Tucker Carlson’s audience is booming — and so is chatter that the popular Fox News host will parlay his TV perch into a run for president in 2024.
Republican strategists, conservative commentators, and former Trump campaign and administration officials are buzzing about Carlson as the next-generation leader of Donald Trump’s movement — with many believing he would be an immediate frontrunner in a Republican primary.
“He’s a talented communicator with a massive platform. I think if he runs he’d be formidable,” said Luke Thompson, a Republican strategist who worked for Jeb Bush’s super PAC in 2016.
While practically every Republican eyeing a 2024 presidential run is professing loyalty to Trump the person, Carlson has become perhaps the highest-profile proponent of “Trumpism” — a blend of anti-immigrant nationalism, economic populism and America First isolationism that he articulates unapologetically and with some snark. At the same time, he’s shown a rare willingness among Republicans to bluntly criticize Trump when he believes the president is straying from that ideology.
In another twist, Carlson has established a friendship with Donald Trump, Jr., according to a source familiar with their relationship. Trump Jr. has drawn his own share of presidential buzz.“Tucker Carlson Tonight” is currently the most watched cable news program in history, according to the second quarter ratings released this week. And on Fox News’ YouTube channel, Carlson’s segments from the past quarter have drawn well over 60 million views and are among the most popular videos in the eight years since the network began posting on the platform.
His popularity with the base would instigate a debate over the future of the party — essentially whether Trump was an aberration or a party-realigning disrupter — a fight that will be all the fiercer if Trump loses in November.
“Let me put it this way: If Biden wins and Tucker decided to run, he’d be the nominee,” said Sam Nunberg, a former top political aide to Trump who knows Carlson. But Nunberg said he doesn’t believe Carlson will run because “he’s so disgusted with politicians.” — Source: Tucker Carlson 2024? The GOP is buzzing – POLITICO
Now here is why this would never work. Tucker is an ideologue and he is quite hardcore with his beliefs. He would never appeal to anyone ever remotely anywhere near the center. I personally find his commentary and speaking style horrifyingly annoying. Personally, I think he sounds like a smart aleck rich kid, who thinks he knows everything. Don Imus summed him up, by calling him a “bow tie wearing faggot.”
In reality, Don Imus was not referring to his sexuality, he was referring to what he was, which was and still is, an entitled white rich kid, who is a bit of a smart aleck. The problem with that perception of him is, that the perception of him is rooted in reality. See here from Wikipedia:
Carlson’s mother was artist Lisa McNear (née Lombardi). He also has a brother, Buckley Peck Carlson (later, Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson), who is nearly two years younger.[7]
In 1976, Carlson’s parents divorced after the nine-year marriage reportedly “turned sour.”[7][8] Carlson’s father was granted custody of him and his brother. Carlson’s mother left the family when he was six, wanting to pursue a “bohemian” lifestyle.[4][9] She eventually split her time between Beaufort County, South Carolina and Cazac, France, where she had little contact with Carlson’s family and later married artist Michael Vaughn.[10][11][12][13]
Dick Carlson was said to be an active father who had a specific outlook in raising his sons:
I want them to be self-disciplined to the degree that I think is necessary to find satisfaction… you measure a person on how far they go, on how far they’ve sprung. My parents, the Carlsons, they instilled a modesty in me that, at times, gets in my way… I know it’s immodest of me to say it, but it’s difficult sometimes when you want to beat your own drum and say what you really think.
In 1979, Carlson’s father married divorcée Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to Swanson Enterprises. Swanson is the daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson and the niece of SenatorJ. William Fulbright.[4][14] This was the third marriage for Swanson, who legally adopted Carlson and his brother.[12][14]
So, to say that he was typical kid from the city; would be a very bad statement to make. To be absolutely clear, I do not hate Tucker Carlson, I just happen to know that he is simply a product of his environment, as am I. We could have some very different outlooks on life, the World as a whole and so forth.
So, in closing, let me say this; While Trucker Carlson might be good for the Conservative wing of the Republican Party, he would be a disaster in an general election. I just hope that Tucker or some of his people, and someone from the GOP reads this.
Just to let you know, I donated $5.00 to this man’s campaign. We need a change. Anything is better than 4 more years of the egotistical blowhard in the White House and a loony liberal Democrat.
Because folks, I voted for Donald Trump, I had some very high expectations for him. He did some of them; but not nearly enough. I came to soon realize that this man, Donald Trump, was more interested in polishing his very large ego. This is not what a Presidency should be; and under Trump, that is what it is become. So, I’ve cast my $5.00 lot with Walsh, if more run, I will donate to them as well.
