How Tucker Carlson Became the Prophet of MAGA

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Politics, Washington, News, Obama, Wnyc, President, Lizza, Barack, Wickenden

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tucker Carlson has long been a standard-bearer for far-right views, such as the racist conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement.” He recently did a chatty interview with the white supremacist Nick Fuentes, an admirer of Hitler. And yet, Carlson started out as a respected, well-connected, albeit contrarian, political journalist. Jason Zengerle, who recently joined The New Yorker as a staff writer, talks with David Remnick about his new book, “Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind.” They trace how Carlson’s sense of personal resentment toward the establishment grew; how launching his own website radicalized his politics in the years before MAGA; and his political ambitions as a potential heir to Donald Trump. “I think, if Tucker Carlson concludes that J. D. Vance can’t get elected President, maybe he has to do it himself,” Zengerle says. “So much of politics now is just being a media figure and being an entertainer. And Tucker does those things very well. . . . I think our politics are at a place where that really doesn’t seem as outrageous as it would have even just a couple years ago.”

This segment originally aired on January 23, 2025.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the political scene. I'm David Remnick.
0:08.3	Early each week, we bring you a conversation from our episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:15.8	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:22.8	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:24.7	I'm David Remnick.
0:28.7	When Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News in 2023, he had the largest program on cable news.
0:35.2	By far, Carlson could draw around 3 million viewers on a given
0:39.0	night way, way ahead of MSNBC and CNN. After Fox, Carlson brought a new show to YouTube,
0:46.6	and his reach has grown. Some of his shows have as many as 7 million views. Carlson has been a
0:53.5	standard bearer for the right. Many of us know about the
0:56.6	racist conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement, only because of Tucker Carlson. He's quite
1:02.5	sympathetic to Vladimir Putin, too. He also celebrated Trump's threats to seize Greenland by force,
1:08.0	not because he cares about Greenland, but because that would have
1:11.4	wrecked the NATO alliance. And yet, Carlson doesn't always stick to the Maga party line.
1:17.5	He called the shooting of René Good by an ice agent in Minneapolis a tragedy. And he pointed out
1:23.2	that the way people in Maga were making light of it, that was exactly what they had condemned after the shooting of Charlie Kirk.
1:30.6	Few people have thought more about Tucker Carlson in recent years than Jason Zengarly,
1:35.4	who recently joined the New Yorker as a staff writer.
1:38.6	Zengarly's new book is called Hated by All the Right People.
1:42.4	And when Zengarly was first coming up as a political journalist,
1:45.9	Tucker Carlson was someone he kind of admired.
1:51.5	Let's start at the beginning.
	...

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