of framework.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this is that big of a
Speaker 3: loss for Trump. We've seen Trump survive these things multiple times.
Speaker 3: At the same time, I do think Tucker he has
Speaker 3: probably the largest following of anyone, largest following among kind
Speaker 3: of MAGA voters and conservative voters of anyone who has,
Speaker 3: you know, broken up with Trump who's now critical of Trump.
Speaker 3: So be it'll be worth watching Along those lines, Tucker
Speaker 3: did provide a much more sort of coherent version of
Speaker 3: Trump's ideology than Trump ever did himself, and I think
Speaker 3: that was important. I think, especially among kind of conservative intellectuals,
Speaker 3: they preferred Tucker to Trump because Tucker made sense. You know,
Speaker 3: Trump is sort of forcefully anti intellectual. He's contradicting himself
Speaker 3: all the time. Tucker, at least when it comes to
Speaker 3: some of these issues like immigration and trade and foreign policy.
Speaker 3: He's he's very consistent these days, and I think for
Speaker 3: a certain kind the conservative Tucker was appealing in a
Speaker 3: way that Trump wasn't.
Speaker 2: The big question that.
Speaker 3: I think all of this is raising is just what
Speaker 3: exactly is MAGA. I think Tucker thinks that MAGA is
Speaker 3: an ideological movement that has core ideological principles, and that
Speaker 3: when people in the United States vote for Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: they're voting for those ideological principles. This idea that we're
Speaker 3: not going to get involved in foreign wars, they're going
Speaker 3: to strict immigration, that we're not going to enter free
Speaker 3: trade policies. Tucker thinks that that's what these MAGA voters
Speaker 3: are supporting. I think the flip side of that theory,
Speaker 3: and I think this is actually Donald Trump's theory, is
Speaker 3: that MAGA is a cult of personality. People are supporting
Speaker 3: Donald Trump because they love Donald Trump, and whatever Donald
Speaker 3: Trump says, they're going to believe and they're going to support.
Speaker 3: So Donald Trump can say, look, we're going to go
Speaker 3: to war and Iran now, and they're going to say,
Speaker 3: all right, well, that's the MAGA position, and Tucker is
Speaker 3: going to force this question, I think, to the foe,
Speaker 3: We're going to really see what MAGA is. I mean,
Speaker 3: I suspect it's that Trump is right and it's a
Speaker 3: cult of personality, but Tucker leaves that it's an actual ideology,
Speaker 3: and he's setting himself up to be the person who
Speaker 3: can say Trump betrayed what we all believe, and I
Speaker 3: am here to you know, redeem you and to support
Speaker 3: these beliefs that we share and support me because I
Speaker 3: believe these things that you believe.
Speaker 1: So Jason, what do you think happens now? What is
Speaker 1: the long game that Tucker Carlson is playing. Do you
Speaker 1: think he actually wants to become Trump's successor? I do.
Speaker 3: I don't think he's someone who has, you know, thought
Speaker 3: about running for president his whole life and has this
Speaker 3: sort of burning ambition to do it. But it's really
Speaker 3: hard not to view his recent moves as anything but
Speaker 3: an attempt to position himself to run for president in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty eight to say that, you know, I am
Speaker 3: the true MAGA candidate. I mean, a lot of this,
Speaker 3: a lot of these questions are being raised because Donald
Speaker 3: Trump's going to leave the stage, and I think Tucker
Speaker 3: is he has a vision for what MAGA is and
Speaker 3: what he wants it to be post Tromp, and I think,
Speaker 3: you know, the the best way for him at this
Speaker 3: point to fight for that vision would probably be a
Speaker 3: presidential run.
Speaker 1: Jason, thank you for this fascinating deep dive on Tucker, Carlson,
Speaker 1: and Trump. It's been great having you on.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Hey, Orange Pigs America first hoops.
Speaker 4: Oh boy, that was the slogan you sold.
Speaker 1: This afternoon in a bonus episode of seven AM. You've
Speaker 1: probably seen the viral videos.
Speaker 4: It's clear.
Speaker 2: They voted you to dive for is they lied to you?
Speaker 1: Dig into how Iran is using rap music and lego
Speaker 1: to win the propaganda war against the US.
Speaker 5: I think this is purely for an American audience, at
Speaker 5: least the Lego videos, because they're very US centric. Of course,
Speaker 5: there's this nod to the Jeffrey Epstein files, and that's
Speaker 5: also a very popular theme that you see in these
Speaker 5: Lego videos, highlighting the hypocrisy of elites in America and
Speaker 5: the corruption and the lack of accountability in the US.
Speaker 5: While they're wagging their finger at Iran, Russia, China about
Speaker 5: human rights abuses.
Speaker 4: If the public ever saw the files, and the planet
Speaker 4: would shape from the level of filth in the clowns
Speaker 4: in your way. No one did you called you the worst,
Speaker 4: You degenerous name you claimed you never see.
Speaker 5: Then Sid