Tucker Carlson 2024? The GOP is buzzing – POLITICO

Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review and author of The Case for Nationalism, said in an interview, No one can dismiss this and say its completely implausible.

There is at the very least a significant faction within the Republican Party that [Carlson] has a huge stake in and arguably leadership over, Lowry, who writes a column for POLITICO, said. If he has political ambitions, he has an opening. He has a following and a taste for controversy. Hes smart, quick on his feet and personable. Political experience matters less than it once did.

Carlson has never run for office and has been dismissive of doing so in the past. In 2012, Nunberg said Republican operative Roger Stone unsuccessfully pushed Carlson to run on the Libertarian ticket. Stone told POLITICO in an email that [i]t is not inconceivable that I may have raised it in jest or in passing as repartee, but have no memory of that.

On his show, Carlson has made it abundantly clear that he thinks Trumps election in 2016 was not a freak accident. Instead, he views it as a righteous repudiation of a morally bankrupt Republican Party that had become obsessed with capital gains tax cuts and foreign wars. This week, he warned his viewers to watch out for vultures [who] wait just off stage to swoop in and claim the GOP for themselves once Donald Trump is gone, name-checking likely 2024 candidate Nikki Haley.

The moment Trump leaves, they will attack him, he said. Theyll tell you that Republicans lost power because they were mean and intolerant just like Donald Trump. ... Its a lie.

It is just one of many exhortations from the past month that have propelled Carlson to new popularity among the GOP base. As Republicans across the country and in Congress have expressed newfound openness to reforming the police and taking down Confederate monuments in the wake of protests, Carlson has denounced the Black Lives Matter movement and derided Republicans who have gone along with it.

This may be a lot of things, this moment we are living through. But it is definitely not about black lives, and remember that when they come for you, Mr. Carlson said in one 25-minute monologue on June 8 that has over 5.4 million views on YouTube. That lost him high-profile advertisers, including Disney, Papa Johns and T-Mobile, whose chief executive tweeted, Bye-bye."

A Fox News spokesperson said that Tuckers warning about when they come for you was clearly referring to Democratic leaders and politicians.

Carlson faced a similar advertiser exodus in 2018 after saying that immigrants make "our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided.

Carlson emerged from the backlash apparently unchastened.

The angry children you watched set fire to Wendy's and topple statues and scream at you on television day after day are truly and utterly stupid, he said on his show last week. And he has repeatedly pushed back on the idea that racism is systemic in the country. Overall, this is the least racist country in the history of the world, he said a few days earlier. Millions of Africans want to move here. Many already have. Our last president was black. What are you talking about?

His audience has rewarded him with blockbuster ratings.

What hes been saying speaks for a lot of people, and its basically not expressed or serviced by most Republican politicians, Lowry said. Theres a lot to be said for being fearless, and he is, while Republican politicians, as a breed, are not.

Carlson has also earned powerful enemies in the party for his regular missives aimed at lawmakers and power brokers attacks that he has kept up for the past month.

After Haley said the killing of George Floyd needs to be personal and painful for everyone in order for the country to heal, Carlson said, What Nikki Haley does best is moral blackmail. A Haley spokesperson declined to respond.

When Republican Sens. Ron Johnson and James Lankford this week proposed making Juneteenth a national holiday and doing away with Columbus Day in order to keep the number of national holidays the same, Tucker mocked the effort. "They describe themselves as conservatives, as improbable as that may seem," he said.

Carlson painted with a wider brush this week, saying Republican Party leaders so-called principles turned out to be bumper stickers they wrote 40 years ago. In a sentiment that drew praise from some conservatives and liberals alike, he added that, Instead of improving the lives of their voters, the party feeds them a steady diet of mindless, symbolic victories partisan junk food designed to make them feel full even as they waste away. Carlson apologized, to the extent this show has participated in it.

Carlson even tore into Trumps top aide and son-in-law Jared Kushner. No one has more contempt for Donald Trump's voters than Jared Kushner does, and no one expresses it more frequently, he said last month. He blamed Kushner for moderating the president on immigration, law enforcement and foreign policy.

The Kushner-bashing made some Trump-aligned Republicans wary of praising Carlson on the record. But several are bullish about a potential candidacy.

I think everybody views Pence the same: What a great guy. But I dont think anybody thinks hes the force of nature that it takes to win the presidency, said one former White House official. I think Day One, Tucker probably starts ahead of those people if he does run.

A Republican strategist close to the White House added: If you are a Republican politician and you want to know where Republican voters are, all you have to do is watch Tucker Carlson every night.

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Tucker Carlson 2024? The GOP is buzzing - POLITICO