{"id":23253,"date":"2026-05-15T10:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=23253"},"modified":"2026-05-15T10:49:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:49:48","slug":"tucker-carlson-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2026\/05\/15\/tucker-carlson-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Tucker Carlson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This guy could be president.<\/p>\n<p>Whoa, whoa, WHOA, don&#8217;t shoot the messenger!<\/p>\n<p>You know I&#8217;m scrounging for podcasts that are interesting, I don&#8217;t like happy talk\/joke talk between two hosts, and true crime has been overdone, but searching the Apple Podcasts app I came across this &#8220;New York Times&#8221; interview with Tucker Carlson&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Apple: https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/what-does-tucker-carlson-really-believe-i-went-to-maine\/id1200361736?i=1000765759854<\/p>\n<p>Or watch:<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2tpMkUCvqrs?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Now I remember Tucker back in his bowtie days on CNN, before he was so self-satisfied. He got airtime before Jon Stewart got &#8220;Crossfire&#8221; canceled, by speaking the truth, that it was akin to pro wrestling and hurting America.<\/p>\n<p>Now I&#8217;d like to tell you Jon Stewart could be president, and he&#8217;d be better than most of the Democratic candidates, he skewers the deserving every Monday night on Comedy Central, but Stewart skews negative, as do most Democrats. They&#8217;ll tell you how f*cked up things are, but they don&#8217;t focus too much on the positive, proffer solutions. Also, I&#8217;m sick and tired of celebrities being elected to office. Irrelevant of how you feel about Spencer Pratt, what ability, never mind history, does he have regarding public governance? Why are we putting unskilled people in skilled jobs?<\/p>\n<p>Now I&#8217;m listening to Tucker on this podcast and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The first thing I notice is how informed and balanced the host is, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who I was not familiar with. One thing you&#8217;ve got to give the &#8220;Times&#8221; credit for is pushing aside oldsters and giving younger people a chance. And she was not histrionic, she was not auguring for argument, nor theatre, and therefore the tone was different from most of the political interviews we&#8217;re exposed to, not that she pulled her punches, she brought up all the criticisms of Carlson, but not in a gotcha way.<\/p>\n<p>As for Carlson&#8230; He spoke slowly and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>This guy is smart. That&#8217;s one thing about Trump and his cabinet, these are not the best and the brightest. Furthermore, Carlson is seasoned, he can hit the ball back and forth over the net, he knows how to debate. And he&#8217;s so skilled, he<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>knows how to deflect when confronted with something that makes him look bad, he doesn&#8217;t become outraged and deny it, rather he says it&#8217;s a distraction from the real issue, which always comes down to economics.<\/p>\n<p>Ain&#8217;t that the truth.<\/p>\n<p>James Carville famously said it was the economy, stupid, and it still is. But what we get most is talk about trans women in sports and race and&#8230;those are significant issues, but are they as important as economics?<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s Carlson&#8217;s position, which he keeps hammering. That irrelevant of color or creed, everybody wants to be able to put food on the table, ensure a good future for their children.<\/p>\n<p>It ain&#8217;t difficult. But somehow the political class strays from this main target and focuses on the penumbra again and again and again.<\/p>\n<p>And then Lulu asks Tucker about his son, who left his job with J.D. Vance, wanting to know if he was pushed or he jumped, implying it was the former.<\/p>\n<p>Carlson says he does not know, that she should ask his son, that to the degree he knows his son jumped, however&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Carlson says he believes in an America where the status and power of the parents do not affect the trajectory of the children.<\/p>\n<p>BINGO!<\/p>\n<p>Everybody wants equal opportunity. We&#8217;re sick of the lucky sperm club getting a leg up from the get-go.<\/p>\n<p>As for race&#8230; An issue, but should it supersede putting food on the table?<\/p>\n<p>As for interviewing Nick Fuentes&#8230; How much influence does Fuentes have, and Carlson says Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee are worse.<\/p>\n<p>Now Carlson has been excoriated for interviewing Fuentes, but he says he interviews all kinds of people, should his guests be limited by philosophy?<\/p>\n<p>Like I said, Carlson has a way of deflecting the criticism and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>He says he&#8217;s not running for president, but who is? Good luck finding someone who is passionate about J.D. Vance&#8230;who has flip-flopped from being against Trump to now doing his dirty work and even criticizing the Pope re theology.<\/p>\n<p>Marco Rubio? Didn&#8217;t Trump call him &#8220;Little Marco&#8221; before giving him a cabinet job? Rubio is not seen as a force of nature, he&#8217;s perceived today as a technocrat who is eager for more responsibility\/power.<\/p>\n<p>As for Ted Cruz&#8230; Carlson eviscerates him, but one thing is for sure, he is unlikable.