Journalists From San Francisco

"It's a good thing Al Gore has an unappealing demeanor, or George W. Bush would be in real trouble. Bush delivered a mediocre performance at the first presidential debate in Boston. For the first half an hour he appeared nervous. Several times he seemed to lose his train of thought in mid-sentence. Though he relaxed as the night progressed, his remarks often lacked focus. He left Gore's endless attacks on the "wealthiest one percent of Americans" essentially unchallenged. He offered no defense of his own pro-life views, allowing Gore, a genuine extremist on abortion, to sound like the candidate with the mainstream position. He even let Gore interrupt him, repeatedly. Bush was not impressive. Happily for Republicans, Gore was far worse. If George W. Bush is elected president, it will be to a great extent because millions of undecided voters entered the voting booth, considered the phrase "President Gore," and shuddered."

"I have a lot of trouble writing or doing anything unless the pressure is on . . . If left to my own devices, I'd spend a lot of time playing with my kids and my dogs."

"The wonderful thing is we're allowed to say what we think . . . Your stories can be more true, more honest, more direct. If a person at a press conference says something I think is ludicrous, I get to say it's ludicrous . . . You try not to distort the truth because someone you're profiling you think is on the right side of abortion or trade or any other issue. That would be dishonest."

"I thought I'd be ragged for writing a puffy piece. My wife said people are going to think you're hunting for a job in the Bush campaign."

"Children born with Down Syndrome are not vegetables, nor are their lives demonstrably not worth living."

"[[Grover Norquist|[Grover] Norquist]] is a mean-spirited, humorless, dishonest little creep . . . an embarrassing anomaly, the leering, drunken uncle everyone else wishes would stay home . . . [He] is repulsive, granted, but there aren't nearly enough of him to start a purge trial."

"Tucker Carlson and Michael Brendan Dougherty and a lot of Republicans have something in common with Walter Duranty’s clip file and the underplumbed Russian countryside: They’re all full of s—."

"Fox News host Tucker Carlson can congratulate himself for the sentiment coming from the White House. Last week, Carlson apparently decided that the discussion on immigration featured an insufficient amount of racism and hate. So he attacked Omar, who arrived in the United States at the age of 12, for having the temerity to point out that this country doesn’t always live up to its own lofty ideals. Folks who go into the news business dream of leaving a mark . . . As for Carlson, he’s making his mark by inspiring racist tweets."

"Well, I’m employed and Tucker really isn’t anymore"

"[The] 'general tenor’ of the show [...] should ... inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not "stating actual facts" about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in "exaggeration" and "nonliteral commentary." ... [G]iven Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer "arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism"’ about the statements he makes."

"It’s true you have better hair than I do, but I get more pussy than you do."

"Tucker Carlson was at one time the most watched cable news presenter in the States until he was sacked from Fox News. [...] On 9 February, Carlson, now freelance, interviewed Vladimir Putin in Moscow. What you got was a sometimes surreal but most often extremely boring encounter in which the Russian president lectured the far-right American television personality on abstruse bits of Russian history that set out his junk case that Ukraine belonged to Russia. Putin talked rubbish but Carlson let him get away with it. [...] The interview lasted two hours but Carlson failed to mention the fate of Russia's most famous political prisoner once. Is it possible that Putin banked Carlson's lack of interest in Navalny and steeled him to have him murdered a week later? I believe it is. [...] I struggle with this. I struggle with how someone as fluent as Carlson could be so wittingly ignorant of the succession of people critical of Putin who have ended up dead. I struggle with knowing the torture Navalny suffered in the Russian gulag, that his lawyer was so shocked on seeing her client's face gone grey, but that Carlson, given a two-hour slot with the man responsible for the killings of so many, with the man ultimately responsible for creating Navalny's airless isolation cell, could not be bothered to mention his name. It is as if Tucker Carlson is Moscow's creature."

"Carlson is dangerous because he has a cultlike following who believe his nightly rants. I would love to see the Murdochs put decency above dollars and remove him from the airwaves. But it's important to remember what Carlson is: nothing more than an outrage machine. What he offers is not political commentary. It's Fox-approved nonsense meant to juice ratings — and it works."

"Jon Stewart: I regret losing my patience. That's about it. But calling him a dick? Not really. I was calling that guy who was on that show right there a dick—I don't pretend to know Tucker as a person. But I regret going on air as tired as I was and not being more articulate with what I wanted to say."

"Oprah Winfrey: You caused a media storm by calling Crossfire host Tucker Carlson a dick when you went on his show last year. Do you regret that?"

"Jon Stewart: You know what’s interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show."

"Carlson: I do think you’re more fun on your show. Just my opinion."

"I wonder how long it will take before Tucker Carlson is put into prison as a Russian agent."

