Share This Podcast

• Check out Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind
• Call Congress – 202-224-3121
• Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8
• What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast

Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/

TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, February 4th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What A Day, the show that stands with Department of Justice lawyer Julie Le, who broke down in federal court Tuesday and told a judge, quote, “This system sucks. This job sucks.” When the judge asked her why ICE is disobeying court orders, she then asked to be held in contempt so that she could get some sleep. Julie, you’re not wrong. The system does suck. I wonder how it got that way. [music break] On today’s show, the partial government shutdown ends, but the fight to reform US immigration enforcement continues, and are we going to war with Iran? But let’s start with Tucker Carlson. You probably are aware of the current version of Tucker Carlsen, the former Fox News titan and GOP kingmaker who now hosts a podcast where he has conversations with conservatives and other people you’d probably try to avoid at the company holiday party. Like white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who joined Carlson last year to discuss a wide a array of topics, including some of the problems with modern women. 

[clip of Nick Fuentes] They’re very feminist. 

[clip of Tucker Carlson] Like, actually? 

[clip of Nick Fuentes] Extremely feminist, yes. 

[clip of Tucker Carlson] They don’t believe that, do they? 

[clip of Nick Fuentes] I think they do. 

[clip of Tucker Carlson] Really? 

[clip of Nick Fuentes] Absolutely, yes! 

[clip of Tucker Carlson] How could you believe that? 

[clip of Nick Fuentes] I think–

[clip of Tucker Carlson] That gender roles are a construct, that none of this is inborn, like, you’d have to be an idiot to think that. 

[clip of Nick Fuentes] They like the idea of it. 

Jane Coaston: The two worst people you know, both of whom have real political sway, just saying exactly to each other for two hours. Fun! But unless you’ve been following conservative media for a long time, you might not know that there have actually been many eras of Tucker Carlson. He’s like Taylor Swift, but all of his eras are shitty. For example, Carlson launched his career in print journalism, writing for the conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard, in the mid 1990s. Then he gravitated to the bright lights of television. By the early 2000s, Carlson was hosting a debate show called Crossfire on CNN. He played the token conservative to the show’s token liberal, Paul Bagala. And they’d basically just argue with each other. Until Daily Show host Jon Stewart came on the program in 2004 and set the entire concept of treating political disagreement as entertainment on fire. 

[clip of Jon Stewart] The thing that I want to say is, when you have people on for just knee-jerk, reactionary talk. 

[clip of Tucker Carlson] Wait, I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny. 

[clip of Jon Stewart] No. No, I’m not going to be your monkey. Um. [laughter] What what? I watch your show every day, and it kills me. 

[clip of Tucker Carlson] I can tell you love it. 

[clip of Jon Stewart] It’s so, oh, it’s so painful to watch. Um. You know because we need what you do. This is such a great opportunity you have here to actually get politicians–

[clip of Tucker Carlson] Is this really Jon Stewart? What is this anyway? 

[clip of Jon Stewart] –off of their marketing and strategy. Yeah, it’s someone who watches your show and cannot take it anymore.

Jane Coaston: This went on for 15 excruciating minutes. And when Crossfire was canceled the next year, CNN’s then president pointed to that moment as the reason why. Tucker then spent a few years at MSNBC before finally, in 2009, he landed at Fox News. And that’s where he developed his superpower, which is actually very simple. He goes where his audience already is, and he gives his audience exactly what they want. Feeding some of their worst impulses again and again under the glossy veneer of respectability. That ability to make the extreme palatable is what has made Carlson the most important person to watch in right-wing media ever since. New Yorker staff writer, Jason Zengerle, first met Carlson back in the 1990s and has been following his career ever since. His new book, Hated by All the Right People, Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind, examines Carlson’s evolution and the media’s. We spoke about Carlson’s past and what his shifting priorities can tell us about American politics. Jason, welcome to What A Day. 

Jason Zengerle: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: Early in your book, you describe first meeting Tucker Carlson almost 20 years ago. What was your first impression of him? 

Jason Zengerle: I mean, I don’t want to make myself seem like too young and naive, but I was you know I was impressed. You know his byline preceded me meeting him. So he was someone whose writing I respected and and looked up to because he was he was only a few years older than me, but he was way ahead of where I was career-wise. I was just an intern at the New Republic and he was you know a staff writer at the Weekly Standard and was kind of doing the stories that I would like to do. But you know beyond that, I mean he was actually like quite nice and funny and charming. And um you know, I think a lot of people in his position kind of didn’t have time for the interns and he was really, really friendly. I was just like, wow, what a guy. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, it’s interesting in my conversations with him from years ago, what struck me was the charm. Like he does–. 

