Victor Davis Hanson: The Tucker-Fuentes Interview—What Tucker Should’ve Done

The Daily Signal

News, Government, Politics, Daily News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Tucker Carlson’s interview with right-wing provocateur podcaster Nick Fuentes has the conservative movement fighting over what the definition of “canceling” is and struggling to determine if there are cases in which it is called for. If so, was the Fuentes interview one of them? Victor Davis Hanson states there is a fine line between “canceling” and “deplatforming,” and it all has to do with how the platformer handles the issue they’re amplifying. He breaks down this dichotomy and explains where he believes Carlson went wrong on this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” “ When you don't invite Nick Fuentes on your program, it doesn't mean that you're canceling him. It doesn't mean that you're deplatforming him because he's beyond the pale. And you say, ‘Well, who are you to say that, Victor?’ Well, I'm not Victor saying that. There are accepted norms—that you don't use the N-word, or you don't call for people to go back to Israel, if they're Jewish, or you don't make fun of people's race in the public sphere, the way he did. You can do that, of course, under the First Amendment, but you're not invited into acceptable venues to vent those views and to spread hate.” (0:00) Platforming vs. Canceling (2:15) Debating Extremists (3:54) Tucker Carlson's Skills (4:27) Norms and Boundaries in Media (5:42) Tucker Carlson's Recent Controversies (6:54) Conclusion 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠ 👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enabling notification: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1⁠ 👉More exclusive content are available on Victor’s website: ⁠https://victorhanson.com⁠ 👉The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: ⁠https://secured.dailysignal.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's been a lot of confusion, discussion, but also confusion about the idea of platforming some person or de-platforming someone versus canceling them.
0:10.0	It came up during the Tucker Carlson interview of Nick Fuentes.
0:14.0	I think we should make a distinction.
0:16.0	These are options, so when you don't offer a venue, you're not canceling them out. You're just making a choice.
0:22.6	You make a choice every day who you invite on your show. If he is so extreme and you decide either
0:27.6	to withdraw the invitation or not to invite him at all, that's not canceling, that's not
0:33.6	deplatforming. How about Tucker himself, which is a very different case? Fairly or not, people
0:38.8	are going to think you're complicit in an effort to spread those views. I don't think necessarily
0:43.5	the question is to go after TuckerHanson for the Daily Signal.
1:02.7	There's been a lot of confusion, discussion, but also confusion about the idea of platforming
1:09.3	some person or deplatforming someone versus canceling them.
1:13.3	It came up during the Tucker Carlson interview of Nick Fuentes. I think we should make a distinction.
1:22.0	If you have a venue, you're a talk show host, a podcaster, you're inviting someone to lecture, that's a choice
1:31.3	that you make and you operate within particular sidelines, parameters. In other words,
1:37.2	you don't invite an abject racist, you don't invite an abject anti-Semite, you don't invite
1:44.0	somebody who would like to have that forum to advance your views.
1:51.4	And we have to be very clear about this.
1:53.8	People in the news that are anti-Semites, racist, anti-American radicals, whatever extremist point of view they embrace, they get to a point of
2:07.6	public exposure because they're quite skilled in demagogic rhetoric. They're formidable debaters.
2:14.6	If anybody went back to firing line and watched William F. Buckley debate George Wallace,
2:21.1	Buckley had the moral and the intellectual argument on his side, but he was dealing with a man who
2:28.1	for 25 years had spoken almost every day to crowds, and George Wallace was probably the best
	...

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