The point is, we can do better than Trump, much better. I remember, Conservatives droned on about Obama and bad he was; and yes, he was a terrible President. But, these same people gush over Trump and it disgusts me to no end. I do not wish to have a egomaniac for President, I wish a President that will DO HIS JOB.
With all the turmoil and uncertainty coming from this election cycle, one constant is already known. U.S. Foreign Policy is well under the control of the international interventionists. The career globalists on the American payroll continue to push for more and greater engagements. Step back and consider the premise. Seldom is there an international involvement that is not eagerly embraced, funded and expanded. Based upon this premise, the record of continued failures is better understood. The systemic decline of a once great nation has developed into a pathetic deterioration of an imperial empire.
This is rough, tough, and brutal. I am in agreement with Vox Day on this one, he calls it “Devastating. Absolutely devastating” and he is very much correct. Yes, I know, I have had disagreements with Vox Day in the past. But, on this, he is spot on. (I cannot seem to locate the posts, I may have pulled them.)
Let me say up front that I am a life-long Republican and conservative. I have never voted for a Democrat in my life and have voted in every presidential and midterm election since 1988. I have never in my life considered myself anything but a conservative. I am pained to admit that the conservative media and many conservatives’ reaction to Donald Trump has caused me to no longer consider myself part of the movement. I would suggest to you that if you have lost people like me, and I am not alone, you might want to reconsider your reaction to Donald Trump. Let me explain why.
First, I spent the last 20 years watching the conservative media in Washington endorse and urge me to vote for one candidate after another who made a mockery of conservative principles and values. Everyone talks about how thankful we are for the Citizens’ United decision but seems to have forgotten how we were urged to vote for the coauthor of the law that the decision overturned. In 2012, we were told to vote for Mitt Romney, a Massachusetts liberal who proudly signed an individual insurance mandate into law and refused to repudiate the decision. Before that, there was George W. Bush, the man who decided it was America’s duty to bring democracy to the Middle East (more about him later). And before that, there was Bob Dole, the man who gave us the Americans with Disabilities Act. I, of course, voted for those candidates and do not regret doing so. I, however, am self-aware enough to realize I voted for them because I will vote for virtually anyone to keep the Left out of power and not because I thought them to be the best or even really a conservative choice. Given this history, the conservative media’s claims that the Republican party must reject Donald Trump because he is not a “conservative” are pathetic and ridiculous to those of us who are old enough to remember the last 25 years.
It is this part here that really sticks out:
Third, there is the issue of the war on Islamic extremism. Let me say upfront that, as a veteran of two foreign deployments in this war, I speak with some moral authority on it. So please do not lecture me on the need to sacrifice for one’s country or the nature of the threat that we face. I have gotten on that plane twice and have the medals and t-shirt to prove it. And, as a member of the one percent who have actually put my life on the line in these wars movement conservatives consider so vital, my question for you and every other conservatives is just when the hell did being conservative mean thinking the US has some kind of a duty to save foreign nations from themselves or bring our form of democratic republicanism to them by force? I fully understand the sad necessity to fight wars and I do not believe in “blow back” or any of the other nonsense that says the world will leave us alone if only we will do that same. At the same time, I cannot for the life of me understand how conservatives of all people convinced themselves that the solution to the 9-11 attacks was to forcibly create democracy in the Islamic world. I have even less explanations for how — 15 years and 10,000 plus lives later — conservatives refuse to examine their actions and expect the country to send more of its young to bleed and die over there to save the Iraqis who are clearly too slovenly and corrupt to save themselves.
The lowest moment of the election was when Trump said what everyone in the country knows: that invading Iraq was a mistake. Rather than engaging the question with honest self-reflection, all of the so called “conservatives” responded with the usual “How dare he?” Worse, they let Jeb Bush claim that Bush “kept us safe.” I can assure you that President Bush didn’t keep me safe. Do I and the other people in the military not count? Sure, we signed up to give our lives for our country and I will never regret doing so. But doesn’t our commitment require a corresponding responsibility on the part of the president to only expect us to do so when it is both necessary and in the national interest?
And since when is bringing democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan so much in the national interest that it is worth killing or maiming 50,000 Americans to try and achieve? I don’t see that, but I am not a Wilsonian and used to, at least, be a conservative. I have these strange ideas that my government ought to act in America’s interests instead of the rest of the world’s interests. I wish conservatives could understand how galling it was to have a fat, rich, career politician who has never once risked his life for this country lecture those of us who have about how George Bush kept us safe.