Jason Zengerle: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: –do kind of a charm offensive towards people. And it’s interesting to your point, I’ve heard from people who worked for him at Daily Caller, who were like interns, who were yeah, he was really nice all the time. 

Jason Zengerle: Yeah. Best boss ever. Yeah, yeah.

Jane Coaston: Yeah, and it is striking how he like turns on this charm and charisma with people in their circle. And then, you know, was it strange for you to see this person who you’d interacted with and then you see what they became on Fox News and you see how vitriolic he is and you how he can become wildly angry about anything, absolutely anything. 

Jason Zengerle: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Was that strange or did that really strike you as being like, oh, he’s playing a part? 

Jason Zengerle: You know, I never really knew him well enough to know whether he was playing a part or not. I mean, he was someone I knew professionally and would talk to. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Jason Zengerle: You know, for stories. But I also felt that he seemed to inhabit the role kind of more comfortably maybe and more fully, like the role ultimately kind of took over the whole personality at some point, at least on his his Fox program. And um it made me, I think, conclude ultimately that yeah, he kind of does believe this, this is what he’s become. 

Jane Coaston: That goes to something I really liked about your book, which is that you take the reader through a lot of twists and turns in Tucker’s career. But one thing is that he’s always adapting and reinventing himself every couple of years. We have seen now like multiple iterations of Tucker Carlson. Can you describe–

Jason Zengerle: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: –some of those different iterations? 

Jason Zengerle: Yeah, I mean, we’re, I think we’re like Tucker 6.0 now, probably, um and you know and the thing about all of those roles is they’re always very sort of carefully calibrated to meet the moment. You know, I think earlier in his career, he missed the moment a few times and he was out of step with where kind of media was at that moment or where it was headed. I mean you certainly see that like in his early cable news career when he has a lot of success at CNN, but then after the Jon Stewart debacle where Jon Stewart shows up on Crossfire and humiliates him, he kind of stayed true to it after the show had outlived its usefulness. And I think um similarly his time at MSNBC, he just wasn’t a good fit. But ever since leaving MSNBC, you know back in 2008, getting fired from there, he’s been really kind of careful and fairly successful to kind of calibrate whatever version he is of himself at that moment in such a way that it’ll appeal the most to viewers or bosses or anything like that. And you know I think what’s so um kind of scary in a way about what he’s doing right now is he’s had very good radar for the past decade or so about where the conservative base is and what they want and where they’re headed. And the fact that he has you know adapted this extreme kind of version of himself with white nationalism, with anti-Semitism, like that that suggests that that’s what he thinks he needs to do in order to be successful with conservative viewers and conservative voters. And he’s he’s oftentimes been right about that. 

Jane Coaston: You spoke to someone, Mike Riggs, who was at The Daily Caller with Tucker Carlson. And he said, quote, “the thing that Tucker valued most of all was a person’s willingness to write something that would make liberals mad.” And I’ve beeen thinking about this a lot, because the reason why I think most of the people listening or watching this know about Tucker Carlsen’s podcast is not because they listened to it, nor did they watch him on Fox news. But we’ve seen the clips a billion times because they get shared by like liberal outlets being like did you see what Tucker Carlson did? 

Jason Zengerle: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Are we part of the problem? Are progressives and liberals how we got this version of Tucker Carlsen? 

Jason Zengerle: Yes and no. That was a huge phenomenon when he had the Fox show, right? Like there was this whole like economy that you know liberal websites, like they would have reporters whose like his job was just to clip Tucker’s show each night and put up you know the worst stuff on Twitter the next day as kind of rage bait to get engagement. But when he left Fox, I felt like he kind of faded away from view of blue America. Like people stopped paying attention to him, but red America did not. And so there was this idea that, oh, Tucker’s gone. And, you know, we don’t have to worry about him anymore, but he was still like churning out his podcast for whatever reason, I’m not sure why, but like liberals stopped doing that kind of clip thing. And it really wasn’t until the ’24 election and Trump winning and Tucker playing such a prominent role in that, that he started occupying the mental real estate of liberals the same way he did during Trump’s first presidency. And I think that the idea behind the book was like, you can’t afford to ignore this guy and you can’t afford to dismiss him and you really need to take him seriously. So I guess the clips that people are showing of his podcast, alright maybe that’s not the intention. Maybe they’re not trying to like you know take him seriously, but I think they do have that impact. They need to know he’s there. They need know that he has a ton of influence on not just this administration, but you know just conservative activists outside the administration. I think it’s actually probably a good thing. 

