Carlson has been described in the media as a conservative,
paleoconservative,
right-wing extremist, and
far-right. In 2021,
Time magazine said Carlson "may be the most powerful conservative in America". Carlson is noted for circulating
white nationalist views and terminology into mainstream political discourse, in particular, repackaging the fringe racist
"replacement" conspiracy theory into a version that accuses
Democrats and "elites" of forcing demographic change. He was previously registered as a
Democrat in Washington, D.C., from 2006 to 2020. In 2017, Carlson said his registration as a Democrat was to gain the right to vote in the primaries for mayoral elections in the district, and that he nevertheless "sincerely despise[s]" the Democratic Party and "always vote[d] for the more corrupt candidate over the idealist" in order to favor the status quo and stem
progressivism. Carlson campaigned for Republicans and Republican-affiliated causes during his time as a Democrat.
Parties and candidates in 2018 In public correspondence in
Slate with
Texas Monthlys
Evan Smith on November 29, 1999, Carlson agreed with Smith's low opinion of Donald Trump, who was then
running for president with the
Reform Party. Carlson wrote that Trump was "the single most repulsive person on the planet" and that the Reform Party consisted of "a bunch of wackos". Separately, he criticized the party's
eventual nominee,
Pat Buchanan. In his 2018 book,
Ship of Fools, Carlson wrote that he had adopted some of Buchanan's views. Carlson voted for
George W. Bush in the
2000 election. Carlson told
Salon in 2003 that some Washington conservatives suspected he was "secretly liberal" because he liked
John McCain. Carlson did not vote in the
2004 election, citing his souring on the
Iraq War, his disillusionment with the once
small-government Republican Party, and his disappointment with Bush and like-minded conservatives. Carlson was reportedly floated as a potential candidate for the
Libertarian nomination in the
2008 presidential election. He was included in polling at the
2008 Libertarian National Convention, with unconfirmed speculation arising that he was personally funding the effort. Carlson spoke at
Ron Paul's independent
Rally for the Republic convention, opposite the official
2008 Republican National Convention, in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, which served as a "message of revolt to the Republican Party" and a general celebration of Paul's policy proposals. He expressed his disappointment with the Republican nominee for the
2012 election,
Mitt Romney, and the
health care reform he signed in 2006 as
governor of Massachusetts, which contained an
individual mandate, saying, "out of 315 million Americans, the Republican Party managed to find the one guy who couldn't run on
Obamacare." Writing for
Politico in January 2016, Carlson expressed his support for Donald Trump's candidacy and his positions, such as his proposed "
Muslim ban", and criticized the other Republican candidates for not similarly making immigration a core issue. Carlson's commentaries did not uniformly praise Trump, but he had frequent scorn for Trump's critics; some commentators called Carlson an exemplar of "anti-anti-Trump" arguments. In March 2023, Carlson defended Trump after he was
indicted in New York, calling the indictment "election interference". Despite his praise for Trump, he has at times been critical. Carlson criticized the
assassination of Qasem Soleimani, ordered by Trump in January 2020 Following the
2020 election, Carlson reportedly told people he had voted for
independent candidate Kanye West, though
Politico points out that it was unclear whether Carlson "was serious or merely joking". Carlson supported
JD Vance in the
2022 Republican U.S. Senate primary in Ohio and privately persuaded Trump to endorse him despite Vance's past anti-Trump comments. Former Hawaii congresswoman and Democratic presidential primary contender
Tulsi Gabbard was a substitute host on
Tucker Carlson Tonight in 2022; she appeared on the show the night she left the Democratic Party in October 2022, to Carlson's praise.
Abortion Carlson opposes abortion and has said it is the only political issue he considers non-negotiable. Carlson has described
Roe v. Wade as "the most embarrassing court decision handed down in the last century". In 2024, Carlson dismissed the link between climate change and the increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes, attributing it instead to abortion. Explaining his rationale, he has compared abortion to ritual sacrifice, saying that one "can't participate in human sacrifice without consequences".
Death penalty Carlson wrote in 2000 that capital punishment "deserves more vigorous debate", and in 2003 told
Salon, "I'm opposed to the death penalty as I am adamantly opposed to abortion". After saying on Fox News in 2010 that
Michael Vick "should have been executed" for
dog fighting, Carlson stated that he is "not comfortable with the death penalty under any circumstances".
