Tucker Carlson

Early life

Carlson was born in San Francisco, California, the elder son of Richard Warner Carlson, a former Los Angeles news anchor and U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles, who was also president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and director of Voice of America. His mother is the former Lisa McNear Lombardi, and his stepmother is the former Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to the Swanson frozen-food fortune (daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson and granddaughter of Carl A. Swanson) and a niece of Senator J. William Fulbright. He has a brother, Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson. According to a profile in People magazine, "Tucker and younger brother Buckley were raised in La Jolla, Calif., by their father and stepmother, Patricia, after their mother left home when Tucker was 6." While living in La Jolla, California, Tucker briefly attended La Jolla Country Day School before relocating to the East Coast.

He attended St. George's School, a boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island. After graduation, he studied at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and graduated in 1992 with a B.A. in history.

He is married to Susan Carlson, née Andrews, a St. George's classmate whose father was the school's headmaster during their time there. They met each other while attending St. George's School at Rhode Island and got married in 1991. Together, they have four children, three girls and one boy.

Career

Carlson began his journalism career as a member of the editorial staff of Policy Review, a national conservative journal then published by The Heritage Foundation (and since acquired by the Hoover Institution). He later worked as a reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, and at The Weekly Standard.

As a magazine and newspaper journalist, Carlson has reported from around the world. He has been a columnist for New York and Reader's Digest. He has also written for Esquire, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, and The Daily Beast.

Carlson joined CNN as its youngest anchor ever, remaining at the network until February 2005. Carlson got his television start in 2000 as co-host of The Spin Room opposite Bill Press.

CNN's Crossfire

In 2001 he was appointed co-host of Crossfire, where he represented the political right. During the same period, Carlson also hosted a weekly public affairs program on PBS, Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered.

One of Carlson's most memorable appearances on Crossfire was his October 2004 heated exchange with Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, prior to the 2004 presidential election. After their televised confrontation, Carlson recalls, Stewart stayed at CNN several hours after the show to discuss the issues that he raised on the air. "It was heartfelt," Carlson said, "He [Stewart] needed to do this."

In January 2005, CNN suddenly announced they were ending their relationship with Carlson and would soon cancel Crossfire. CNN chief Jonathan Klein told Carlson on January 4, 2005, that the network had decided not to renew his contract. Carlson has said that he had already resigned from CNN and Crossfire long before Stewart was booked as a guest, telling host Patricia Duff: "I resigned from Crossfire in April, many months before Jon Stewart came on our show, because I didn't like the partisanship, and I thought in some ways it was kind of a pointless conversation ... each side coming out, you know, 'Here's my argument', and no one listening to anyone else. [CNN] was a frustrating place to work."

MSNBC's Tucker

Carlson's early evening show, Tucker, premiered June 13, 2005, on MSNBC (originally titled The Situation With Tucker Carlson). The show lasted fewer than three seasons; the network announced its cancellation due to low ratings on March 10, 2008. The final episode aired on March 14, 2008. Brian Stelter of The New York Times noted that "during Mr. Carlson's tenure, MSNBC's evening programming moved gradually to the left. His former time slots, 6 and 9 p.m., were then occupied by two liberals, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow." Carlson stated that the network had changed a lot and "they didn't have a role for me."

Carlson had also hosted a late afternoon weekday wrap-up for MSNBC during the 2006 Winter Olympics, during which he attempted to learn how to play various Olympic sports. In July 2006, he reported live for Tucker from Haifa, Israel, during the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. While in the Middle East, he also hosted MSNBC Special Report: Mideast Crisis. He appeared regularly on Verdict with Dan Abrams as a panelist in political discussions.

Fox News Channel

In May 2009, it was announced that Carlson was hired as a Fox News contributor. Since then, he has been a frequent guest panelist on Fox's late-night satire show Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld, made frequent appearances on the All-Star Panel segment of Special Report with Bret Baier, been a substitute host of Hannity in Sean Hannity's absence, and produced a Fox News special titled "Fighting for Our Children's Minds".

