Tucker Carlson

Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson (born May 16, 1969) is an American conservative political commentator who hosted the nightly political talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News from 2016 to 2023. Since his contract with Fox News was terminated, he has hosted Tucker on X and The Tucker Carlson Show. An advocate of President Donald Trump, Carlson has been described as a high-profile proponent of Trumpism, and an influential voice in right-wing media.

Carlson began his media career in the 1990s, writing for The Weekly Standard and other publications. He was a CNN commentator from 2000 to 2005 and a co-host of Crossfire, the network's prime-time news debate program, from 2001 to 2005. From 2005 to 2008, he hosted the nightly program Tucker on MSNBC. In 2009, he became a political analyst for Fox News, appearing on various programs before launching his own show. In 2010, Carlson co-founded and served as the initial editor-in-chief of the right-wing news and opinion website The Daily Caller, until selling his ownership stake and leaving in 2020. In the 2021 Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network defamation lawsuit, Carlson was among the hosts named for broadcasting false statements about the plaintiff company's voting machines. In April 2023, Fox News canceled Tucker Carlson Tonight, leading Carlson to launch his own program, The Tucker Carlson Show.

Carlson is a critic of immigration. Formerly an economic libertarian, he now supports protectionism. In 2004, he renounced his initial support for the Iraq War, and has since been skeptical of U.S. foreign interventions. Carlson is known for circulating far-right ideas into mainstream politics and discourse. He has been noted for false and misleading statements on some topics and for promoting conspiracy theories on demographic replacement, COVID-19, the United States Capitol attack and Ukrainian bioweapons. Some of Carlson's remarks on race, immigration, and women have been described as racist and sexist, and provoked advertiser boycotts of Tucker Carlson Tonight. He is said to have influenced Trump's decision-making; he has also criticized Trump for straying from "Trumpism". Carlson has defended Russian president Vladimir Putin, and in February 2024 became the first Western journalist to interview Putin since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He has written three books: Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites (2003), Ship of Fools (2018), and The Long Slide (2021).

Tucker McNear Carlson was born at the Children's Hospital in San Francisco, California, on May 16, 1969. He is the elder son of Lisa McNear (née Lombardi; 1945–2011), an artist from San Francisco, and Dick Carlson (1941–2025), a former "gonzo reporter" who became the director of Voice of America, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles, and more recently a director at the lobbying firm Policy Impact Strategic Communications. Carlson's brother, Buckley Peck Carlson, later Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson, is nearly two years younger and has worked as a communications manager and a Republican Party political operative.

Carlson's paternal grandparents were Richard Boynton and Dorothy Anderson, who were teenagers when they placed his father at The Home for Little Wanderers orphanage, where he was fostered by Carl Moberger of Malden, near Boston, a tannery worker of Swedish descent, and his wife Florence Moberger. Carlson's father was adopted at the age of two by upper-middle-class New Englanders, the Carlsons, an executive at the Winslow Brothers & Smith Tannery of Norwood (the oldest tannery in America) and his wife. Carlson's maternal great-great-great-grandfather was Henry Miller, the "Cattle King". Carlson's maternal great-great-grandfather Cesar Lombardi immigrated to New York from Switzerland in 1860. Carlson is also a distant relative of Massachusetts politicians Ebenezer R. Hoar and George M. Brooks. Carlson himself was named after his great-great-great-grandfather J. C. Tucker and his great-great-grandfather George W. McNear. Carlson is of one thirty-second Italian-Swiss ancestry.

In 1976, Carlson's parents divorced after the nine-year marriage reportedly "turned sour". Carlson's father was granted custody of Tucker and his brother. Carlson's mother left the family when he was six and moved to France. The boys never saw her again.

When Carlson was in first grade, his father moved Tucker and his brother to the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, and raised them there. Carlson attended La Jolla Country Day School and grew up in a home overlooking the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. His father owned property in Nevada and Vermont, and islands in Maine and Nova Scotia. In 1984, his father unsuccessfully challenged the incumbent Republican Party mayor Roger Hedgecock in the San Diego mayoral race.

In 1979, Carlson's father married Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to Swanson Enterprises (founded by Carl A. Swanson), daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson and niece of Senator J. William Fulbright. Though Patricia remained a beneficiary of the family fortune, the Swansons had sold the brand to the Campbell Soup Company in 1955 and did not own it by the time of Carlson's father's marriage. This was the third marriage for Swanson, who legally adopted Tucker Carlson and his brother.