Tucker Carlson

Overview

Tucker Carlson is an American conservative political commentator who hosted the nightly talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News from 2016 to 2023, one of cable news’ most-watched prime-time programs, before an abrupt exit for which Fox never gave a reason (Al Jazeera, Christian Post). Since leaving Fox he has operated as an independent media figure, interviewing Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow in February 2024 (Al Jazeera). Born May 16, 1969, in San Francisco (On This Day), Carlson has spent nearly three decades in cable news across CNN, MSNBC and Fox (NPR).

After supporting Donald Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign, Carlson broke with the president over the 2026 U.S.-Israel war with Iran (New York Post). In September 2026 he said Trump should have been removed from office by his own Cabinet under the 25th Amendment (NPR), and he alleged in a Vanity Fair profile that an order to keep the government’s Jeffrey Epstein files sealed came from Trump himself (NPR, Headline Reporter).

From print to cable: CNN, MSNBC and The Daily Caller

After starting in print journalism, Carlson moved into television at CNN, where he co-hosted the prime-time debate program Crossfire (On This Day). Al Jazeera describes that slot as his first major TV job, noting that he represented right-wing views on the show (Al Jazeera). A 2004 appearance on Crossfire by Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who criticized the program, preceded the show’s cancellation (On This Day).

Carlson then hosted the nightly program Tucker on MSNBC from 2005 to 2008 before joining Fox News as a political analyst in 2009, appearing as a contributor and guest host on various programs (On This Day; Al Jazeera).

In 2010 Carlson and his former Trinity College roommate Neil Patel began publishing The Daily Caller, a conservative news site branded as a right-wing alternative to the Huffington Post, with $3 million in backing from Republican donor Foster Friess (InsideHook). Carlson served as editor-in-chief while Patel was publisher. In 2020 Carlson left the site, telling The Wall Street Journal he was too absorbed in his nightly Fox show to help, and Patel bought out his stake to take a controlling interest (InsideHook).

Fox News: prime-time peak and the 2023 exit

Carlson got his own Fox show in 2016. Tucker Carlson Tonight drew more than three million nightly viewers and ranked among Fox’s top-rated prime-time programs (Christian Post). The Christian Post characterized him at the time of his departure as Fox News’ highest-rated prime-time host (Christian Post).

On April 24, 2023, Fox announced that it had “agreed to part ways” with Carlson, thanking him for his service as a host and, before that, as a contributor; his last program had aired on Friday, April 21 (Al Jazeera). The network gave no reason for the abrupt departure. The announcement came less than a week after Fox reached a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in the defamation case over false claims about its voting machines aired after the 2020 election (Al Jazeera; Christian Post). Only one of the 20 claims on Fox that Dominion said were defamatory had aired on Tucker Carlson Tonight (Al Jazeera).

Private text messages that surfaced in the Dominion lawsuit showed that Carlson had criticized Trump privately and said he hated him “passionately” after the 2020 race — even as he continued to enjoy apparently good relations with the former president and hosted him for a lengthy interview earlier in April 2023 (Al Jazeera).

Independent media and the Putin interview

After Fox, Carlson launched an independent program on X, called Tucker on X, and published through his own website. In February 2024 he traveled to Moscow to interview Russian president Vladimir Putin, announcing the interview in a video shot from a Moscow tower (Al Jazeera). It was Putin’s first formal interview with a Western journalist since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began nearly two years earlier (Al Jazeera).

Carlson said his aim was to counter what he described as pro-Ukraine “fawning pep sessions” by Western media and to help Americans understand Russia’s view of the war (Al Jazeera). The interview drew a wave of criticism: the White House said Putin should not be given an uncritical outlet, with National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby saying, “I don’t think we need another interview with Vladimir Putin to understand his brutality” (Al Jazeera). CNN’s Christiane Amanpour publicly disputed Carlson’s claim that he was the only Western journalist seeking the interview, former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt floated an EU travel ban on Carlson, and former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger called him a “traitor” (Al Jazeera). The Kremlin, by contrast, said Putin agreed because Carlson offered an alternative to one-sided Western coverage, with spokesperson Dmitry Peskov describing Carlson’s approach as “in no way pro-Russian, it is not pro-Ukrainian — it is pro-American” (Al Jazeera).

From Trump ally to critic: the 2024 campaign and the Iran rupture

Carlson supported Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign — the New York Post reported he backed Trump largely because of the political prosecutions Trump faced, particularly over the alleged mishandling of classified documents, and recalled the 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago as “transparently absurd” (New York Post). He addressed the 2024 Republican National Convention, where he described Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt as “divine intervention” (Türkiye Today).