Guns Carlson supports the
right to keep and bear arms. He has opposed
gun control and the
assault weapons ban. He has debated several Democrats on gun control. In 2015, he said
Australian gun laws were "insane" and "childish". In March 2018, he criticized Donald Trump for comments supporting gun control after the
Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. In a 2019 interview, Carlson said he owns an
AR-15 style rifle and said "all my guns are working-class guns". He has a concealed carry permit in the District of Columbia. At trial, Rittenhouse pled self defense, and was found
not guilty on all charges.
Economics event Early in his career, Carlson supported
libertarian economics. He supported
Ron Paul's
1988 presidential candidacy, when Paul ran as the candidate for the
Libertarian Party, along with his
2008 presidential candidacy, when Paul ran as a Republican. Carlson said in 2004, "I hate all nanny-state regulations, such as seat belt laws and smoking bans." Since 2018, he has promoted more
populist economics, attacking
libertarianism, saying "
market capitalism is not a religion" and portraying some Republicans as "controlled by the banks". In 2019 on
Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson said America's "
ruling class" are, in effect, the "
mercenaries" behind the decline of the American middle class, and "any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society." He cited parallels between the problems of
inner cities and
rural areas as evidence that the "
culture of poverty" cited by conservatives as the cause of
urban decline "wasn't the whole story", and that "Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies possible." In January 2019, Carlson used a
The Washington Post op-ed by Romney to criticize what he described as the "mainstream Republican" worldview, consisting of "unwavering support for a
finance-based economy. He attacked
payday lenders, saying they "loan people money they can't possibly repay" and "charge them interest that impoverishes them" He praised Democratic presidential candidate
Elizabeth Warren's economic plan and called her book
The Two Income Trap "one of the best books I've ever read on economics".
Environment On his show, Carlson frequently hosts guests who downplay the
scientific consensus on climate change, and disagreed with
Bill Nye on the subject. Carlson has also said that he does not consider climate change a threat. Carlson argues that global warming will have many positive effects on Earth, namely "more arable land in places like Canada and northern Europe". In 2023, Carlson,
Clean Ocean Action, and multiple Republicans criticized
New Jersey and
New York's use of
wind power, falsely claiming that it has been contributing to the deaths of whales. In November 2025, Carlson promoted the
chemtrail conspiracy theory.
Foreign policy Carlson is skeptical of
foreign intervention, has expressed regret for his public support of the
U.S. invading Iraq in 2003, and has said "the U.S. ought to hesitate before
intervening abroad". Carlson is known for some defenses of
authoritarian foreign leaders, including
President Vladimir Putin of Russia,
President Nayib Bukele of
El Salvador, and
Prime minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary. Carlson said he does not consider Russia a serious threat to the United States, and called for the United States to work with Russia in the
Syrian Civil War against a common enemy like the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). He asserts that Putin does not hate the United States as much as
American liberals do, and suggested there is no reason to dislike Putin, asking his viewers to consider whether Putin has ever called them racist or threatened to get them fired for disagreeing with him. Carlson said it is "not treason, it is not un-American" to support Putin. In 2019, while discussing U.S. military aid to Ukraine during the
Donbas War, Carlson said on his show: "Why shouldn't I root for Russia? Which I
am". he has promoted
pro-Russian disinformation since then, such as a Russian conspiracy theory that the U.S. and
Kyiv were
developing biological weapons in Ukraine. Many of Carlson's broadcasts have been used by Russian state media to support their messaging, and
Mother Jones reported that the Kremlin sent a memo to state media outlets saying it was "essential" to use video clips of Carlson "as much as possible".
Mother Jones further observed Carlson was the only Western media pundit that the Kremlin adopted in this way. Carlson's views of Putin's Russia have changed markedly since the 2000s. Back then, he agreed that Russia was becoming a "police state" where "freedom of the press is disappearing", and said that Putin was "in league with our enemies". In 2004, Carlson wrote a commentary in
Esquire accusing Bush of weakness after the
September 11 attacks and in the
invasion of Iraq.
