I’m sure Tucker thinks he’s being funny. But I would guess that a good number of his audience, people who look up to him, think he’s endorsing this lunacy. Why else would he have her on his roadshow?
The Washington Post reported on the spectacle:
If you think Tucker Carlson’s political relevance has slipped since he was booted from Fox News last spring, then listen to the people who have lined up to see his live shows this month.
Ask those in Phoenix who braved 108 degrees to see him banter with Russell Brand,the comic actor turned podcaster who says he’s found Jesus.
Or the people in Hershey, Pa., who got drenched by rain whilewaiting to get into Carlson’s event with vice-presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio).
If anything, they say, Tucker has gotten stronger now that he’s on his own, loosed from the strictures (and paycheck) of corporate media and now sovereign of his own digital channel.
“I think he’s probably even more influential, actually,” said registered nurse Laura Kahler, 64, who was first to arrive at the Footprint Center in Phoenix — well, first after the VIPs who paid $1,600 for a pre-show meet-and-greet with Carlson.
Gilbert Rodriguez, a retired veteran, flew from Georgia to Phoenix to attend the Carlson show. “He’s a realist,” Rodriguez said. “He doesn’t run away from the truth. He’s not afraid to talk about things that people don’t want to talk about.”
One couple arrived to the Giant Center in Hershey at 3 p.m., four hours before showtime, to tailgate in the parking lot, just as they had for a Def Leppard and Journey concert a few months earlier. “I think initially maybe I didn’t like him,” said John Castrovinci, 58, “but then I think the more I watched him and listened, I found I agreed with a lot of the points he made.”z
[…]
While the Giant Center was mostly full, ticket prices dropped as the event neared, a trend that was chronicled thoroughly by journalists from PennLive.com, which reported that tickets that once ranged from $56 to $84 in price were now available for between $35 and $42 a few days before the show.
CNN personality Brian Stelter said on X last month that he removed some writing about Carlson for the paperback edition of his latest book on Fox because “he has lost a lot of his influence since last year.”
And even Carlson doesn’t seem to know what, exactly, he’s doing with this tour. Is he still a media personality? Is he a political activist? He certainly looked like one when he hobnobbed at the Republican National Convention with Trump, a man he once referred to as “a demonic force” in a text message (released as part of the defamation lawsuit filed against Fox by election-technology company Dominion).
“I don’t even know what I do for a living at this point,” he said Saturday night in Hershey.
Sure you do Tuck. It’s called “grifting” and your marks are all the sad, ignorant MAGA true believers who pay you money for this bullshit. But you know that.