How Tucker Carlson Became Right-Wing Media’s Most Significant Voice

This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. Tucker Carlson has become one of the most powerful, influential people on the right. He got his start in conservative print media and transitioned to TV in the early days of cable news. After he was let go from CNN and MSNBC, which is now MS Now, and was on just one episode of Dancing with the Stars, he got hired by Fox, who

but eventually was fired. My guest Jason Zengerly writes, Carlson had the highest rated show in the history of cable news, and when he was abruptly fired from Fox in 2023, it was widely assumed he would fade from relevance. He did for many Americans, especially liberals, but he didn't go away. After leaving Fox News in 2023, he debuted a new streaming show on the social media platform then known as Twitter now acts and launched the Tucker Carlson streaming network.

Zangerly writes, The people still paying attention to him now are getting an even more extreme version of him than the one they saw on Fox News. Zangerly is the author of the new book about Carlson called Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind. For several years, Zangerly wrote about politics for the New York Times magazine. At the end of 2025 he joined The New Yorker.

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