Iran In July 2017, Carlson said that "we actually don't face any domestic threat from
Iran". He asked
Max Boot to "tell me how many Americans in the United States have been murdered by terrorists backed by Iran since 9/11?" In 2019, Carlson lobbied Donald Trump to fire his national security advisor,
John Bolton. Carlson said Bolton was "demented" for seeking a military strike against Iran and accused him of undermining Trump by disagreeing publicly with Trump's decisions. In April 2018, Carlson questioned whether Assad was responsible for the
Douma chemical attack that had occurred a few days earlier and killed dozens. In November 2019, Carlson repeated this claim and queried whether the attack had happened at all. Carlson suggested that a similar attack that occurred the year before (the
Khan Shaykhun chemical attack), which was attributed to Assad's forces and which the
OPCW JIM indicated was carried out with sarin that bore the regime's signature, was a
false flag attack perpetrated to falsely implicate the Assad government. Carlson compared Assad's war crimes during the Syrian Civil War to
Saudi Arabia's
war crimes in Yemen. Early on in the conflict, Carlson proposed that
Lebanon fight and push out Hezbollah instead of going to war with Israel. During the conflict, he criticized Syria's involvement in the conflict in supporting Hezbollah and later expressed some support for the
Israel Defense Forces. However, he also criticized the tactics used by the Israel Defense Forces in fighting Hezbollah. He declared Israel guilty of
war crimes. Commentators have described him as part of a growing faction within the Republican Party that is either indifferent, or
directly opposed, to
Zionism. In 2025, Carlson criticized the Trump administration's
support for Israel in the Gaza war. In June, he criticized Trump's support for
Israeli strikes against Iran, opposing the possible involvement of the United States in a war with Iran. Carlson said: "I think this can be stopped. But it's going to require a really tough step which is to say to our client state which is to say, 'We love you, we want to help you, we don't think you're acting in your own interest. We're not going to … imperil American national security, the American economy, or America itself on your behalf." Carlson was accused of making
antisemitic comments at the
memorial service of Charlie Kirk by suggesting he supported the conspiracy theory that
Jews or Israel were responsible for
the assassination. Carlson said that the Kirk's killing reminded him of the
death of Jesus Christ, who was killed by powerful people for telling the truth. Carlson claimed that Kirk loved Israel, but he disliked Israeli prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and was "appalled by what was happening in Gaza", and most of all, he disliked that Netanyahu was using the United States to wage wars on Israel's behalf. In December 2025, the pro-Israel and Jewish advocacy group
StopAntisemitism called Carlson "Antisemite of the Year" for several remarks he made in 2025 that were critical of Israel and allegedly antisemitic. In February 2026, Carlson made a brief visit to Israel to conduct an interview with U.S. Ambassador
Mike Huckabee at
Ben Gurion International Airport. After the interview, Carlson publicly claimed that he and his team were detained and questioned by Israeli airport security before departing the country. Israeli authorities, including the Israel Airports Authority, and the United States Embassy in Jerusalem stated that the encounter involved only routine passport control questions. Video footage published by
The Jerusalem Post showed Carlson smiling, embracing, and posing for photos with airport staff following the encounter.
Hungary In August 2021, Carlson traveled to
Hungary, broadcasting from
Budapest. He praised the country and its prime minister,
Viktor Orbán, for rejecting asylum seekers on its border, and ridiculed the idea that Orbán was authoritarian. He spoke at a conference sponsored by the
Mathias Corvinus Collegium. In January 2022, Carlson released the film
Hungary vs. Soros on Fox Nation. According to
Vox, it promoted conspiracy theories about
Soros and suggested that criticism of the Hungarian government was a function of jealousy from the political left. The
Open Society Foundations, a group founded by Soros, called the film "anti-American propaganda", and its Vice President Laura Silber stated that "Carlson appears to prefer authoritarian rule,
state capture of media and the courts,
crony corruption and rigged elections."
Serbia Carlson has expressed sympathetic views and support of
Serbia and its President,
Aleksandar Vučić, on numerous occasions. In August 2023, Carlson visited Hungary, where he also paid a visit to the
Embassy of Serbia in Budapest, meeting personally with the Serbian Minister of Sports,
Zoran Gajić, the Minister of Finance,
Siniša Mali, and Vučić. Carlson has repeatedly spread disinformation regarding the
Yugoslav Wars, especially regarding Serbia's role in them and the 1999
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, which effectively brought to an end the
War in Kosovo. Carlson has used the example of NATO's intervention in Serbia in 1999 to claim that it is not a defensive but an offensive organization, describing the campaign as a "bombing of Christians in Yugoslavia" which paved the way for the creation of
Kosovo as an independent country while omitting to mention the
ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serbian forces that occurred during the war. Carlson repeated this narrative several times, including during a debate with British journalist and media personality
Piers Morgan in January 2025.