<\/p>\n<p>Like Carlson himself?<\/p>\n<p>When I first contemplated writing this, TikTok fed me this clip from SNL&#8217;s Weekend Update, Tucker Carlson on the Met Gala:<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6ZRyEMYC7q8?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>They nailed Carlson. This was as good as the vintage stuff from the seventies. Does everybody have Carlson&#8217;s number?<\/p>\n<p>But he was the king of Fox, eclipsing everybody else. Driving the conversation. But he became too big for his britches and Murdoch fired him. But that&#8217;s the thing about Carlson, while occasionally self-deprecating, it&#8217;s evident he thinks he&#8217;s smarter than the rest of us.<\/p>\n<p>But one thing is for sure, he&#8217;s got experience in the swamp. And it is a swamp, seemingly everybody not involved in politics is disillusioned with it.<\/p>\n<p>Now I don&#8217;t agree with Carlson on his anti-Israel and isolationist views, and his anti-vax position is looney-tunes, but are we looking for someone who speaks plain English to the people? No, let me change that, is someone who speaks truth appealing to the people? Carlson is a better Trump. Trump identified a disillusioned public, it&#8217;s just that he&#8217;s a nincompoop, or as John Mulaney said, a horse in the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m in a unique position in that I hear from both sides constantly. Which it seems very few do. They&#8217;re baked into their positions and only hang with those who agree with them. Whereas every day I turn on my computer and I&#8217;ve got right wingers going wild on me and oftentimes left wingers too. I&#8217;m stunned when I read the news or watch the commentariat on TV and it&#8217;s clear to me they&#8217;ve got no idea what the public thinks, because they don&#8217;t interact with the public. And it is not as simple as reporting on it, you&#8217;ve got to LIVE IT!<\/p>\n<p>And you live it online, an entire world that the legacy media and oldsters have contempt for.<\/p>\n<p>As for Carlson&#8217;s excommunication from Fox and his present footprint&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Well, a lot has changed since Tucker was fired from Fox in 2023. There has been ongoing flattening of the media landscape, the legacy media<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>means less, people get their information from podcasts and&#8230; In other words, the world Tucker Carlson was exiled to became the main show, instead of the sideshow.<\/p>\n<p>And legacy media can&#8217;t stop reporting on him, as evidenced by this &#8220;New York Times&#8221; interview. Carlson&#8217;s actual reach isn&#8217;t de minimis, but it&#8217;s far from huge, yet it&#8217;s the external outlets amplifying him and his message that keep him up front, as part of the discourse.<\/p>\n<p>Now if you&#8217;ve made it this far, you&#8217;re probably laughing. But I&#8217;m telling you, if you listen to\/watch this interview your perspective will be changed. What Carlson is saying is what most people want, a focus on economics and a separating of the wheat from the chaff, delineating what is truly important from what is not. Furthermore, despite complimenting Trump&#8217;s personality and saying he likes J.D. Vance, Carlson can align with some left wing\/Democratic positions.<\/p>\n<p>So just see this as a heads-up. If Carlson runs for president, and I think he will, he&#8217;s testing the waters at least, despite what he says, either he will run away with the Republican nomination or be voteless.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s what we learned about Kamala Harris, in the debates\/primaries back in 2020. She came across as inauthentic, and didn&#8217;t win any delegates. But Biden said he was going to pick a woman as VP and chose her. God, couldn&#8217;t he just pick a woman without saying he was going to, it undercuts the effort, singles women out as being less than as opposed to equal.<\/p>\n<p>Not that I want to get into identity politics&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Then again, we&#8217;ve gone too deep into identity politics and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Who is the Democratic candidate? Newsom could win if he wasn&#8217;t from California, but he is. Other than Gavin?<\/p>\n<p>And get Carlson on the debate stage and he&#8217;ll eat up his competitors, anybody other than Newsom, because not only is he educated on the issues, he can be calm and measured, and is unafraid of alienating people, he calls &#8217;em the way he sees &#8217;em, which almost no politician does.<\/p>\n<p>I would have written none of this if I hadn&#8217;t listened to this interview. Please do so, it will open your eyes.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This guy could be president. Whoa, whoa, WHOA, don&#8217;t shoot the messenger! You know I&#8217;m scrounging for podcasts that are interesting, I don&#8217;t like happy talk\/joke talk between two hosts, and true crime has been overdone, but searching the Apple Podcasts app I came across this &#8220;New York Times&#8221; interview with Tucker Carlson&#8230; Apple: https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/what-does-tucker-carlson-really-believe-i-went-to-maine\/id1200361736?i=1000765759854 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-633","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23253"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23256,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23253\/revisions\/23256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}