"Our acquaintance, the host of Fox News Tucker Carlson, obviously has his own interests⁠—but lately, more and more often, they're in tune with our own."

"It definitely is not. Bye-bye Tucker Carlson! #BlackLivesMatter."

"data about the demographics of COVID-19 victims began to trickle out. On April 7, major outlets began reporting that preliminary data showed that black and Latino Americans were being disproportionately felled by the coronavirus...That night, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced, "It hasn't been the disaster that we feared"...The nationwide death toll that day was just 13,000 people; it now stands above 70,000, a mere month later...Public-health restrictions designed to contain the outbreak were deemed absurd. They seemed, in Carlson's words, "mindless and authoritarian," a "weird kind of arbitrary fascism." To restrict the freedom of white Americans, just because nonwhite Americans are dying, is an egregious violation of the racial contract. (p 235-6)"

"The Republican Party has grown more racially and religiously homogeneous and its politics more dependent on manufacturing threats to the status of white Christians. This is why Trump frequently and falsely implies that Americans were afraid to say "Merry Christmas" before he was elected, and why Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham warn Fox News viewers that nonwhite immigrants are stealing America. For both the Republican Party and conservative media, wielding power and influence depends on making white Americans feel threatened by the growing political influence of those who are different from them."

"I'm hearing, it’s shocking to me, that his numbers actually are far outpacing anything Megyn Kelly’s ever done over there at 9 o’clock . . . A lot of people were concerned when Megyn Kelly left that the numbers would go down, but they’ve actually gone up."

"I know somebody else who‘s fascinating. I grew up with him, knowing him as the fifth Beatle. You know him as Tucker Carlson."

"With all due respect to my colleague, Tucker Carlson, what grown man wants to look like he was dressed up by his mother?"

"Tucker Carlson has built his career over the last decade on the inherent authority which comes with being on television. He can use his platform to mainstream white nationalist or white supremacist talking points and ideas that his audience otherwise would not be privy to. Tucker Carlson has managed to pervert the privilege with comes with being on television into an opportunity to mainstream white nationalism.What Tucker is doing is not abstract. Mainstreaming these talking points puts vulnerable communities under direct threat of physical and material harm. The FBI has documented a rise in hate crimes since Trump's campaign and through to the third year of his presidency. There have been massacres targeting Muslims, black people and Jewish people in churches, mosques and synagogues. There is a real life-and-death consequence from the unfettered white nationalism on Fox News, the No. 1 cable news network in the country."

"One of my recent analyses contains more than 140 examples of when Tucker Carlson has relied on white nationalists and anti-Semitic tropes in his programming. One of the most prominent ways this manifests is an obsession with racial demographics, and how they are changing in the United States. Tucker Carlson is obsessed with "cultural preservation." There is an entire international far-right movement that echoes such sentiments. Carlson is also constantly fear-mongering about immigrants and blaming every possible problem on the individual choices of immigrants, as opposed to systemic institutions that perpetuate poverty and racism and which impact all people in the United States."

"He has no intellectual understanding of the white supremacist movement. He's simply an old-school racist without any need for an underlying philosophy to justify it."

"Of all the Fox News personalities who harp on immigration, he is the one with the most sophisticated white nationalist ideology. His ideas fall much more in line with the new strain of right-wing "populism" of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon than David Duke (although the latter is a big fan.)"

"As much as people are rightly laying responsibility for much of the philosophy and rhetoric that clearly motivated the El Paso killer at the feet of the president, it's important to remember where Trump gets many of his talking points: Fox News. Anyone who has tuned into their evening lineup over the past couple of years knows that the language in the shooter's online screed could have come from the mouths of any number of the network's stars. But the only one who has been spouting the specific ideological mix that motivated the killer is Tucker Carlson."

"Not gonna lie, it’s kinda fun watching a racist fool like this weeping about my presence in Congress,"

"As tempting as it is to dismiss the controversy that follows Tucker every week as one more artifact of our outrage culture, it's important to remember that what Tucker is saying is fucking outrageous."

"For Tucker, it seems that Western civilization is somehow both the mighty and essential bedrock upon which all modern human existence is built, and also a delicate house of cards that will collapse if you so much as look at it wrong."

"According to Tucker, "dismantling the system of oppression" means "dismantling the entire american economy and system of governement". Now, did he inadvertently make a nuanced point about how systemic oppression is definitionally baked into every level and facet of that very same system? Yeah, yes he did. Am I'm going to give him credit for doing that? FUCK NO, especially not when this is what he said next."

""I couldn't care less about what this talking inferiority complex has to say, but I do feel for the women and survivors in his life who now see they wouldn't be believed or safe with him...Many survivors of assault don't tell family, friends, etc bc of how they see others treated"

"When you look at what Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on Fox do, it is very, very clearly incitement of violence — very clearly incitement of violence. And that is the line that we have to be willing to contend with."

