NEW YORK — Tucker Carlson returned to the Fox News airwaves 15 months after he was unceremoniously fired, which was seen Thursday in coverage of a Republican National Convention speech that highlighted his growing influence in Donald Trump’s world.
Carlson called the Republican candidate to return as president a changed man who essentially “became the leader of this nation” after Saturday’s assassination attempt.
His 11-minute speech in Milwaukee also highlighted changes in the media personality, who had said privately after the 2020 election that he “really can’t wait” to ignore Trump. Before landing the primetime role on the convention’s climactic night, he was seen throughout the convention and reportedly lobbied Trump to select Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate.
Fox News aired Carlson’s speech in prime time, in the same hour that he had once reigned as cable television news’ most popular personality. CNN and MSNBC did not broadcast it.
“That was Tucker Carlson,” said his Fox replacement, Jesse Watters. “Maybe you remember him from eight o’clock here.”
Carlson was fired a week after Fox agreed to pay more than $787 million to settle a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems over false statements the network made about the company after the 2020 election. The network never explained why it ousted Carlson, creating a cottage industry of theories about why the Rupert Murdoch-founded network pulled the plug.
Since then, Carlson has started his own online network, but he hasn’t yet come close to the influence that five nights a week on the most popular cable network gave him.
He has released a series of online interviews with figures popular in the conservative movement, including one with Trump that was posted to counter-program a debate between his opponents for the Republican nomination. His most newsworthy outing was a February interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who later said he thought Carlson would “behave more aggressively and ask so-called sharp questions.”
Carlson has also made money with a series of speeches and recently completed a speaking tour of Australia. He has booked a tour of arenas across the United States in September, accompanied each night by a special guest including Donald Trump Jr., Roseanne Barr, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Russell Brand, Kid Rock, Vivek Ramaswamy and a trio of personalities who also left Fox under unpleasant circumstances – Megyn Kelly, Glenn Beck and Dan Bongino.
His convention speech on Thursday was announced, according to Justin Wells, a longtime Carlson adviser who spoke with him shortly before Carlson took the stage.
Carlson praised Trump as a leader whose bravery and courage have inspired people — especially in the days following the assassination attempt the former president survived in western Pennsylvania last weekend. He also credited Trump for promoting unity at a time when it otherwise would have been easy.
“He turned down the most obvious opportunity in politics to set the nation on fire after he was shot,” Carlson said. “At that moment he did his best to bring the country together.”
He said that “people who don’t believe in God are starting to wonder: maybe there’s something going on here.”
Carlson has kept political divisions to a minimum, though he called the amount of money the U.S. has spent to help defend Ukraine “a middle finger in the face of every American.”
___
David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him up http://twitter.com/dbauder
