Turnabout for Tucker Is “Carlson 2024”
Exactly two weeks ago, the world shifted on its axis. That’s what happens when a gravitational body like the moon disappears suddenly – or when Tucker Carlson gets fired by Fox News.
It set off a huge tidal wave of punditry, the likes of which has not been seen since the fake Russian dossier was dropped on Donald Trump by BuzzFeed and CNN (with an assist from James Comey) in early 2017.
In both cases, the progressive movement thought it could seize the opportunity to drive a stake through the heart of the populist movement that stands between the power elite and their visionary agenda of global governance, open borders, facial recognition, digital currency, and eating bugs for lunch.
We already know the globalists were wrong about disposing of Trump. He survived the Russia hoax, the Mueller report, two impeachments, and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Right now, he stands on the cusp of winning the GOP nomination for a rematch against Joe Biden in 2024. His nearest competitor, Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been backpedaling mightily for the better part of two months and now ranks only in the high teens to low 20s in polling, an average of almost 30 points behind Trump. That’s despite the fact that Trump has been indicted for some obscure business “crime” in New York City, has been on trial in a civil suit accusing him of raping an advice columnist three decades ago, and has a special prosecutor sniffing around for any other dirt that can be dumped on Trump before the election.
Let them take their best shot. As we all know, Trump doesn’t just stop fighting when he takes a punch, and I think we will find out that neither does Tucker Carlson. Right now, the left-wing media is gloating about Carlson’s “demise” and enjoying the parlor game of speculating about just what was the last straw that led the Murdochs to fire their highest-rated Fox News host and thereby spit in the face of their mostly conservative audience.
Some have said it’s because he’s become too outwardly religious, encouraging prayer and talking about demonic forces in American politics. Others point to Carlson’s willingness to give voice to America First principles and to question the “official narrative” of the Jan. 6, 2021, protest. Most recently, there has been buzz about Carlson’s private text message the day after the protest at the Capitol, in which he described a video he’d seen recently of three Trump supporters beating up “an antifa kid.” He called their actions “dishonorable” and “not how white men fight.” The language is certainly embarrassing, but no more racist than the title of the 1992 comedy “White Men Can’t Jump,” which is apparently still considered appropriate language since a remake is being released this month on Hulu with the same dismissive title.
But if you really want a reason why Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch would kill the goose that laid the golden egg, you need look no further than the media magnate’s hatred of Donald Trump. Murdoch and his boys had already tamped down on the network’s once mutually beneficial relationship with Trump. After the Jan. 6 attack, Murdoch said in an email that the network wanted “to make Trump a nonperson.”
It took a while to accomplish that, but after years of appearing as a frequent guest on Fox News, the 45th president was conspicuously absent from Sept. 22, 2022, until March 27, 2023, when he did a sit-down interview with Sean Hannity at Mar-a-Lago. Then on April 11, Trump did an interview with Carlson, which was lauded in conservative circles for promoting the former president’s foreign-policy expertise and highlighting his serious side.
That may have been the last straw. The Murdochs probably realized they could not control Carlson and that as we got deeper and deeper into the 2024 election cycle, Carlson’s show was going to be the main conduit of Trump’s populist nationalism into the mainstream. While that might be good for ratings, it would be disastrous for the globalist cartel that counts Rupert Murdoch among its most prominent members. If Joe Biden and his America-last policies were going to prevail in 2024, Carlson had to be neutralized. Thus the Monday morning ambush that had Harris Faulkner announcing that Carlson and Fox News had “mutually agreed to part ways.” Yeah sure, to about the same extent that Henry VIII might have announced that Anne Boleyn’s head and shoulders had mutually agreed to part ways.
Since then, other than a brief and circumspect video, Carlson has maintained radio silence, inviting a whole new round of punditry to forecast where the No. 1 figure in cable news would land. Surely he would not be silent much longer, would he? But this was the enigma that made Fox’s decision hard to fathom. For if Carlson were free to broadcast on another network or podcast, then the firing would make no sense as an effort to deprive Trump of his most important supporter. Offers from Rumble, NewsMax, and One America News are rumored to rival or surpass what Carlson was being paid by Fox, and the added publicity of his firing would just guarantee him more viewers than ever. Meanwhile, Fox has seen its own ratings plummet, not just in the 8 p.m. ET slot where “Tucker Carlson Tonight” aired, but throughout its primetime lineup.
In order to justify the huge financial loss for Fox News, Murdoch would have to be confident that Carlson would not just show up on another network, where he could continue to give voice to Trump’s pro-America agenda. Therefore, one has to surmise that one of the rumors surrounding the firing of Carlson is true – namely, that he has a non-compete clause in his contract with Fox.
If that is the case, then it might well be a good investment for a Trump-hating media magnate to continue paying Carlson $20 million per year to keep him off the air. Conveniently, Carlson’s contract is reported to run through December 2024, so if Fox News had made him sign a non-compete clause, then the Murdochs could force Carlson’s absence from news coverage during what may well be the most important election in American history.
That’s where we stand right now, but again, I think his critics have greatly underestimated Carlson’s resiliency, not to mention his capacity for critical thinking. Starting a new show or podcast on another conservative outlet might be attractive in ordinary circumstances, but not if Carlson’s No. 1 motivation going forward were to foil Murdoch’s plan to destroy Trump and the America First movement. After all, giving Carlson a new show with one hour five days a week would probably only reach a little beyond his core audience and probably only for a little while.
But if Carlson were willing to sacrifice his huge Fox News paycheck, he could force his sworn enemies to give him airtime with one simple maneuver – declaring himself a candidate for president of the United States. Once Carlson is a candidate, Fox can’t control his voice any longer. They would probably void his contract altogether, canceling out his hefty paycheck, but they would not be able to prevent him from campaigning. He could show up on every channel and do political announcements anywhere he wants. Even Rupert Murdoch would eventually have to give him airtime then, especially when he proved to be a viable alternative to Trump.
Do I really think Carlson would make such a dramatic move? It would not surprise me at all. Unlike most cable news hosts, Carlson is not just a talking head being fed ideas through his earpiece. He has a brain of his own. And as long ago as 2020, pundits were promoting the idea of Carlson as a worthy successor of Trump in the MAGA movement. Now is the perfect time, thanks to Rupert Murdoch.
The beauty of this is that Carlson can run as a stalking horse for President Trump and build up support for the Trump agenda while at the same time building his own name recognition. If Trump is able to succeed in winning the nomination as now looks likely, then Carlson would be able to take credit for putting intellectual moorings under Trump’s lofty rhetoric and making him an even better candidate, one more ready to take on Biden or the Biden successor who may be waiting in the wings.
But if the multiple attacks from the Democrat Lawfare Machine succeed in derailing Trump’s candidacy, then Carlson will be in a perfect position to take the nomination and carry on the fight against the administrative state, the corrupt global cabal and Biden. And because Carlson is not a career Republican politician, he would be able to forge a true unity ticket with someone like Robert Kennedy Jr. or Tulsi Gabbard. If Carlson runs with RFK Jr. as his VP candidate, he will be formidable. Bobby already has more than 20 percent support in his race against Biden for the Democratic nomination. Bringing that level of Democratic support to a nationalist unity ticket would almost ensure Carlson’s victory.
If you don’t believe that this is possible, then here’s my challenge. Pollsters need to immediately add Carlson to their polling for the Republican nomination. I predict that he would quickly supplant Gov. DeSantis as the No. 2 contender behind Trump. Nothing like it would have been seen since Trump came down the golden escalator in 2015 and soared in the polls.
In any case, we haven’t heard the last of Tucker Carlson.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
