Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson is an American conservative political commentator and writer who hosted the nightly political talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News from 2016 to 2023. Since being fired from Fox News, he has hosted Tucker on X.
Carlson began his media career in the 1990s, writing for The Weekly Standard and other publications. He was a CNN commentator from 2000 to 2005 and a co-host of the network's prime-time news debate program Crossfire from 2001 to 2005. From 2005 to 2008, he hosted the nightly program Tucker on MSNBC. In 2009, he became a political analyst for Fox News, appearing on various programs before launching his own show. In 2010, Carlson co-founded and served as the initial editor-in-chief of the right-wing news and opinion website The Daily Caller, until selling his ownership stake and leaving in 2020. He has written three books: Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites (2003), Ship of Fools (2018), and The Long Slide (2021).
Described as a leading voice of white grievance politics, Carlson is known for circulating far-right ideas into mainstream politics and discourse. He has promoted conspiracy theories on topics such as demographic replacement, COVID-19, the January 6 United States Capitol attack, and Ukrainian bioweapons; and has been noted for false and misleading statements about these and other topics. An advocate of former U.S. president Donald Trump, Carlson was described by Politico as "perhaps the highest-profile proponent of 'Trumpism'" and would criticize Trump when he believed he was straying from that ideology. Carlson's remarks on race, immigration, and women – including slurs he said on air between 2006 and 2011 (which resurfaced in 2019) – have at times been described as racist and sexist, and provoked advertiser boycotts of Tucker Carlson Tonight. The show was one of the most watched United States cable news shows until April 2023, when Fox News dismissed Carlson and cancelled Tucker Carlson Tonight, without providing a reason. In June, he began posting a show on Twitter called Tucker on Twitter, which was rebranded as Tucker on X after the site changed its name.