Mexico Carlson supported Trump's expansion of the
Mexico–United States border wall, saying a wall was needed to "restore sovereignty" to the border. In a July 2018 interview about
Russian involvement in U.S. elections, Carlson claimed that Mexico had interfered in U.S. elections "more successfully" than Russia by "packing our electorate" through mass immigration. This assertion was disputed by journalist Philip Bump, who wrote that the number of Mexicans in the U.S. had decreased since 2009 and asked rhetorically: "What good has it done Mexico to have a number of its citizens move to the United States and gain the right to vote?" In May 2019, Carlson defended Trump's decision to place
tariffs on Mexico unless Mexico stopped
illegal immigration to the United States. Carlson said, "When the United States is attacked by a hostile foreign power it must strike back, and make no mistake Mexico is a hostile foreign power."
El Salvador Carlson has visited El Salvador on three occasions, twice under
Nayib Bukele's administration, and routinely defended his
strongman policies to reduce crime and combat the
MS-13 gangs.
North Korea In June 2019, when President Trump met North Korean leader
Kim Jong-un at the
Korean Demilitarized Zone, Carlson, who was touring with Trump, defended Trump's friendship with Kim. Carlson told
Fox & Friends that the North Korean regime was "monstrous" and North Korea was a "disgusting place" but "On the other hand, you've got to be honest about what it means to lead a country. It means killing people". Carlson went on to argue that "a lot of countries commit atrocities including a number that we're closely allied with".
China Carlson has said normalization of relations with China following President
Richard Nixon's
1972 visit led to unforeseen consequences, and that America became progressively worse off for it. He criticized
LeBron James for speaking out against
Daryl Morey, the latter having tweeted in support of the
2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, and referred to the former CEO of
The Walt Disney Company,
Bob Iger, as a "propagandist" for the
Chinese Communist Party.
Colonialism In March 2021, Carlson stated that issues like the Latin American immigration crisis should be blamed on "other colonial powers centuries ago" instead of the United States, and suggested that the
Spanish government, having a "
legacy responsibility for what is happening in Latin America", should start by "sending back
the gold now sitting in its central bank." Carlson's statements on Spain were criticized by
Hermann Tertsch and Mamela Fiallo for supporting the
Spanish Black Legend, After the death of
Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, Carlson opined that the
British Empire, although "not perfect", had brought civilization to regions it occupied with "decency unmatched by any empire in human history". He was criticized in India by figures including the politician and historian
Shashi Tharoor, who had written a book detailing atrocities under
Crown Rule in India.
Freedom of speech In September 2025, Carlson criticized Attorney General
Pam Bondi for attempting to exploit the
assassination of Charlie Kirk to suppress
free speech in the United States.
Immigration and race , 2006 Carlson is a frequent
critic of immigration, and has been described by multiple writers as demonizing both documented and undocumented immigrants.
White grievance politics is a persistent theme in Carlson's commentary. a charge he denies, saying in 2018, "I'm not a racist. I hate racism." Carlson has described
white supremacy as "not a real problem in America". Heidi Beirich of the
Southern Poverty Law Center has said that "Carlson probably has been the No.1 commentator mainstreaming bedrock principles of white nationalism in [the U.S.]." Terry Smith, a law professor at St. Thomas University, has called Carlson's rhetoric an example of white
identity politics. University of Michigan professor
Alexandra Stern has written that Carlson propagates demographic fear.
Neoconservative pundit
Bill Kristol described Carlson's commentaries in 2018 as "close now to racism" and "
ethno-nationalism of some kind, let's call it".