Donald Trump is the only Republican candidate who seems to have any inclination to act strictly in America’s interest. More importantly, he is the only Republican candidate who is willing to even address the problem. Trump was right to say that we need to stop letting more Muslims into the country or, at least, examine the issue. And like when he said the obvious about Iraq, the first people to condemn him and deny the obvious were conservatives. Somehow, being conservative now means denying the obvious and saying idiotic fantasies like “Islam is the religion of peace,” or “Our war is not with Islam.” Uh, sorry but no it is not, and yes it is. And if getting a president who at least understands that means voting for Trump, then I guess I am not a conservative.
This is what you would call a political smack down and it is about time someone said it. This here too, is something that I high agree with:
Lost in all of this is the older strain of conservatism. The one I grew up with and thought was reflective of the movement. This strain of conservatism believed in the free market and capitalism but did not fetishize them the way so many libertarians do. This strain understood that a situation where every country in the world but the US acts in its own interests on matters of international trade and engages in all kinds of skulduggery in support of their interests is not free trade by any rational definition. This strain understood that a government’s first loyalty was to its citizens and the national interest. And also understood that the preservation of our culture and our civil institutions was a necessity.
I put in bold, underlined and turned that quote red to make a point. This above is what happened to the Conservative movement. It started after Ronald Reagan left office and got really crazy after the election and ultimate defeat of George H.W. Bush. After that, Conservationism went straight loony after that. Conservatives have no one to blame, but themselves. They put in a President, who went soft on taxes, and whom proceeded to usher in the “new world order.” and the Reaganites; which consisted of Fundamentalist Christians, like myself — went running for the hills. They knew then, that they had been duped.
Now, this many years later; along comes Trump and he dares to challenge those in the ivory towers that have created what we have now —- and the vultures are out for blood. They know that the current existing state of affairs in Washington D.C. is being threatened and they are doing everything they can to stop Donald Trump.
The question is, can Donald Trump fight them effectively enough to win the nomination?
Mitt Romney opened a new front in the Republican Party’s civil war on Thursday, going after Donald Trump in a scorched-earth speech that eviscerated the Republican front-runner as lacking the temperament, business record and substantive policies to occupy the White House.
Romney immediately said at the outset of his remarks he would neither endorse a candidate nor announce a third presidential bid of his own. Instead, he focused nearly the entirety of his speech on the urgency of stopping Trump.
“If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished,” Romney warned, speaking at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Trump’s economic policies would lead to a sustained recession, Romney charged. “Isn’t he a huge business success and doesn’t he know what he’s talking about?” Romney asked mockingly. “No, he isn’t, and no he doesn’t.”
“He inherited his business. He didn’t create it,” Romney said. “And what ever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there’s Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks and Trump Mortgage? A business genius he is not.”
Mitt Romney’s running mate is staying out of the 2012 nominee’s slugfest with Donald Trump.
Paul Ryan told reporters Thursday that he hadn’t even seen a copy of Romney’s speech denouncing Trump before Romney went public. The speaker said House Republicans would work with “whoever the nominee is.”
Ryan, however, did say he “laughed out loud” when Trump said Ryan would “pay a big price” if he couldn’t get along with the billionaire businessman, if he becomes the GOP presidential nominee.
“Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction these days. I don’t really think anything of it,” Ryan said. “I’m a good-natured guy. I get along with everybody.”
“Mitt and I are very close friends. We have talked about lots of things over the days and weeks,” Ryan added. “But I am not sure exactly what he is going to say. He feels the need to speak out on behalf of the Republican Party.”
My thoughts on these two:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7KSuFxRSW0?rel=0
By the way, I am listening to Chris Christie’s presser. He didn’t resign or withdraw support. He called the presser to answer questions and respond to calls for his resignation. He isn’t resigning.
As Iowans prepare to cast the first votes in the presidential nominating process Monday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders hoped to defy the polls and pull off upset victories in Monday night’s caucuses.
After months of campaigning and more than $150 million spent on advertising, the race for supremacy in Iowa is close in both parties.
Among Republicans, the latest polls show real estate billionaire Donald Trump holding a slim edge over Cruz. Cruz, who became the first major candidate from either party to enter the presidential race 315 days ago, has pinned his hopes to a sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation. Cruz has also modeled his campaign after past Iowa winners, visiting all of the state’s 99 counties and courting influential evangelical and conservative leaders.
“If you had told me 10 months ago that the day before the Iowa caucuses we’d be in a statistcal tie for first place I would have been thrilled and exhilarated,” Cruz told Fox News late Sunday.
