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Former allies are distancing themselves from Tucker Carlson after the ex-Fox host interviewed podcaster Nick Fuentes on his YouTube show. A white nationalist, Fuentes is a 27-year-old political commentator whose clips have gone increasingly viral on social media — especially Instagram. Fuentes’s army of followers, who he endearingly calls “Groypers,” love him for his open racism and chronic incivility. His more striking remarks include calling Adolf Hitler “cool,” opposing female education, and saying most black people should be in prison.
Yet the interview was friendly. This elicited fierce backlash even from Carlson’s peers on the Right. Brad Polumbo of the conservative Washington Examiner slammed Carlson for tossing Fuentes a “disgraceful softball.” This chumminess, which included letting slide Fuentes’s admiration for Joseph Stalin, contrasted starkly with previous interviews.
As Polumbo notes, Carlson knows how to grill people, doing just that to Senator Ted Cruz in July. During the interview, Carlson famously caught Cruz not knowing the population of Iran. This is significant as Cruz wants to bomb the place. Carlson had a point; Cruz should know how many lives he would be putting at risk. Tucker also skewered Cruz for denying that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is essentially a foreign lobby.
Progressive pundit Kyle Kulinski theorizes that Carlson went so much easier on Fuentes because he is “scared of him.” Groypers, who tolerate no dissent against their intrepid leader, visit “backlash” on anyone who dares criticize Fuentes. Carlson himself was on the receiving end of this. He called Fuentes a “weird little gay kid” in August, and apologized for it during the interview. Kulinski surmises that Carlson was friendly to avoid landing in Groyper crosshairs again.
It’s hard to say whether Kulinski’s theory is accurate. But it rests on an undoubtable premise: Carlson is a creature of survival. As a media personality, he knows audience retention is everything. Because of that, Carlson is very careful about who he challenges. His interactions with Donald Trump are perhaps the best evidence.
Carlson has interviewed Trump seemingly countless times. Yet, though Trump and Cruz have virtually identical politics, Carlson never goes at the former like he did the latter. Unlike Cruz, Trump does not merely support bombing Iran; he actually did it. And does anyone think Trump has Iran’s population memorized? He’s the same guy who couldn’t pronounce “Namibia” and had not heard of Lesotho until this year. Trump’s ignorance about the world knows no bounds. He commits daily atrocities on an industrial scale without ever doing his homework first. Carlson knows this, yet never holds his feet to the fire for it.
The reason is obvious. In the American conservative movement, Trump is the kingmaker. He is the one person you cannot cross and still have an institutional career. Just ask Liz Cheney. When the former Republican congresswoman condemned Trump for inciting the January 6th insurrection, she instantly topped his enemy’s list. Trump then marshaled his cultish base to ensure she lost her re-election bid resoundingly. In 2022, the three-term representative fell in the Republican primary to political unknown Harriet Hageman by a whopping 37.4%. Upset the dear leader, and Trump could find someone to replace Carlson too. At the very least, he could whittle his audience — who’ll always be more loyal to Trump than Carlson — into irrelevancy.
Carlson is shrewd, and knows he must kiss the ring to keep his cushy media career afloat. That is why he will stick to attacking soft targets like Cruz, who people want to see squirm anyway. His cowardice is rational. But it is cowardice nonetheless. For all the talk of Carlson as a brave maverick of alternative media, he is far more lamb than lion.
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