Whitewashing Tucker Carlson

A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Last month, when The New York Times published a news article reporting on Tucker Carlson’s recent statements defending Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, and assailing former Rep. Mike Rogers, the GOP contender in that race, the paper described the former Fox host as an “influential far-right podcaster…known for his nativist rhetoric [who] once said immigrants were making the United States ‘poorer and dirtier.’” (Carlson had slammed Rogers as a “toady to Israel” and the “embodiment of the cruelty and stupidity of the national security state.”)

A few days later, NPR named Carlson a “Newsmaker”—that is, one of the “most influential people of our time”—and posted an hourlong interview with him conducted by host Steve Inskeep. At the start, Inskeep introduced Carlson as a commentator who “has commanded an audience for decades as a cable TV pundit, as a Fox News star, and then, after his firing, as the head of an independent network frequently broadcasting from this barn in Maine.” During the interview, Carlson argued that President Donald Trump should be removed from office for launching the war in Iran (“the most profoundly destructive thing any—any single decision a president has made in our history”) and for threatening to annihilate that country with nuclear weapons. He railed against Israel and its influence on US policy, denied he was antisemitic, and slammed Trump for being corrupt. (He also called the Trump–Russia scandal a “totally absurd plot to discredit Trump.”) At the end of their conversation, Inskeep said to Carlson, “You’re a thoughtful guy.”

In both The New York Times piece and the NPR interview—especially the latter—Carlson’s bigotry and conspiracy kookery were downplayed, and he was cast as a respectable political opinion influencer. The Times did note that Carlson has embraced conspiracy theories, been accused of antisemitism, and once “conducted a friendly interview” with Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier. But even that does not capture the fullness of his extremism.

In recent years, Carlson has become a leading champion of right-wing racism and nuttery—a matter Inskeep avoided in the one-on-one. He has been a proponent of the “great replacement theory,” which claims nefarious elites are trying to replace white Americans with dark-skinned migrants. (Some ultra-right adherents of this notion assert Jews are responsible for this anti-white plot.) When he was a Fox host, Carlson supported the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, though he privately denigrated election denialists pushing that crap. He peddled the bonkers idea that the January 6 riot was a false flag operation orchestrated by the Deep State so it could round up Trump supporters, and he said the rioters were “right” to believe the election had been rigged.

There’s practically no limit to Carlson’s ideological thuggery. Two years ago, he hosted on his podcast Darryl Cooper, a Nazi apologist, who claimed that Winston Churchill, not Adolf Hitler, was the “chief villain of the Second World War” and that the Holocaust was merely the result of poor planning on the part of Hitler’s regime. The Nazis, Cooper said, “launched a war where they were completely unprepared to deal with the millions and millions of prisoners of war, of local political prisoners…They went in with no plan for that and just threw these people into camps.” Accidental concentration camps, right? That was why “millions of people ended up dead there.” Carlson disgustingly called Cooper “the most important popular historian working in the United States today.”

And Carlson has been an adoring fan of Vladimir Putin. Prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he noted he would root for Russia over Ukraine in any war between the two nations, and, once Putin attacked Ukraine, he amplified Kremlin disinformation that claimed the United States had been operating biological weapons facilities within Ukraine.

Carlson was also sued by a booker and producer who alleged that she had been bullied and subjected to antisemitic remarks while working on his Fox show. Carlson maintained he had never met her. Fox settled the lawsuit for $12 million, according to the accuser’s lawyer. In 2022, on his Fox show, Carlson promoted the quackery of “testicle tanning.”

Yes, Carlson’s been a real thoughtful guy, bolstering Trump’s attempt to destroy our constitutional republic, providing a platform to Nazi apologists, and amplifying Russian disinformation.

Several weeks prior to the Times article and NPR interview, Carlson appeared on RT, the Russian state-controlled propaganda mill that also runs covert influence and disinformation operations. On that show, he proclaimed that diabolical forces within the US government were deploying “mass migration” to destroy “the English-speaking West” and trying to whip up a war with Russia because it was “the last big white Christian country on the planet.” That is, an evil Deep State wants to annihilate Russia because it’s white and Christian—and it was willing to risk global nuclear warfare to do so. He didn’t identify who in the United States was perpetrating this evil scheme. Could it be…the Jews?

While on this RT show, Carlson never once mentioned Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Russia’s attacks on civilian targets, its alleged war crimes, or its kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children. Ukraine is “not a sovereign country fighting for its freedom,” he argued, just a “client state of NATO and the United States” that’s being used to wipe out Russia. That’s Putin’s BS line. And he praised Putin for practicing restraint in response to attacks on Russian soil. Carlson called Russia “a beautiful country, an amazing country, my favorite country I’ve ever visited.” There was no talk of Putin’s repressive ways or suppression of democracy. He’s all in on Putin.

Earlier this month, Carlson again got into Hitler trouble during an interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg, a far-right British politician. He questioned why Britain had entered World War II, and Rees-Mogg countered, “Otherwise, we’d be speaking German.” Carlson shot back: “Who cares? There are a lot of people in Britain who can’t speak English. So it would be nice to have at least a European language spoken in your country.” Racism and Nazi apologia go nicely together.

Arguing with Rees-Mogg, Carlson declared that Hitler “repeatedly said, ‘I do not want to go to war with the UK’”—as though the Nazi dictator could have been taken at his word and there was no reason for the Brits to honor their alliance with Poland and declare war on Germany following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. (In 1934, Hitler had signed a non-aggression pact with Poland, vowing not to attack the country.) Rees-Mogg observed that Carlson was “verging on defending Hitler.” He added, “I think this is not really what you want to be doing.”

Carlson answered with snark: “Yeah, I guess I’m just a secret Nazi.”

He may not be a secret Nazi. But he’s an overt racist, conspiracy monger, Hitler defender, Putin supporter, and far-right extremist. Because he has an audience and influence on the right, the media ought to pay attention to him and his comments. But they also should remember that viewership does not equal legitimacy. He poses as a thoughtful fellow, but he slings false, bigoted, and dangerous swill. Journalists who do not characterize and contextualize Carlson accurately aid and abet his malignant agenda.