The Republican caucus is also the first test of whether Trump can turn the legion of fans drawn to his plainspoken populism into voters. The scope of the billionaire’s organization in Iowa is a mystery, though Trump himself has intensified his campaign schedule during the final sprint, including a pair of rallies Monday.
I predict that Trump will come in first, with Cruz second and Rubio third on the Republican side. On the Democrat side, I think that one could be a surprise. Sanders has a good deal of support, while Hillary has the name and the money. So, that one is a toss. It will be interesting to see to say the least.
Barack Obama, that prematurely gray elder statesman, is laboring mightily to remain neutral during Hillary Clinton’s battle with Bernie Sanders in Iowa, the state that cemented his political legend and secured his path to the presidency.
But in a candid 40-minute interview for POLITICO’s Off Message podcast as the first flakes of the blizzard fell outside the Oval Office, he couldn’t hide his obvious affection for Clinton or his implicit feeling that she, not Sanders, best understands the unpalatable pragmatic demands of a presidency he likens to the world’s most challenging walk-and-chew-gum exercise.
“[The] one thing everybody understands is that this job right here, you don’t have the luxury of just focusing on one thing,” a relaxed and reflective Obama told me in his most expansive discussion of the 2016 race to date.
Iowa isn’t just a state on the map for Obama. It’s the birthplace of his hope-and-change phenomenon, “the most satisfying political period in my career,” he says — “what politics should be” — and a bittersweet reminder of how far from the garden he’s gotten after seven bruising years in the White House.
The caucuses have a fierce-urgency-of-now quality as Obama reckons with the end of his presidency — the kickoff of a process of choosing a Democratic successor he hopes can secure his as-yet unsecured legacy, to keep Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or somebody else from undoing much of what he has done. And he was convinced Clinton was that candidate, prior to the emergence of Sanders, friends and associates have told me over the past 18 months.
“Bernie came in with the luxury of being a complete long shot and just letting loose,” he said. “I think Hillary came in with the both privilege — and burden — of being perceived as the front-runner. … You’re always looking at the bright, shiny object that people haven’t seen before — that’s a disadvantage to her.”
He also spoke of Bernie Sanders:
Obama didn’t utter an unkind word about Sanders, who has been respectfully critical of his administration’s reluctance to prosecute Wall Street executives and his decision to abandon a single-payer health care system as politically impractical. But he was kinder to Clinton. When I asked Obama whether he thought Sanders needed to expand his horizons, if the Vermont senator was too much a one-issue candidate too narrowly focused on income inequality, the presidente didn’t dispute the assertion.
Gesturing toward the Resolute Desk, with its spread-winged eagle seal, first brought into the Oval Office by John F. Kennedy, Obama said of Sanders: “Well, I don’t want to play political consultant, because obviously what he’s doing is working. I will say that the longer you go in the process, the more you’re going to have to pass a series of hurdles that the voters are going to put in front of you.”
Then he added: “As you’ll recall, I was sitting at my desk there just a little over a week ago … writing my State of the Union speech, and somebody walks in and says, ‘A couple of our sailors wandered into Iranian waters’” — and here he stopped to chuckle in disbelief — “that’s maybe a dramatic example, but not an unusual example of the job.”
As much as I hate to say it; President Obama is correct about that one. The office of the President of the United States is a very difficult job and it requires someone who can handle the job. While Bernie Sanders might be a respectable person and all; if I were voting in a Democratic Primary, there is no way that I would vote for Bernie Sanders, I would most likely vote for Hillary Clinton. Because she has already been there and she seems, for a Democrat, a bit more reasonable, than Bernie Sanders.
Needless to say, being an ideologue is great; if you are an activist or even maybe a Senator. However, when you are the commander and chief, that is a whole other ballgame and there is a certain amount of pragmatism is required in that office, if you actually want to succeed at the job. You have to remember, when you are President; you are President of the people of the United States of America, not just the President of the people who voted for you. You have to take into account everyone, not just those who voted for you. This is why I am not too keen on Ted Cruz; he is an extreme ideologue on the right, where Bernie Sander is an extreme ideologue on the left.
This is where I think Donald Trump might just be the more pragmatic candidate, who might just be able to get things done in DC and put aside some of this partisan rancor that has become so terrible under Bush and Obama. Now, if we could just work on his humility and get him to stop retweeting stuff like this here.
He also just secured the female evangelical female vote too.
