‘Kooky’ Tucker Carlson’s Embarrassing Misfire Shows Trump Has Kicked Him Out of the MAGA Club
(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
You’ve heard of the reverse Jim Cramer, but in the Kalshi Era, perhaps it’s Fox News host-turned-House Hunters: Qatar star Tucker Carlson whose intuitions shrewd bettors should short.
The first year of the second Trump administration has seen Carlson whiff on both of the two major predictions he’s offered. In March, Carlson mused that “a strike on the Iranian nuclear sites will almost certainly result in thousands of American deaths at bases throughout the Middle East, and cost the United States tens of billions of dollars.”
“A bombing campaign against Iran will set off a war, and it will be America’s war. Don’t let the propagandists lie to you,” he added for good measure.
A few months later, Chicken Little reared his head again.
“The first week of a war with Iran could easily kill thousands of Americans. It could also collapse our economy, as surging oil prices trigger unmanageable inflation. Consider the effects of $30 gasoline,” warned Carlson in June. “But the second week of the war could be even worse. Iran isn’t Iraq or Libya, or even North Korea. While it’s often described as a rogue state, Iran has powerful allies. It’s now part of a global bloc called BRICS, which represents the majority of the world’s landmass, population, economy and military power. Iran has extensive military ties with Russia. It sells the overwhelming majority of its oil exports to China. Iran isn’t alone. An attack on Iran could very easily become a world war. We’d lose.”
By the end of the month, President Donald Trump had not only disregarded Carlson’s faulty advice and crippled the Iranian nuclear program, but bestowed an apt new nickname upon him: “kooky Tucker Carlson.”
The Iranians’ retaliatory strike on the United States’ Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar — which came complete with a forewarning to the U.S. and Qatar and resulted in zero casualties — was pitiful. Still, self-professed America Firster Tucker Carlson reacted to the news not by expressing his concern for American lives, but by nearly shedding tears on behalf of the Qataris, whom he argued only host the base “to be nice.”
Wednesday night’s address from the president resulted in yet another swing-and-a-miss from the cable news flameout.
Carlson previewed Trump’s speech by declaring that “members of Congress were briefed yesterday that a war [with Venezuela] is coming and it’ll be announced in the address to the nation tonight at 9 o’clock by the president.”
“Who knows, by the way, if that will actually happen,” he added. “I don’t know, and I never want to overstate what I know, which is pretty limited in general, but a member of Congress told me that this morning.”
Well, he was right on at least one count; what Tucker Carlson knows is, indeed, limited.
Any cursory review of the headlines summarizing Trump’s speech will reveal that he did not, in fact, plunge the nation into war on Wednesday. But it gets worse for Carlson — the president did not so much as mention Venezuela.
And that congressional briefing to which he referred? That didn’t happen either, per Axios’s Marc Caputo.
Of course, Carlson is no stranger to lies and is long past feeling shame. That he was, yet again, wrong, yet again, is likely of no consequence to him. But this particular misfire betrays something much more devastating: Carlson is out of the loop.
Such a falling out probably seemed impossible last summer, when he delivered a speech and sat beside both Trump and JD Vance — the man Carlson had helped talk the nominee into picking as his running mate — at the Republican National Convention. Yet Carlson’s conspiracy theories, grumbling over Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments, and promotion of outright anti-Semitism have isolated him.
To be sure, Carlson still has friends — Vance most prominent among them — in the administration. But then again, Carlson must now be wondering why the vice president failed to save his longtime ally from the embarrassment of crying wolf. Again.
The bad news for Carlson doesn’t end there, either. On Tuesday, Trump hosted one of his nemeses, Fox’s Mark Levin, at the White House for a Hanukkah reception at which the commander-in-chief asked the longtime conservative commentator to “say a couple of words,” and he obliged by deeming Trump “the first Jewish president.” One can only imagine how that went over in Carlson’s bunker.
The hits keep coming. Another foe, The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro, visited the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday to deliver a withering takedown of Carlson. That’s right, the same institution that came rushing to his defense after his chummy conversation with professional bigot Nick Fuentes this fall is now inviting his sworn enemies to excoriate him.
Perhaps none of this matters to Carlson, who can continue to print money while spreading hatred and misinformation in equal measure for the rest of his life should he choose to do so. But his abhorrent behavior has apparently destroyed his relationship with the Trump White House. And that leaves him in the same class as Alex Jones — a clown performing tricks for an immature audience, albeit with a pedigree that renders his descent all the more degrading.
The post ‘Kooky’ Tucker Carlson’s Embarrassing Misfire Shows Trump Has Kicked Him Out of the MAGA Club first appeared on Mediaite.
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