'Shadow diplomacy': How Tucker Carlson has effectively become 'Trump’s top international diplomat'
2023's most talked-about bombshell in cable news came in April when Fox News fired its top-rated host Tucker Carlson. Since then, the former Fox News star has hosted a show on X, formerly Twitter.
Carlson, post-Fox News, hasn't been shy about promoting former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign — not only in the United States, but in other countries as well. In a report published by Politico on November 29, journalist Sarah Wheaton stresses that Carlson is acting like "Trump's top international diplomat."
"Since his ouster from cable TV," Wheaton reports, "Carlson has been taking his new X show on a world tour — and his interviews with Argentina's Javier Milei and Hungary's Viktor Orbán have racked up hundreds of millions of views. Yet Carlson is also engaging in a sort of shadow diplomacy."
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?
Wheaton continues, "In early November, he popped up in London to visit Julian Assange at Belmarsh prison. Eleven days later, Carlson was spotted on the streets of Madrid, alongside Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain's far-right Vox Party, amid protesters against amnesty for Catalan separatists."
On X, Carlson has not only been promoting Trump's campaign — he has also been pointing out the parallels between the MAGA movement and far-right authoritarians like Orbán.
"According to a new book by the former CNN media reporter Brian Stelter, Fox executives hadn't authorized Carlson's weeklong mission there, and the flirtation with authoritarianism might have been a contributing factor in his dismissal," Wheaton explains. "There was also Carlson's role in the defamation lawsuit that cost Fox $787 million for on-air lies that the 2020 U.S. election was stolen."
Politico's full report is available at this link.
