Last spring, it seemed like Tucker Carlson might have reached the end of his passion. A journey through American media and politics.
Fox News canceled Mr. Carlson’s highest-rated show, depriving him of a nightly prime-time show. But to do so, he had a contract worth more than $15 million a year and was prohibited from holding a concurrent job with a rival company.
Under Legacy Media’s old rules, Carlson would have been off the air and out of sight until after the 2024 election, when his contract expires. But Mr. Carlson is not your typical TV star. And what was once normal in his industry has become increasingly outdated and shattered by the new rules, or lack thereof, of his fractured online media world.
In landing an exclusive interview with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin (published Thursday on Social Network returned to the center of American politics. .
The two-hour interview gave him a bullhorn to an American audience just as many congressional Republicans were working to block a vital lifeline of American military aid to Ukraine.
It also accomplished Carlson’s goal of reclaiming the spotlight. For the first time since his resignation from Fox, Mr. Carlson’s name is back on the lips of major national and international figures, and Mr. Carlson has long flourished in such conversations.
Hillary Clinton called herself a “useful idiot” and Putin a “puppy” in an interview with MSNBC’s Alex Wagner this week.
Mr. Karlsson gave Mr. Putin space to discuss uninterruptedly his longstanding and apparently one-sided grievances about Ukraine’s origins and independence movement. But Mr. Carlson has occasionally questioned Mr. Putin’s claims about why Russia is imprisoning Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, saying that Mr. Gershkovich is a spy, and criticizing Mr. Putin’s apparent It bordered on irritation.
It remains to be seen whether this interview will improve Carlson’s standing in the long term.
The interview with Putin serves as a kind of advertisement for the streaming site he founded in December. The Tucker Carlson Network is an attempt to replicate the business models of other conservative celebrities like Megyn Kelly and Ben Shapiro, who have built standalone digital platforms outside of traditional media. Carlson is working with Red Seat Ventures, whose clients include Kelly, Bari Weiss and Nancy Grace, to sell advertising on the new platform.
But so far, Mr. Carlson’s self-produced “X” interviews have lacked the slick production values he once enjoyed on cable TV and lacked the overt influence he wielded on Fox News. It has not contributed to the national debate.
At least part of the reason why Fox did not take further steps to block his new efforts, despite Fox’s claims that he had violated the terms of his contract, is due to his waning power. It seems like there is. (Mr. Carlson’s lawyers argued that Fox had originally breached the contract and that his online show fell within the bounds of free speech.)
If Fox moves forward with its case against Carlson, it would give him an excuse to claim that his former “corporate media” overlords, as he likes to call them, were trying to censor him. there is a possibility. It’s the kind of argument aimed at Mr. Carlson’s fan base that resembles a political movement in itself, giving him the clout afforded to few other TV stars.
It was through his influence that Mr. Carlson benefited former President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Putin during his time at Fox News.
Karlsson is the network’s most prominent promoter of pro-Russian rhetoric, including claims that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a dictator that the West is using to undermine Russia. He echoed this view again in his interview with Putin.
But his propagandistic style also took him to the limits of cable television.
His involvement in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox, which was settled for $787 million, and the pretrial discovery of documents from Mr. Carlson conveying inflammatory views about violence and race, He influenced the decisions of his bosses Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch. I cut his show.
X owner Elon Musk quickly stepped in to make Carlson the first host of a long-form video show on the platform.
Musk vowed to complete the acquisition of X at the end of 2022 and make it an absolute “free speech” zone, a promise he reiterated during an appearance on Carlson’s FOX show just before it was canceled in April. did. “Free speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy,” Musk explained to Carlson, who praised him for “restoring free speech to the internet.”
In X, Mr. Musk may be able to offer Mr. Carlson more free speech. One reason is that internet platforms like Mr. Musk’s are legally protected from defamation lawsuits like the one Dominion filed against Fox. And Musk hasn’t expressed concerns about content that could drive away advertisers. (According to internal documents obtained by the New York Times, Company X offered Mr. Carlson packages of $300,000 for advertising on four of his videos and up to $1.5 million for advertising on 48 of his videos.)
Mr. Carlson pushed and ultimately broke the limits of what the Murdochs could allow on the network. Musk reinstated thousands of previously banned accounts promoting health and election misinformation in response to a rise in racist and anti-Semitic messages on social networks, but We’re not even close to the border yet. On Thursday, Mr. Musk, the most followed user on X, shared Mr. Putin’s interview with his followers.
Mr. Carlson’s show featured a number of social media platforms, including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones (who was known as X even before Mr. Musk took over and repealed most of his policies). The show has featured guests who violate the media platform’s content moderation policy. .
Other guests included independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, both of whom received supportive welcomes from Musk at the X.
That common outlook sometimes extended to Ukraine and Russia. Mr. Musk has angered Ukrainians by suggesting peace talks, which Mr. Putin sees as an admission that he will keep hold of territory he took through bloody and illegal force.
And Mr. Musk acknowledged allowing Ukraine to use its Starlink satellite system for battlefield communications, but acknowledged blocking its use in a planned attack on Russia in the Black Sea last year. Meanwhile, Putin praised Musk as a “talented businessman.”
Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, similarly had kind words for Carlson this week, saying that Putin’s decision to grant Carlson the interview he had sought since his time at Fox was due to Carlson’s “position of state power.” “It’s a contrast,” he said. Traditional Anglo-Saxon media. ”
Mr. Peskov’s failure to ask journalists a question debunked Mr. Carlson’s erroneous suggestion that he was the first Western media figure to interview Mr. Putin since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago. It was revealed that Many Western media outlets, including The Times, have made such requests.
But Peskov agreed with Carlson that traditional media “cannot even boast of an attempt to appear impartial.”
Russia defines impartiality as adhering to the official line, and deviating from the official line risks imprisonment. This violates traditional journalistic standards, standards that Mr. Carlson doesn’t have to worry about at Company X.
This interview is sure to captivate a large audience. The test will be whether that brings in more subscribers and interest in his show, and if not, how Mr. Carlson tries to outdo himself with his next hit. is.
Kate Conger Contributed to the report.