Racism and white supremacy Carlson has compared the
Obama administration's stance on anti-police protests to
Nazism for "[categorizing] people by race", and he has alleged that the
George Floyd protests were about "ideological domination" rather than
police brutality. The latter comment prompted several advertisers to boycott his program. Carlson has falsely claimed that Floyd was not killed by officer
Derek Chauvin and that Chauvin was only found guilty because the jurors felt threatened by rioters. When
Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president,
denounced Trump in March 2016, saying Trump made a "disqualifying and disgusting response" by evading questions about former
Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard
David Duke's support, Carlson criticized Romney and dismissed his speech by suggesting "Obama could have written this." After Neff, his head writer, was fired for hateful blog posts in 2020, Carlson said of the posts, "They have no connection to the show. It is wrong to attack people for qualities they cannot control." Separately, Carlson said in 2017 that he does not approve of white supremacy. In 2018, he criticized China's treatment of Muslims. In 2022, in response to
The New York Times publishing a report criticizing Carlson and his show, Carlson said that his show did not have a controversial opinion on race, saying: "Our view of race is really simple. We believe
Martin Luther King Jr. We don't think your skin color is the most important thing about you. We think all people were created by God and should therefore be judged by what they do, not by how they look." Carlson has also offered praise for
Malcolm X, saying that unlike other civil rights leaders, Malcolm X "didn't talk like a
sharecropper. He spoke dignified standard English. He wasn't running a shakedown racket to fleece guilty white liberals."
Islam Carlson has been
critical of Islam and has hosted guests on his program that criticize Islam. He has described the existence of an "Islamic cult" and an "Islamic problem", describing it as a threat to the United States. However he later reversed his views. In December 2025, Carlson called attacks on Muslim Americans "disgusting". In the same month, he claimed that radical Islam is not a threat to the US, and that to think otherwise is "insane".
Immigrants and the Great Replacement conspiracy theory In 2018, Carlson described the effects of mass immigration on the United States using the terms
dirtier,
poorer, and
more divided and said it "has badly hurt this country's natural landscape". On another 2018 episode, Carlson criticized
multiculturalism in the United States, skeptically asking "how, precisely, is diversity our strength?" and whether any other institutions benefitted from a lack of commonalities. Talking about
Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where Hispanics had quickly become a majority of the population, Carlson said it was "more change than human beings are designed to digest". Carlson has accused Democrats of supporting increased immigration to change the racial demographics of the United States to increase the Democratic voter base. Commentators and organizations such as the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have described these views as endorsement of the
Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Carlson has also accused President Joe Biden of engaging in
eugenics and "Great Replacement" through a policy of increased immigration. Despite this, Carlson has challenged accusations that he believes the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, describing it as a "voting rights question".
South Africa In August 2018, Carlson alleged that the
South African government was
targeting white farmers because "they are the wrong skin color" and falsely said the country's president had changed the constitution to allow land thefts from whites during ongoing
land reform efforts.
CBS News,
Associated Press,
The New York Times and
The Wall Street Journal described Carlson's segment (with guest Marian Tupy of the
Cato Institute) as false or misleading, because
violence against farmers had reached an all-time low and the reforms had yet to pass and were primarily aimed at land that had fallen into disuse. Following the Carlson segment, President Trump tweeted that he had instructed Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo to "closely study the South Africa land and farm seizure and large scale killing of farmers". Omar responded on Twitter, saying that "advertisers should not be underwriting this kind of dangerous, hateful rhetoric".
The Daily Beast commented that Carlson had devoted numerous segments to criticizing Omar, and that largely due to "right-wing attacks that have then been amplified by members of Congress and the president", Omar had been receiving
death threats since her election to Congress.
Kanye West interview On the October 6 and 7, 2022 episodes of
Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson aired an edited version of an interview with rapper and fashion designer Ye, also known by his birth name
Kanye West. West and conservative commentator
Candace Owens had recently been photographed at
Paris Fashion Week wearing matching shirts that read "
White Lives Matter", a phrase often associated with
white supremacist groups. In his interview with Carlson, West said he had worn the shirt because he found it "funny" and agreed with the message. When Carlson asked West about a badge West was wearing on a
lanyard around his neck, West stated that it was an image from an
obstetric ultrasound, and added, "It just represents life. I'm
pro-life"; he claimed without evidence "that there are more Black babies being aborted than born in
New York City at this point." On October 11, 2022, the
Vice website
Motherboard published leaked unaired footage from the interview. In the unaired footage, West expressed
Black Hebrew Israelite views, stated he had received a
COVID-19 vaccine, and claimed that paid
child actors had been "placed into [his] house to sexualize [his] kids"; in one instance, referring to a
Kwanzaa celebration at his children's school, West said, "I prefer my kids knew
Hanukkah than Kwanzaa [sic].