In March 2013, it was announced that Carlson was tapped to co-host the weekend editions of Fox & Friends. Beginning in April, Carlson, a Fox News contributor and frequent guest host on the program, officially joined co-hosts Alisyn Camerota and Clayton Morris on Saturday and Sunday mornings. He replaced Dave Briggs, who left the news channel to join the NBC Sports Network on New Years 2013.

Tucker Carlson Tonight

On November 14, 2016, Carlson started hosting a new show on Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, which debuted as "the network's most watched telecast of the year in the time slot". The broadcast aired at 7pm ET each weeknight until January 9, when he replaced Megyn Kelly at the 9pm ET time slot after she left Fox News. Tucker Carlson Tonight is the most watched cable program in the 9pm time slot as of March 2017. Carlson took the reins from Brit Hume, who hosted On the Record on an interim basis at 7pm ET when longtime host Greta Van Susteren departed the Fox News broadcast in September 2016. His replacement on Fox & Friends Weekend has yet to be announced. On April 19, 2017, it was announced that Tucker Carlson Tonight would take over Fox News' 8pm timeslot following the cancellation of The O'Reilly Factor over sexual harassment allegations.

The Daily Caller

On January 11, 2010, Carlson and former vice president Dick Cheney aide Neil Patel launched a political news website titled The Daily Caller. Carlson served as editor in chief, and occasionally wrote opinion pieces with Patel.

The Daily Caller is in the White House rotating press pool. Its reporters have appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS, and radio stations across the country. Reporters and columnists for The Daily Caller include Matt Lewis, Alex Pappas, Evan Gahr, Jamie Weinstein, Will Rahn, Caroline May, Nicholas Ballasy, Vince Coglianese, Matt Labash, Jeff Poor, Alexis Levinson and Jim Treacher.

In an interview with The Politico, Carlson said that The Daily Caller will not be tied to ideology but rather will be "breaking stories of importance". In a Washington Post article, Carlson added, "We're not enforcing any kind of ideological orthodoxy on anyone." Columnist Mickey Kaus quit after Carlson refused to run a column critical of Fox News's coverage of the immigration policy debate.

Climate change

Carlson rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. According to Carlson, whether human activities contribute to climate change is "unknowable".

Conservatism

Carlson is considered a conservative. Carlson criticized 2000 presidential candidate John McCain for being insufficiently ideological. Speaking to Salon.com, Carlson responded:

I liked McCain. And I would have voted for McCain for president happily, not because I agree with his politics; I never took McCain's politics seriously enough even to have strong feelings about them. I don't think McCain has very strong politics. He's interested in ideas almost as little as George W. Bush is. McCain isn't intellectual, and doesn't have a strong ideology at all. He's wound up sort of as a liberal Republican because he's mad at other Republicans, not because he's a liberal.

Carlson has stated that former U.S. president George W. Bush is not a true conservative. In an August 27, 2004, Washington Post interview, Carlson expressed his "displeasure with Bush". Carlson asked: "Why do so many antiwar liberals give [John] Kerry a pass when he adopts the Bush view on Iraq, as he has? The amount of team-playing on the left depresses me." Carlson did not vote in the 2004 election, citing his disgust with the Iraq War and his disillusionment with the once small-government Republican Party. He would go on to say:

I don't know what you consider conservative, but I'm not much of a liberal, at least as the word is currently defined. For instance, I'm utterly opposed to abortion, which I think is horrible and cruel. I think affirmative action is wrong. I'd like to slow immigration pretty dramatically. I hate all nanny state regulations, such as seat belt laws and smoking bans. I'm not for big government. I think the U.S. ought to hesitate before intervening abroad. I think these are conservative impulses. So by my criteria, Bush isn't much of a conservative.

Immigration

Carlson has been accused of demonizing immigrants, both legal and undocumented.

Views on the Iraq war

Carlson supported the U.S. war with Iraq during its first year. After a year, however, he began criticizing the war, telling the New York Observer:

I think it's a total nightmare and disaster, and I'm ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it. It's something I'll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who's smarter than I am, and I shouldn't have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I'm enraged by it, actually.

