Tucker’s next move

Created
Fri, 05/05/2023 - 02:30
Updated
Fri, 05/05/2023 - 02:30
He’s all at sixes and sevens… The Washington Post reports: Tucker Carlson — who was fired by Fox News last week at the height of his popularity and influence in right-wing punditry — has aspirations of moving into a larger role that doesn’t limit him to a single medium, according to people familiar with his thinking. And he is willing to walk away from some of the millions that Fox is contractually obligated to pay him, if that would give him the flexibility to have a prominent voice in the 2024 election cycle. Most ambitiously, Carlson wants to moderate his own GOP candidate forum, outside of the usual strictures of the Republican National Committee debate system. The idea, which he has discussed with Donald Trump, the front-runner for the party nomination, would test his vaunted sway over conservative politics. And it would take a jab at his former employer — Fox is hosting the first official primary debate, which Trump has threatened not to attend — if he can manage to make his grandest plan happen. Ultimately, Carlson is scrambling to try to avoid the fate of other once-towering former Fox News personalities, who in exile from the network have found lucrative gigs but nothing like their former positions of influence. “If I’m sitting in his seat right now, I’m plotting really my own media company, how I want to build it,” said Joel Cheatwood, a former Fox News and CNN executive who helped found theblaze.com with Glenn Beck after his forced departure from Fox News in 2011.…