At least it will come with some financial engineering." The leaked footage was heavily scrutinized in light of other antisemitic statements West had made on social media in the days after the
Tucker Carlson Tonight interview aired, including an October 8 tweet in which he threatened to go "
death con 3 [sic]" on Jewish people. He has alleged that feminists want girls to make gains at the expense of boys. He used the words
pig and
cunt to describe several individual women in remarks from 2006 to 2011 on the radio show
Bubba the Love Sponge. a pseudonymous author affiliated with
neo-Nazi publishing house
Antelope Hill. Carlson has highlighted what he considers excesses of
LGBT people on the political left. Some of his comments on air have been described as
homophobic, including a 2006 radio conversation in which he and
Bubba the Love Sponge used the word
faggot to describe their affection for each other, and his 2007 description of an incident during high school of beating up a gay man who had made an advance on him in a public bathroom. In 2021, Carlson belittled the
paternity leave taken by U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Pete Buttigieg, a gay man, joking that Buttigieg could be "trying to figure out how to breastfeed". Carlson's promotion of inflammatory rhetoric about LGBTQ controversies was scrutinized after the
Colorado Springs nightclub mass shooting in November 2022. Carlson has strongly criticized the
transgender rights movement, including saying hospitals that provide
gender-affirming healthcare to minors are criminals who harm children, and that they should not be surprised to receive threatening phone calls. In September 2023, Tucker Carlson interviewed a man who claimed to have had sex with
Barack Obama. In a podcast interview with
Piers Morgan in November 2025, Carlson repeatedly challenged Morgan to say the homophobic slur "
faggot", questioning the "
political correctness" around the word. When Morgan refused, Carlson insinuated that Morgan refused to say the slur because he was afraid of being arrested.
COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines Carlson differed with Trump and some of his colleagues at Fox News in early 2020 by saying COVID-19 should be taken more seriously in the U.S, and he reportedly influenced then-President Trump to take the virus more seriously. Carlson blamed China for causing the pandemic. and defended
protests against lockdowns in rural areas. In February 2022, he supported the
Canada convoy protest against COVID-19 restrictions and called it "the single most successful human rights protest in a generation". He also claimed that some U.S. officials were overstating the deadliness of the virusa claim that
PolitiFact called mostly false. Carlson mentioned the anti-parasite medication
ivermectin as a possible COVID-19 treatment, though the
FDA warned against its use. Carlson has repeatedly misrepresented the safety of
COVID-19 vaccines and asserted that U.S. officials were "lying" about them. He has falsely suggested that COVID-19 vaccines suppress the immune system, and he has misrepresented federal data to claim that 30 Americans died after receiving the vaccine each day, misleading his audience by citing the unverified
VAERS database that included deaths from
unrelated causes. He has likened
vaccine passports to segregationist
Jim Crow laws, and he claimed that a
vaccine mandate in the
U.S. Armed Forces was designed to oust "the sincere Christians in the ranks, the free thinkers, the men with high testosterone levels, and anyone else who doesn't love Joe Biden". He has also falsely claimed that the government was attempting to "force people to take medicine they don't want or need" through door-to-door vaccines. Carlson says he has not been vaccinated against COVID-19. Carlson routinely criticized
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director
Anthony Fauci during Fauci's tenure. According to
Jon Cohen in
Science, "Carlson took facts out of context and cited long-debunked studies or reports to attack Fauci". Fauci responded to Carlson's remarks by calling them a "crazy conspiracy theory". Carlson was a vocal critic of the use of
face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, calling people wearing masks outdoors "zealots and neurotics". He received significant public backlash for his claim that having children wear face masks was tantamount to
child abuse and that it warranted a response "no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart". Carlson has pointed to the use of masks as evidence that vaccines do not work, falsely claiming that there would be no benefits to mask use with an effective vaccine. After Joe Biden won the election in November, Carlson raised
false allegations of
fraud in the election. On his show, he mentioned the names of purportedly dead individuals who voted in
Georgia; investigative reporting subsequently found that some of the individuals whom he claimed to be dead were in fact alive. Carlson apologized on his show for the error. Carlson distanced himself from Trump's
post-election legal fights, in which Carlson said the election was "not fair" but acknowledged that it still would not produce a Trump victory. Later that month, Carlson cast doubt on unfounded conspiratorial claims made by former federal prosecutor
