Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson (born May 16, 1969) is an American conservative political commentator and writer who hosted the nightly political talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News from 2016 to 2023. Since his contract with Fox News was terminated, he has hosted Tucker on X. An advocate of former U.S. president Donald Trump, Carlson has been described as "perhaps the highest-profile proponent of 'Trumpism'", and as "the most influential voice in right-wing media, without a close second."Carlson began his media career in the 1990s, writing for The Weekly Standard and other publications. He was a CNN commentator from 2000 to 2005 and a co-host of Crossfire, the network's prime-time news debate program, from 2001 to 2005. From 2005 to 2008, he hosted the nightly program Tucker on MSNBC. In 2009, he became a political analyst for Fox News, appearing on various programs before launching his own show. In 2010, Carlson co-founded and served as the initial editor-in-chief of the right-wing news and opinion website The Daily Caller, until selling his ownership stake and leaving in 2020. He has written three books: Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites (2003), Ship of Fools (2018), and The Long Slide (2021).
Described as a leading voice of white grievance politics, Carlson is known for circulating far-right ideas into mainstream politics and discourse. He has promoted conspiracy theories on topics such as demographic replacement, COVID-19, the January 6 United States Capitol attack, and Ukrainian bioweapons; and has been noted for false and misleading statements about these and other topics. Carlson's remarks on race, immigration, and women – including slurs he said on air between 2006 and 2011 (which resurfaced in 2019) – have at times been described as racist and sexist, and provoked advertiser boycotts of Tucker Carlson Tonight. One of the most watched United States cable news shows, Fox News dismissed Carlson in April 2023 and cancelled Tucker Carlson Tonight, without providing a reason. Carlson was among the hosts named in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network defamation lawsuit for broadcasting false statements about the plaintiff company's voting machines that Fox News settled for $787.5 million and required Fox News to acknowledge that the broadcast statements were false.In June, he began posting a show on Twitter called Tucker on Twitter, which was rebranded as Tucker on X after the site changed its name. Carlson is a frequent critic of immigration. Formerly an economic libertarian, he now supports protectionism. In 2004, he renounced his initial support for the Iraq War, and has since been skeptical of U.S. foreign interventions. He was said to have influenced some of Trump's decisions as president, including the cancellation of a military strike against Iran in 2019, the firing of John Bolton as National Security Advisor the same year, and the commutation of Roger Stone's prison sentence in 2020, and would criticize Trump when he believed he was straying from "Trumpism".
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