"That man's a beast; who else could fill an entire show each night, asking questions that Google could easily answer?"

"Tucker Carlson is attempting to stay the course amid an advertiser exodus from his Fox News program because of his racist commentary. Carlson had been a mouthpiece for white supremacy, and since being promoted to a prime-time slot on Fox, he has elevated fringe “alt-right” grievances into mainstream media."

"Tucker Carlson lambasted his fellow members of the right this week over their response to an ICE agent fatally shooting a woman in Minneapolis, accusing them of trying to score “political points” and failing to see Renee Good’s death “through a human lens.” “The 37-year-old was an American citizen and reportedly the mother of a kindergarten-aged child. Did we disagree with her views on immigration? Probably. But that shouldn’t matter,” a recent edition of Carlson’s newsletter read. “Her death is a tragedy, regardless of her partisan affiliations, ideological beliefs, or who pulled the trigger. A woman got shot in the face.” The right-wing broadcaster added that numerous conservatives criticized the left’s at-times insensitive response to the recent killing of activist Charlie Kirk, and claimed “violence around the world is desensitizing Americans to violence at home,” pointing to the recent U.S. incursion in Venezuela and American support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza. Carlson’s nonpartisan tone surprised some on the left, including former Obama administration official and podcaster Jon Favreau. “Somehow, Tucker Carlson had a far more humane reaction to Good's death than JD Vance,” Favreau wrote on X."

"I think the thing that Tucker gets a knock for — that he doesn’t deserve — is this idea that he’s evolved and changed in some radical new direction. Tucker has always been that guy. He is legitimately that guy. He is not faking it. He comes by his beliefs and his convictions and even his tone of voice quite naturally. He is not putting it on."

"Tucker and I agree on just about nothing, but he has always been kind to me, and a fun person to fight with. I wish him all the best."

"Although Carlson flirts with white identity politics, particularly on the topic of immigration, his real ideology isn’t white nationalism or even conservatism, at least in the sense that conservatism has come to be defined in America. More than anything, he espouses the Middle American radicalism that John Judis, writing in 2016, identified as the ideological core of Trumpism. Middle American radicals (MARs) are neither fully liberal nor conservative but a blend of the two, mixing populist economics and a hostility to big business with intense nationalism, right-wing positions on race and immigration, and a desire for strong presidential leadership. Their animating idea is that the broad (and implicitly white) middle of American society — those Carlson referred to, in a podcast interview with Ben Shapiro, as people with “100 IQs making 80 grand a year” — is besieged on two sides, by a corrupt elite above it and a grasping underclass below."

"From his position in the 8 p.m. slot, Carlson has managed to become one of the most influential voices in conservative politics, often by refusing to adhere to Republican conventional wisdom. Only a few weeks before the Iran flare-up, he delivered a monologue in praise of Elizabeth Warren’s “economic patriotism” plan; in January, he launched an intra-conservative war over the virtues of capitalism with a monologue attacking Mitt Romney, private equity, and conservatives who “worship” the market. He is also perhaps the most reviled talking head in the country thanks to his frequent diatribes against diversity, immigration, and multiculturalism."

"Tucker's not one to be plagued with dark nights of the soul . . . He seems to bob along and that's part of his appeal, his perpetual chipperness. The guy can handle more workload than anybody I know."

"Tucker Carlson began at The Weekly Standard. Tucker Carlson was a great young reporter. He was one of the most gifted 24-year-olds I’ve seen in the 20 years that I edited the magazine. His copy was sort of perfect at age 24. He had always a little touch of Pat Buchananism, I would say, paleo-conservativism. But that’s very different from what he’s become now. I mean, it is close now to racism, white — I mean, I don’t know if it’s racism exactly — but ethno-nationalism of some kind, let’s call it. A combination of dumbing down, as you said earlier, and stirring people’s emotions in a very unhealthy way."

"He's great at digging up stuff and great at getting people to confide in him and tell him things they later wish they hadn't . . . He's engaging and boyish, and people take a liking to him."

"I've been amazed and horrified by how many people are frightened of a guy called Tucker Carlson. Has anybody heard of somebody called — has anybody heard of Tucker Carlson? [...] What is it with this guy? All these wonderful Republicans seem somehow intimidated by his — by his perspective. I haven’t watched anything that he’s said"

"Hitchens: But I do remember telling Tucker, I wish he wouldn't give up writing for TV. And I hope he sometimes hears the distant, hollow echo of my voice, "Tucker, don't do that!""

"Interviewer: And another book I wanna..."

"Hitchens: Do you know, I can't remember what the piece is now, and I hope he isn't watching. It's, although this was pre-9/11 it seems like so long ago to me. I'm, I hope Tucker will forgive if I say I don't remember which piece we picked from him."