How Tucker Carlson rehabilitated Donald Trump after January 6

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

As America prepares to decide on a former president Donald Trump political fortune, one of his most influential and significant media allies, Tucker Carlsonwent even further — he recently told viewers that he was attacked by a daemon and accusation hurricanes on abortions.

While Carlson’s descent into Alex Jones the area becomes easy fodder for derision, it cannot be overstated how instrumental he was in restoring Trump’s political fortunes after January 6, 2021. So much so that Carlson, more than any other figure in the media, deserves credit for exonerating Trump, downplaying the events of January 6th, and putting Trump in a position to once again become the flip side of the presidency.

In late October 2021, Carlson released his highly controversial docu-series on Fox Nation, titled Patriotic purge. “The U.S. government has effectively launched a new war on terror, and it’s not against al-Qaeda, it’s against the American citizen,” Carlson said in a promo for the series, which claims Jan. 6 was not a terrorist attack under Trump. at the U.S. Capitol to stop the vote counting, but a “false flag” operation by the U.S. government.

“Jan. 6 is being used as an excuse to deprive millions of Americans — dependent Americans — of their basic constitutional rights,” Carlson argued in the series, which sparked outrage and shock. within Fox News and among those who follow the fever of the far right.

Carlson continued to host his prime-time Fox News show for another year and a half before he was eventually fired from the network in April 2023, during which time he had the highest ratings in cable news. Carlson drew more than 3 million people nightly, making him one of the most influential voices not only in conservative politics, but in the mainstream media as well.

Carlson used this powerful perch to undo the damage done to Trump on January 6th. In March 2023, after months of downplaying attacks on Capitol police, claiming that the crowd included FBI agents and downplaying Trump’s calls for violence, Carlson told its millions of viewers:

The vast majority were not (violent). They were peaceful. They were decent and gentle. These were not rebels. They were tourists. Footage from inside the Capitol flips the story you’ve heard about January 6. Protesters line up in neat little lines.

They give each other tours outside the speaker’s office. They take funny selfies and smile. They are not destroying the Capitol. They obviously revere the Capitol. They are there because they believe that the election was stolen from them. They believe in the system.

Of course, such a revisionist account of that day seems laughable to most Americans or people around the world who have seen any of the violent footage of that day, including Vice President Trump. Mike Pence. But for many of Carlson’s viewers and Republicans who supported Trump, it was the rewriting of the narrative that allowed Trump to return from the political wilderness to reassert his grip on the Republican Party.

Leader of the Republicans in the Senate Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Associated Press Michael Tackett“I have absolutely no doubt that what the president did is an impeachable offense.”

“I think his inciting a rebellion and attacking people on the Capitol as a direct result is about as close to an impeachable offense as you can imagine, with the possible exception of maybe being an agent of another country,” McConnell said of Trump’s new book, released last month. Of course, Trump still had alliances in the Republican Party Kevin McCarthy a visit to Mar-a-Lago a few weeks after January 6 helped move his return forward, but it was far from guaranteed.

Carlson himself was aware of the enormous damage Trump had done to the Republican Party and possibly Fox News. After the 2020 election, Carlson wrote his producer Alex Pfeiffer, and said: “We have worked very hard to create what we have. These fools destroy our trust. It pisses me off.”

Carlson’s messages were made public during the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox, which the network settled for $787 million. According to the lawsuit, Carlson became angry with Trump and his team for pushing election denials at a time his network paid to promote:

He (Tucker) added that he talked to Laura (Ingraham) and (S) Sheen (Hannity) a minute ago and they’re very upset,” Carlson said. “At this point, we’re hurt no matter what.” Pfeiffer responded: It’s a tough needle, but I think a lot of people on our side are reckless demagogues right now. Tucker said, ‘We’re not going to follow them.’ He’s the undisputed world champion at it. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”

After the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, Carlson texted Pfeiffer again and called Trump a “demonic force, a destroyer” and added, “But he’s not going to destroy us.”

Carlson was well aware of the work ahead of him if he wanted to maintain his audience and his influential place in right-wing media. In the end, Carlson coped so effectively with his task that by 2023, almost 70 percent of Republicans consider him the president Joe Biden 2020 victory was illegitimate, in accordance to the vote.

Now, on the eve of Trump’s possible return to power, Carlson is publicly recalling the night a demon crawled into his bed. “And I was attacked while I was sleeping with my wife and four dogs, and they were mauled, physically mauled,” Carlson told a documentary filmmaker recently asked, “In a spiritual attack by a demon?”

“Yes, a demon,” Carlson replied. “Or something invisible that left claw marks on my sides.” The irony that Carlson once called Trump a demonic force and publicly claimed that he himself had been attacked by a demon just days before the election cannot be missed. If Trump is back in the White House, Carlson will be more powerful than ever and more dependent than ever on the man he once called a “destroyer.”

This is an opinion. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.