The relationship ruptured over the war with Iran that the United States and Israel began in late February 2026 (New York Post). In an interview with The New York Times released in early May 2026, Carlson said Trump was “more a hostage than a sovereign decision-maker” in the war, controlled — in Carlson’s account — by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his advocates in the United States (Türkiye Today). “Trump said, I want a negotiated settlement. Israel stopped the settlement,” Carlson said. “That is slavery. That is total control of one man by another” (Türkiye Today).

Carlson said he had flown to Washington three times in the weeks before the war, meeting Trump in the Oval Office, having lunch with him once, and speaking by phone many times (Türkiye Today). He said Trump would begin almost every conversation by asking, “Do you want Iran to have a nuclear weapon?”, and that Trump repeatedly reassured him, “It’s going to be all right. Everything’s going to be OK” (Türkiye Today). Carlson said his strong feeling was that Trump “felt he had no choice and that he was resigned to it,” and that the reassurances were “more a justification from a man who feels he has no choice” (Türkiye Today). He described Trump as “not well informed on a lot of topics” but possessing “remarkable powers of insight into people and power dynamics,” and said his opposition to the war was never about Trump personally: “I just didn’t want the United States to go to war with Iran” (Türkiye Today).

In a podcast interview with Hunter Biden released on August 10, 2026, Carlson went further, calling Trump “flamboyantly corrupt” (New York Post). The interview — with a figure Carlson had once attacked as a symbol of corruption — drew wide attention; speculation about a 2028 Carlson presidential run was dismissed by people close to him as press fantasy (New York Post).

The sharpest break came on September 24, 2026, in an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep. Carlson said Trump should have been removed from office by his own Cabinet secretaries “the moment he threatened a nuclear attack” on Iran. Asked whether he meant the 25th Amendment, he replied, “That’s correct. He should have been bundled up and taken out. That’s a crime. There’s no greater crime than that” (NPR).

In the same interview Carlson recounted a private Oval Office meeting days before the war began, in which he said he warned Trump that the war would collapse the American empire, push the United States out of the Gulf, and destroy Trump’s legacy and the Republican Party. Trump, he said, looked at him and replied: “Yes, you’re right. But in the end, we all die anyway, so it doesn’t matter” (NPR; Christian Post). Carlson said he was shocked — “that’s nihilism. And that’s the last thing any leader should display” (Christian Post). The account is Carlson’s alone: NPR reported that the White House did not specifically address it, instead pointing NPR to a Trump social-media post calling Carlson and other critics “stupid people” (NPR).

Carlson also told Inskeep the war was being pushed by Israel to take Iran “off the map,” diminish the Gulf Arab states and push the U.S. out of the region, and described American politics as a “uniparty” controlled by Israel — claims Inskeep challenged during the interview (NPR).

The Epstein-files allegation

On September 16, 2026, Vanity Fair published Chris Whipple’s profile of Vice President JD Vance, “God And Vance At Yale,” which included on-the-record comments from Carlson about the government’s Jeffrey Epstein files (NPR; Headline Reporter). Carlson told Whipple he had pressed Trump to release the files and had received different answers, before concluding: “The order to cover it up came from Trump” (Headline Reporter). He said he asked Trump why, and Trump gave “this long, very emotional explanation that this was all a plot against him, like Russiagate” (Headline Reporter).

Whipple himself emphasized the attribution when discussing the piece on NPR: “Trump, on the other hand, according to Carlson, ordered the cover-up. Carlson’s words, not mine” (NPR). The White House disputed the claim: spokeswoman Lauren Bis said Trump had been “totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” and credited him with releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with a House Oversight Committee subpoena request, signing the transparency act and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democratic associates (Headline Reporter).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not establish that the Oval Office exchange Carlson described happened as he recounts it: he is the only source for it, and the White House did not specifically confirm or deny it. It does not claim that Trump explicitly threatened to use nuclear weapons; characterizing Trump’s language as a nuclear threat is Carlson’s interpretation. It does not claim the Dominion settlement caused Carlson’s Fox firing — Fox gave no reason. It does not claim Carlson is running for president in 2028; people close to him told the New York Post he is not. It does not claim Trump’s alleged order on the Epstein files as fact — it is Carlson’s on-the-record allegation, disputed by the White House. It does not date The Daily Caller’s founding to January 11, 2010, a date carried by Wikipedia but not verified in the fetched sources; it says only that the site began publishing in 2010. Finally, it does not repeat characterizations of Carlson from search-result snippets or social media that were not verified in a full fetched source.