On April 6, responding to Trump’s “Open the fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards” posts on Truth Social, Carlson said on his show, “How dare you speak that way on Easter morning to the country? Who do you think you are? You’re tweeting out the f-word on Easter morning?”
On April 7, Trump, skipping over the theological bits, countered by saying “Tucker’s a low IQ person that has absolutely no idea what’s going on.”
On April 20, Carlson hosted his brother, a longtime Republican operative, on the Tucker Carlson Show, and, in anguished and deeply religious terms, talked about his reasons for the break. “You and I and everyone else who supported him, we’re implicated in this for sure,” he said.
“We’ll be tormented by this for a long time, I mean I will be. And I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional.”
It’s a little hard to believe that there were no warning signs of what sort of person Trump might prove to be—not calling a beauty pageant contestant “Miss Piggy,” not boasting that he likes to grab women by the pussy, not going out to see a movie on the day of his brother’s death, not exploiting his father’s dementia to bilk his relatives out of their inheritance, and not encouraging a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol. But Pastor Tucker was in a very Christian frame of mind. Yes, Trump had his character failings, but “there are tons of people of low character who outperform their character,” he declared.
And what a compelling, nay, biblical picture that makes—prodigal Tucker misled by his overly compassionate nature and his desire to avoid foreign wars having his Road to Pennsylvania Avenue (er, Damascus) moment over Trump’s “or you’ll be living in hell” post. By now fully ascending the pulpit, Tucker had it in him to offer a remarkably ecumenical message to all faiths. “No decent person mocks other people’s religions,” he said. “To mock other people’s faith is to mock the idea of faith itself.” Never mind that he has discussed the “Islamic cult” and the “Islamic problem” and in 2019 a guest on his show called Islam “the most hateful, intolerant religion in the world.” Tucker, even in the depths of his torment, was in a forgiving mood, forgiving even for such a sinner as himself, and in his grace and willingness to look beyond past trifles he appeared, yes, positively presidential.
I really mean this. The betting odds site Polymarket has JD Vance leading the Republican GOP field with 39%, followed distantly by Secretary of State Marco Rubio at 22%, and then Carlson all the way behind them at 6%. I would never ever give betting advice to any Persuasion reader, but if I did, I might well counsel laying some sweet cheddar on Carlson. Vance is giving major Jeb Bush vibes at the moment—linked to an America First point of view that he seems to at one point have felt deeply but knowing that if he breaks with Trump over Iran or anything else he loses virtually the entirety of his support. Rubio was never exactly in his element as a presidential candidate and seems to have found his ceiling as more of a backroom boy.
But Carlson is a survivor, and comes with a built-in audience, and knows how to work the media in a way that resembles Trump himself. He also speaks to what may be the single most stable voting bloc in American politics—Christian nationalism.
So Tucker really is one to watch—for her part, Marjorie Taylor Greene was virtually the first to hop on the bandwagon and declare on March 5, “I SUPPORT Tucker … Tucker would beat Trump if he ran for president”—and this break with Trump may well be the start of the Making of the President 2028, when he would be the first modern candidate to run on a Christian nationalist platform as well as the first-ever Dancing With the Stars contestant to reach the White House. [...]
Faith and patriotism are, in the end, the last refuge of a scoundrel—and they are formidable sanctuaries... But that’s the beauty of cloaking oneself in faith. Repentance is the ultimate get-out-of-jail free card, and there is no reason why Carlson’s path to repentance can’t coincide with a White House run.
That really is the only meaningful fissure that can break the MAGA coalition. Epstein won’t do it; and a foreign policy excursion like Iran isn’t enough. But religion could do the trick. Evangelical voters, through a bit of deft theology and a vituperative hatred of Hillary Clinton, managed to support Donald Trump, but it was always an uneasy and sometimes comical alliance. Tucker speaks that language far better than anybody in the more Trump-y core of MAGA.
by Sam Kahn, Persuasion | Read more:
Image: Al Drago/Getty
[ed. Anyone paying attention could have picked up on Carlson's presidential aspirations a long time ago. Despite being a strong J.D. supporter you know he'll slip the knife in when it's the right time. He's playing the long game and when the 2028 elections roll around and everyone is completely over this train wreck of an administration he'll be sufficiently positioned to respresent a new direction.]