Gay marriage

On July 24, 2007, Carlson said on his show, "I'm just for marriage generally. I'm for people making a lifelong commitment. Do you know what I mean? I'm not against gay marriage, actually, and I'm the most right-wing person I know." Carlson later went on to say, "I think, marriage has been a great thing for me, and I think it's a really civilizing force, and I think it would be a civilizing force for gay people too."

Libertarianism

Carlson voted for Ron Paul in 1988 when he was running as the Libertarian Party presidential candidate. On November 26, 2007, it was reported that Carlson lobbied Nevada brothel owner Dennis Hof to support Paul's candidacy. Explained Carlson, "Dennis Hof is a good friend of mine, so when we got to Nevada, I decided to call him up and see if he wanted to come check this guy out."

On September 2, 2008, Carlson participated in Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty Rally for the Republic in Minneapolis, as the first speaker to introduce the rally and also acted as the MC by introducing nearly every guest speaker. On February 23, 2009, Carlson was introduced as a senior fellow for the Cato Institute; he is no longer a senior fellow there.

Russia

Carlson does not consider Russia a serious threat to US interests. Carlson has called for the United States to work with Russia in the Syrian Civil War. He opposes overthrowing Bashar al-Assad. According to Peter Beinart of the Atlantic, Carlson has been an "apologist for Donald Trump on the Russia scandal". Carlson described the controversy in the wake of revelation that Donald Trump Jr. was willing to accept anti-Clinton information from a Russian government official as a "new level of hysteria" and said that Trump Jr. had only been “gossiping with foreigners.”

Public image

Carlson was known for wearing bow ties.

In 2005 on the season-five episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, "The Bowtie", a character refers to Larry David as "Tucker Carlson" for wearing one. In 2007, he appeared as himself in the episode "Manhattan Project" (Season 9, Episode 10) on the sitcom The King of Queens.

On April 11, 2006, Carlson announced on his MSNBC show that he would no longer be wearing a bow-tie, adding, "I just decided I wanted to give my neck a break. A little change is good once in a while, and I feel better already." He now wears long neckties on the air, and on the February 28, 2014, edition of The Alex Jones Show, while talking about his reasons for returning to wearing a long necktie, Carlson said that "if you wear a bow tie, it's like [wearing] a middle finger around your neck; you're just inviting scorn and ridicule ... the number of people screaming the F-word at me ... it wore me down after a while so I gave in and became conventional."

Criticism

In The New York Times, James Poniewozik wrote, “Mr. Carlson does not seek to interview his subjects but to defeat them … He shifts topics to imply hypocrisies … He prods, pounces, guffaws and interrupts … The camera holds tight on his face to show every squint of bemusement, contempt and confusion. (His default face is that of a bear puzzling out how to get at a beehive.) A long ‘Ohhhhh’ means he believes a guest has just let slip a secret agenda. ‘I agree with you!’ means he does not agree at all.”

Dancing with the Stars

On August 14, 2006, the ABC television network announced that Carlson would be a participant in its fall 2006 Dancing with the Stars reality show.

Carlson reportedly took four-hour-a-day ballroom dance classes in preparation for the competition, and mourned "missed classes" during an MSNBC assignment in Lebanon. "It's hard for me to remember the moves", he stated. Asked why he accepted ABC's invitation to perform, Carlson responded, "I'm not defending it as the smartest choice, but I think it's the most interesting. I think if you sat back and tried to plan my career, you might not choose this. But my only criterion is the interest level. I want to lead an interesting life." He concluded, "I'm 37. I've got four kids. I have a steady job. I don't do things that I'm not good at very often. I'm psyched to get to do that."

He and his partner, Elena Grinenko were the first team eliminated from the competition. At the close of their elimination show, Grinenko said that teaching him to dance was "like Einstein teaching addition to a slow child".

Autobiography

In 2003, Carlson authored an autobiography, Politicians, Partisans and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News, about his television news experiences that he published through Warner Books. One of the book's revelations was Carlson's description of how he was falsely accused of raping a woman he did not know, someone suffering from severe mental illness and displaying stalker-like behavior. Carlson wrote in the book that the incident was emotionally traumatic.

Forthcoming

In May 2017, Carlson, represented by the literary and creative agency Javelin, signed an eight-figure, two-book deal with Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions.