Former President Donald Trump has earned an endorsement from Tucker Carlson, the conservative media figure who once said in a text that he hated the former president.
“I became an active Trump supporter when they raided Mar-a-Lago last summer. That just can’t stand,” Carlson said in an interview Thursday with Roseanne Barr on her podcast — the actress being no stranger to controversy herself. “I’m voting for Trump, and if they convict him, I will send him the max donations and I will lead protests. That’s how I feel.”
Carlson told Barr he has “always agreed with Trump’s policies,” even “losing friends over it.”
While the conservative newsman and the former president appeared to have a friendly relationship during Trump’s presidency — when Carlson occupied the coveted primetime spot in Fox News’ nightly lineup — text messages that were revealed during Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the network painted a different picture.
In a text message sent on Jan. 4, 2021, Carlson wrote to an unidentified recipient, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait.”
“I hate him passionately. … I can’t handle much more of this,” he added.
Jason Koerner/Getty Images for MoveOn Political Action
Dominion sued Fox News and its parent company over false statements about the integrity of the 2020 election and Dominion’s voting machines that were made by several of Fox News’ most notable personalities, including Carlson. The company alleged Fox defamed it by broadcasting unfounded allegations that Dominion had rigged the election against Trump.
The lawsuit was settled in April and cost Fox News a hefty $787.5 million. Carlson was removed from the network’s lineup just days after the case was settled.
Carlson has also been accused by both Democratic and some Republican lawmakers of downplaying the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when members of the public, some of whom were intent on stopping the count of electoral votes in order to keep Trump in power, stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has qualified for every Republican debate so far this primary season, but has opted out of participating in any of them. Ahead of the first debate, he decided to pre-record an interview with Carlson instead, which was posted to X, the website formerly known as Twitter, just minutes before the debate aired on Fox News.
According to Carlson, though his distaste for Trump had been made public at the time, it was the former president who approached him for the interview.
“Whatever you think of Trump,” said Carlson in August, “he is, as of tonight, the indisputable, far-and-away frontrunner in the Republican race.”