Jane Coaston: What do you think is the driving force at play in all of Tucker’s transformations? Like, at the end of the day, what does he want? 

Jason Zengerle: You know, I think the through line that I was able to kind of find in his career is, I think he really did want and continues to want power and stature. He has I think an ideological project and a vision for America that I think has come into tighter focus maybe in the past decade, and maybe it’s because he’s he’s close enough that he can taste it now. He’s actually kind of achieved that stature and that power that, you know, he’s long wanted and maybe he thinks he can do something with it now. But I think his vision is you know very similar to Stephen Miller’s vision at this point. Um. It’s a United States that is a lot more homogenous, a lot whiter. You know, we’ve returned to traditional gender roles, traditional sexual roles. Um. I think that’s that’s something that he wants to achieve. 

Jane Coaston: Something that’s really interesting is that he’s not Jesse Waters. He is not a party line guy. 

Jason Zengerle: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: He can clearly think for himself. And you give examples of how he will tell people in power when he disagrees with them. Like in the mid 2000s, he admitted to regretting supporting the Iraq war after he visited Baghdad and he was out ahead of a lot of conservatives. 

Jason Zengerle: Yeah [?]. 

Jane Coaston: Who have all gotten on the, oh, I hated the Iraq war from the beginning thing because Trump did. And at the start of the pandemic, you start the book by talking about him trying to get President Trump to take COVID-19 more seriously. How do you attempt to grapple with the complexity of him in that way, in which he clearly, he wants power, but he denigrates people who are in power who he doesn’t think should be in power, and he will also kind of go against what the powerful say. 

Jason Zengerle: Yeah. Up to a point, I think. 

Jane Coaston: Well, yeah. 

Jason Zengerle: I mean and I think yeah and I think looking at him now and kind of the way he’s trying to navigate this this second Trump administration. I mean, the first Trump presidency, you know he was famous for kind of you know obviously supporting Trump’s ideas such as they were, but not the man himself necessarily and sort of not buying into the cult of personality in a way that every other Fox host did. And at certain points, you know criticizing him often from the right. Um, this time around, I think because he doesn’t have the built in Fox platform, he’s had to attach himself to Trump in a way that he, he didn’t the first time. And I think that’s made him a little more gun shy about criticizing Trump and criticizing power. I mean, before the first Iran attack, he obviously, you know, really went to bat hard to try to prevent that. And then when he wasn’t able to, it questioned his influence, uh, in the administration and I think he doesn’ want people thinking he’s not influential. So like with the Venezuela operation he was obviously, you know speaking out against that before it occurred But then once it did happen, he really didn’t criticize it all that effectively and I thought that was kind of an interesting moment that he sort of you know cooled his jets a little bit and gave a kind of qualified support because I think he is he’s wary of going too hard at Trump one for maybe pissing off Trump, but two I think you know, he’s trying to save face. He wants people to think maybe he has more sway than he does. You know, but that said like I think he really does believe that there is a MAGA ideology. I think like guys like him and guys like Steve Bannon, they believe that voters are supporting Trump because they really believe these things about, you know, American first or restrictionist immigration policies. And you know the big question is going to be like, is that what voters care about or do they just like Trump and they’ll do whatever Trump says. And I think that’ll be a real question to play out over the next few years. 

Jane Coaston: We’re at a weird moment where Donald Trump is president again, in part, thanks to Tucker Carlson. But it feels like the MAGA true believers are wavering. You see diehard supporters like former Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, who’s basically saying MAGA was a sham. And at the same time, Tucker is giving the spotlight to people like anti-Semite white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who was on his podcast late last year and who had a very nice conversation. So will he continue being MAGA even without Trump? Where do you see Tucker going from here? 

Jason Zengerle: I think he will continue being MAGA without Trump. I guess the question is, will MAGA continue being MAGA, without Trump? And I think, you know, I think the Fuentes thing was kind of a fascinating example, because Fuentes is like more critical of Trump than anyone, right? Like Fuentes, you, know, he’s like, this guy’s not really one of us. He’s in over his head. And I, think um Tucker was in this feud with Fuentes where, you now, he called him a fed and he said he was gay. And then Fuentes you know fired back and called Tucker a fed and said he was a poser. And Tucker was losing that fight like–

Jane Coaston: Normal adult behavior. 