AMES, Iowa — Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee who became a Tea Party sensation and a favorite of grass-roots conservatives, endorsed Donald J. Trump in Iowa on Tuesday, providing him with a potentially significant boost just 13 days before the state’s caucuses.“Are you ready for the leader to make America great again?” Mrs. Palin said with Mr. Trump by her side at a rally at Iowa State University. “Are you ready to stump for Trump? I’m here to support the next president of the United States — Donald Trump.”Her support is the highest-profile backing for a Republican so far. It came the same day that Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Branstad, said he hoped that Senator Ted Cruz would be defeated in Iowa. The Feb. 1 caucuses are a must-win for the Texas senator, who is running neck-and-neck with Mr. Trump in state polls.The endorsement came as Mr. Trump was bearing down in the state, holding multiple campaign events and raising expectations about his performance in the nation’s first nominating contest.As Mrs. Palin announced her backing, Mr. Trump stood wearing a satisfied smile as she scolded mainstream Republicans as sellouts and praised how Mr. Trump had shaken up the party. “He’s been going rogue left and right,” Mrs. Palin said of Mr. Trump, using one of her signature phrases. “That’s why he’s doing so well. He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system.” – Source: Sarah Palin Endorses Donald Trump, Which Could Bolster Him in Iowa – The New York Times
The video:
https://youtu.be/Tif6xm4_ysA?t=58m51s
The question that many are asking is, why did she pick Trump over Cruz? Actually, there are two reasons; one is that Cruz might have seriously pissed off Palin by basically insulting her. The other reason basically is because Ted Cruz’s wife works for or did work for one of the biggest banks, that was involved with the huge meltdown in 2008 and got a bailout from it. She also is or was, depending on whom you believe; a member of the council on foreign relations, which is huge minus among the Conservative base —- especially the Ted Party base.
Reaction has been predictable among the left. The reaction among the right is varied; some are happy, some, not so much. Personally, I think that this endorsement will be just another feather in Donald Trump’s hat; I just hope that Trump does not squander this chance. For the drive-by crowd, I am neither a supporter or against Donald Trump; I view all politicians with a good dose of skepticism.
I would recommend Trump not to use her too much to stump for his campaign, because there are a good number of people, who see Palin as a blithering idiot and that would work against him. An endorsement is fine, a campaign attack dog would be a disaster. So, keep Palin at a distance. I just hope Trump does not pick her to his Vice President; that would be huge mistake. I mean, anything is better than Hillary. But, with Palin in the VP slot, Trump would not get elected in the general election at all. I might be wrong about that, but I really doubt it.
Either way, I will be following this a bit more closely, as this primary race just got a bit more interesting now.
Ben Carson has taken a narrow lead nationally in the Republican presidential campaign, dislodging Donald J. Trump from the top spot for the first time in months, according to a New York Times/CBS News survey released on Tuesday.
Mr. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, is the choice of 26 percent of Republican primary voters, the poll found, while Mr. Trump now wins support from 22 percent, although the difference lies within the margin of sampling error.
The survey is the first time that Mr. Trump has not led all candidates since The Times and CBS News began measuring presidential preferences at the end of July.
Here’s the video of Donald Trump taking his underhanded swipe at Ben Carson’s religion:
You see, people see this sort of stuff; the back and forth with the Bushes, the slamming of Ben Carson’s religious beliefs and they start to think, “since when did this become a religious contest?” Which political elections are not supposed to be about that at all. Donald Trump also comes off as a bit of a jerk to most people when he does this.
For the record, Ben Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist, which I as a Baptist do disagree with their theology, very much so. However, I do not believe that Ben Carson’s religious beliefs should be a litmus test to be President of the United States and I do not believe that this sort of idiotic slamming of someone’s religious beliefs should be a part of this Presidential race at all.
Not to mention that Donald Trump insulted Iowa voters, I mean, can you get any more stupid than that? The funny part is that, to cover his own backside, he blamed a staffer for the insult. How childish can you get?
It is a bit early in this primary cycle; but, I have to say, I am beginning to believe that Donald Trump has used up his star power and that it is going to start hurting him, and not help him. At first, when Donald Trump came on the scene, I supported him. However, it is becoming clearer to me, that Trump is simply in this race to make a name for himself and that he really does not care about winning the Presidency. My support of him has basically dried up and I hope he shortly does the honorable thing and drops out of this race. He has turned a serious race into a clown show and it has done more to hurt the Conservative cause than anyone else in this race could ever do.
My advice to Iowa primary voters, give this joke of a Presidential Candidate a one way ticket back to his plush office in Manhattan and vote for someone who is actually serious about being the next President of the United States of America.