Sidney Powell, who alleged that Venezuela, Cuba and unidentified communist interests had used a secret algorithm to hack into voting machines and commit widespread electoral fraud. Carlson said "what Powell was describing would amount to the single greatest crime in American history", but that Powell became "angry and told us to stop contacting her" when he asked for evidence of widespread voter fraud. Carlson later brought on
Mike Lindell on January 26, 2021, whose company
My Pillow was the largest advertiser on
Tucker Carlson Tonight, to criticize
Dominion Voting Systems and claim it had "hired hit groups and bots and trolls" to target him following his Twitter account's permanent suspension for promoting unfounded fraud claims. In July 2021, Carlson suggested that "there actually was meaningful voter fraud in
Fulton County, Georgia, last November" despite the state's
election results being validated via both hand and machine recounts. PolitiFact found that none of the evidence provided by Carlson substantiated his conclusion. For example, because Trump and Biden ballots were sorted into separate piles during the hand recount, tally sheets with votes exclusively for either candidate are not indicative of fraud. In August 2022, Carlson was deposed as part of a
lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News over false claims of voter fraud made about the company. The following February, Dominion's legal team released texts and other products of
discovery against Fox, revealing that Carlson privately doubted the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and mocked Trump advisors, including
Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Carlson texted to
Laura Ingraham, "Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It's insane" and "Our viewers are good people and they believe it." Carlson also texted
Sean Hannity, saying Fox News White House correspondent
Jacqui Heinrich should be fired for tweeting a fact-check of false claims Carlson and Trump circulated about Dominion. He wrote "Please get her fired. Seriously ... What the fuck? I'm actually shocked ... It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.", and said he "just went crazy on" a Fox executive over Heinrich's reporting. Heinrich's tweet was deleted by the next morning. Also published were texts of Carlson regarding Donald Trump, with Carlson stating: "I hate him passionately". About Trump's presidency, he texted: "We're all pretending we've got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it's been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn't an upside to Trump." In March 2023, Carlson said in an interview that he was "enraged that my private texts were pulled" for the court case, and asserted: "I love Trump ... I think Trump is funny and insightful."
2021 U.S. Capitol attack In February 2021, after attorney general nominee
Merrick Garland pledged at his confirmation hearing to supervise the prosecution of "white supremacists and others" involved in the
January 6 United States Capitol attack, Carlson alleged, "There's no evidence that white supremacists were responsible for what happened on January 6. That's a lie." PolitiFact rated Carlson's claim false, because several rioters had known ties to white supremacist groups, according to court records and congressional testimony by law enforcement leaders, and video and photos from the incident showed white supremacist symbols prominently displayed. Philip Bump of
The Washington Post wrote in an analysis that Carlson was blurring the lines between "being involved" and "being responsible for" to create a
strawman in an effort to "undercut the public understanding of what happened and, by extension, to soften the implications for Trump and his supporters". Carlson has also inaccurately stated that "[n]ot a single person in the crowd on January 6 was found to be carrying a firearm." In June 2021, Carlson promoted a conspiracy theory alleging that the Capitol storming was a "
false flag"
FBI operation intended to "suppress political dissent". He alleged that unindicted co-conspirators in rioters' indictments were government agents, saying, "FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol on January 6, according to government documents". One of the unindicted co-conspirators was readily identifiable as
Stewart Rhodes, founder and leader of
Oath Keepers, a far-right anti-government militia; another unindicted co-conspirator was likely the wife of an indicted alleged conspirator. Carlson's guest,
Darren Beattie of Revolver News, whose writing the segment was primarily based on, had been fired as a Trump speechwriter in 2018 after CNN asked the White House about his attendance at a gathering of white nationalists. Republican House members
Matt Gaetz and
Marjorie Taylor Greene quickly embraced Carlson's story about FBI involvement in the Capitol attack, and Republican congressman
Paul Gosar entered the Revolver News story into the
Congressional Record during a
House Oversight Committee hearing. After Carlson criticized