Jason Zengerle: Yeah, normal adult behavior, normal like far-right influencer behavior. But you know he was losing that fight. And I think he had Fuentes on his show as an olive branch because he thinks that to be successful in conservative media and conservative politics these days, you can’t afford to alienate the neo-Nazis. And I think oftentimes like the neo-Nazis, you know the Fuenteses of the world are are just as critical of Trump as like, Marjorie Taylor Greene at this point. I mean, it’s a different critique, but they’re not, they have not like drank the Kool-Aid about Trump. You know, they liked him for a while and they thought he was, you know, useful for their purposes, but they don’t think he’s a true believer. And I feel like Tucker is is is heading towards similar territory. I mean he has to be careful because he does want to maintain his influence in this administration. But at the same time, he doesn’t want to lose that audience that is um, you know, getting fed up with Trump. So I think that’s, that’s probably one of the things that’s running through his mind right now. 

Jane Coaston: Jason, thank you so much for joining me. 

Jason Zengerle: Oh, thanks a lot for having me. This was a lot of fun. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Jason Zengerle, author of the new book, Hated by All the Right People, Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind. We’ll link to it in the show notes. We’ve got more news coming up, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe and leave a five-star review wherever you listen. And for those of you who have always wondered if our faces match our voices, watch us on YouTube. And don’t forget to share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of House Speaker Mike Johnson] We just had an important and historic vote on the House floor, a series of votes today in fact, and we delivered for the American people. For some reason, many of the House Democrats wanted to shut the government down again and inflict pain on the American people. But I’m glad to tell you, I’m happy to report, Republicans got the job done. 

Jane Coaston: The House narrowly passed a roughly $1.2 trillion spending bill Tuesday to end the partial government shutdown. 21 Democrats voted with 196 Republicans to pass the bill, as most Democrats opposed it over the Minneapolis shootings by federal immigration officers. And notably, 21 Republicans broke with GOP leadership and voted against the bill. That’s quite a visible fracture in the Republican ranks, despite Trump’s calls for unity. Trump signed the bill into law Tuesday, funding the majority of the government. So what’s left to fund? The Department of Homeland Security. The bill only includes a short-term funding patch for the agency through February 13th. Until then, Democrats and Republicans will debate potential changes to the department’s immigration enforcement policies. 

[clip of Luke Granger] We hope that our family can be even a small example to others not to let political ideals divide us to be good like Renée. But the most important thing we can do today is to help this panel and our country understand who Née is and what a beautiful American we have lost. 

Jane Coaston: On Tuesday, Democratic members of the House and Senate heard from Luke Granger, the brother of Renée Good. Good was killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis last month. Her brother Brent also spoke. Both appeared alongside other U.S. citizens who say DHS agents assaulted, injured, or shot them as Congress debates changes to immigration operations. Luke Granger said he’s in, quote, “deep distress and disbelief,” adding he hoped Good’s death would change how immigration agents operate. But so far, it hasn’t. Brent Granger read a section of his eulogy for his late sister to lawmakers. 

[clip of Brent Granger] She believed in second chances. She believed tomorrow could be better than today. She believed that kindness mattered, and she lived that belief. Even when things were hard, Née looked for the light. And if she couldn’t find it, she became the light for somebody else. 

Jane Coaston: New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James announced plans Tuesday to keep eyes on federal immigration enforcement in the state. Through the Legal Observation Project, the Attorney General’s office said it will quote, “Collect reports of enforcement actions throughout New York and send trained personnel to observe and document that activity where appropriate, as well as any related protests as they occur.” The press release makes it clear that the legal observers will only document federal conduct, and will not interfere with operations. The observers will also wear purple safety vests to make sure they’re easily identifiable. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to the New York Times, quote, “ICE law enforcement wouldn’t have to be in the field in New York if we had state and local cooperation.” A.G. James said in the statement that the project is meant to ensure that federal enforcement activities in New York are lawful, noting, quote, “we have seen in Minnesota how quickly and tragically federal operations can escalate in the absence of transparency and accountability.” A U.S. fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone on Tuesday, which, shockingly, did little to de-escalate tensions between the two countries. According to U. S. Central Command, the drone flew too close to a U.S. Aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. The U.S. Military said following the attack, the Iranian military harassed U.S. merchant ships in the area. The U.S. and Iran have clashed recently after the Iranian government spent weeks violently quelling domestic protests challenging the Islamic Republic. Thousands of Iranians were killed. The Iranian government denies responsibility for the killings. That prompted President Trump to promise Iranian citizens that he quote, “rescue them,” which then turned into a pressure campaign on the Iranian government to negotiate its nuclear program. This is, of course, the same nuclear program Trump claimed was quote, “completely and totally obliterated” after he bombed underground nuclear sites last June. I’m starting to think Trump didn’t go full East Wing of the White House on Iran’s nuclear program after all. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. As you know by now, the Department of Justice released nearly three million pages of documents related to its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday. And there was a lot there. First and probably foremost, there were a lot, more than 5,300 mentions, according to the New York Times, of President Donald Trump. I want to note here that President Trump has denied any wrongdoing involving Epstein, and there’s no real evidence, even in these files otherwise. The DOJ dump contained a ton of material. A lot of FBI tips that were unvetted and unsubstantiated. But on Tuesday, Trump lost his shit on CNN’s Kaitlan Collins when she asked a simple question about the survivors of Epstein’s abuse in the middle of his Oval Office Victory Lap. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Now that nothing came out about me other than there was a conspiracy against me literally by Epstein and other people but I think it’s time now for the country to maybe get onto something else like like–

[clip of Kaitlan Collins] But what would you say to people who don’t feel they have gotten justice–

[clip of President Donald Trump] –health care or–

[clip of Kaitlan Collins] –Mr. President?

[clip of President Donald Trump] Something that people care about. You know what do what do you say, go ahead CNN. You are [?]–

[clip of Kaitlan Collins] What would you what would you say to the survivors who feel that they haven’t got–

[clip of President Donald Trump] You know you are the worst reporter. No wonder CNN has no ratings because of people like you. You know, she’s a young woman. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. I’ve known you for 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile on your face. 

[clip of Kaitlan Collins] Well I’m asking you about survivors Mr. President. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] You know why you know why you’re not smiling? Because you know you’re not telling the truth. 

Jane Coaston: Two things, Collins was discussing the survivors of sexual abuse, and that man has the nuclear codes. It’s easy to just focus on Trump and Epstein because, well, it just is. But the DOJ release contains emails between Epstein and figures from across the worlds of politics, culture, and commerce. Because lots and lots of people had a whole lot to do with Jeffrey Epstein it seems. Tech people like Elon Musk, who tweeted last September that he, quote, “refused,” in all caps, to go to Epstein’s island. But the emails appear to show he really really wanted to visit. In one message released by the DOJ from November of 2012, Musk wrote, quote, “what day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Or like Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick, who said on a podcast last year that he cut ties with Epstein in the mid 2000s because he never wanted to see that, quote, “disgusting person ever again.” But according to a series of emails released by the DOJ. Lutnick and his wife and children visited Epstein in the Caribbean in 2012 and were exchanging friendly emails as late as 2018. That’s actually what’s so striking about the Epstein saga. It’s depth and breadth. Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and girls was wielded by Trump and MAGA as a political cudgel against Democrats, and already you’re seeing the Trump administration try to back away from the story. But looking at the thousands of emails shared by the Department of Justice, Epstein had friends across the political spectrum. All apparently willing to overlook the fact that by the time many of them were exchanging messages, Epstein had already been imprisoned for soliciting prostitution of a minor in 2008. The minds behind Microsoft and Google, some of the biggest names in economics, European royals, all friendly with a man who would die in jail awaiting charges of trafficking minors for sex. Like, really friendly. I can’t stop thinking about one particular figure whose emails were in the DOJ files. So-called longevity influencer Dr. Peter Attia. He’s a well-known health author and podcaster, one of those talking heads you may have seen on Instagram or TikTok if you’re the kind of person who counts your macros and knows what zone two training is. He was even just hired as a contributor to CBS News. But according to his emails with Epstein, he was absolutely enamored with the convicted sex offender. He wrote in an email from 2015 in response to a photo Epstein sent that has been redacted that the hardest part of being friends with him, a convicted sex offender was that quote, “the life you lead is so outrageous and yet I can’t tell a soul.” And in a 2016 email to Epstein’s assistant, Attia said that he would go into quote, “J.E. withdrawal” when I don’t see him. Epstein was very rich, but so were the people he was emailing with and inviting to his island. He was well connected, but so were the people who he was e-mailing. So what did Epstein have that they could have possibly wanted? According to Friday’s emails, access to young women and girls. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, make less news, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how I think we’ve had too much news lately, and honestly, I’m good for the week on news as a concept. Like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and just don’t make any news. Stay home. Make soup. Watch a movie. [music break] What A Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Fohr and Chris Allport. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Greg Walters, and Matt Berg. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdock and Jordan Cantor. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.