Senator Ted Cruz for calling the Capitol storming a "terrorist attack", Cruz appeared on Carlson's show on January 6, 2022, the anniversary of the event, and apologized for his words.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in early 2023 gave Carlson exclusive access to 44,000 hours of security surveillance video from the day of the Capitol attack. Carlson subsequently aired portions of it on his show to illustrate his own narrative concerning the event, painting it as "peaceful chaos" and condemning other media outlets as untruthful when portraying the attack as violent. The family of
Brian Sicknick, a
United States Capitol Police officer who died the day following the Capitol attack, and Capitol Police Chief
Tom Manger condemned the segment, which also received reproach from Democratic and Republican politicians, including from the Republican leader of the Senate,
Mitch McConnell. Carlson's presentation included video of
Jacob Chansley—the "QAnon Shaman"—walking the halls of Congress, depicting him as a peaceful demonstrator being escorted by police who was unjustly prosecuted and incarcerated. Days after the presentation, Justice Department prosecutors stated in a court filing that the four minutes of video showed only a brief part of Chansley's activity and omitted his earlier incriminating behavior, concluding, "Chansley was not some passive, chaperoned observer of events for the roughly hour that he was unlawfully inside the Capitol." Carlson repeatedly promoted a conspiracy theory that pro-Trump protestor
Ray Epps was actually a federal agent engaged in a false flag operation to instigate the January 6 attack. Epps said he and his wife were subjected to threats and harassment, leading them to sell their home and business to go into hiding in another state. An attorney for Epps wrote Carlson in March 2023 demanding a public retraction of "false and defamatory statements."
Patriot Purge program In late October 2021,
Patriot Purge, a three-part series produced by Carlson, was released on the
Fox Nation streaming service. Carlson broadcast a trailer that suggested the January 6 attack was a government false flag operation to implicate the right wing, with one speaker asserting that "the left is hunting the right". Carlson stated on-air that the government had "launched a new war" on American citizens and characterized his series as "rock-solid factually". Fact-checkers found the series contained numerous falsehoods and conspiracy theories. Michael Jensen, a senior researcher at the
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, called it "political propaganda that is meant to rally a support base that has shown a willingness to mobilize on the basis of disinformation and lies. That's how we got Jan. 6 in the first place." Conservative writers
Jonah Goldberg and
Steve Hayes responded to the series by severing their ties to Fox News, declaring that the series was "a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery, and damning omissions".
Alleged surveillance In October 2020, Carlson alleged on his show that someone was reading his text messages, after documents he claimed had compromising information on Joe Biden's son,
Hunter, were lost by the
United Parcel Service and then quickly located. Carlson did not say what these documents contained. On June 28, 2021, Carlson said on his program that "a whistleblower within the U.S. government" informed him that the
National Security Agency (NSA) was "monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air", adding, "The Biden administration is spying on us. We have confirmed that." That same day, a producer for Carlson filed an unusually broad
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the NSA, seeking records, including "any communication between NSA officials regarding journalist Tucker Carlson", dating back to January 2019, before Biden became president. On June 29, the NSA tweeted a rare statement of denial, stating that Carlson has never been a target of its surveillance and it never had any intent to have his program taken off the air. Carlson responded on-air that the NSA did not deny reading his emails. House Republican leader
Kevin McCarthy asked
House Intelligence Committee ranking member
Devin Nunes to investigate.
Axios reported on July 7 that, shortly before Carlson made his allegation, he had been in contact with U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries to arrange an interview with Vladimir Putin. The reporter of the
Axios exclusive story,
Jonathan Swan, later confirmed he had contacted Carlson seeking pre-publication comment, but said he had not told Carlson that anyone had shared the email contents with him. On that night's program, Carlson said that he had contacted people about interviewing Putin, but did not mention it to anyone because he did not want to "rattle the Russians, and make the interview less likely to happen". He said that the NSA had
unmasked his identity and that "the contents of my emails left that building at the NSA and wound up with a news organization". On July 23, cybersecurity news website The Record wrote that Carlson had not been targeted by the NSA but had been unmasked after he was mentioned by third parties who were under surveillance, citing two anonymous sources. Fox News called the reported act "unacceptable".
The New York Times observed there was a distinction between Carlson's communications being intercepted by the NSA and intercepts of foreigners who were discussing Carlson. == Presidential politics ==