[88] Carlson's Trinity yearbook describes him as a member of the "Dan White Society", an apparent reference to the American political assassin who murdered San Francisco mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk.

[142][64] In June 2010, The Daily Caller published excerpts from e-mails sent between members of JournoList, an invitation-only liberal forum, consisting of "several hundred journalists, academics and policy experts" launched in 2007 by Ezra Klein.

In January 2017, Forbes reported that the show had "scored consistently high ratings, averaging 2.8 million viewers per night and ranking as the number two cable news program behind The O'Reilly Factor in December".

In September 2020, federal judge Mary Kay Vyskocil[179] dismissed the lawsuit, citing Fox News' defense that Carlson's extortion claims were opinion based and not "statements of fact".

[181] In July 2020, Carlson's head writer Blake Neff resigned after CNN Business reported that he had been using a pseudonym to post remarks that were widely described as racist, sexist, and homophobic on AutoAdmit, a message board known for its lack of moderation of offensive and defamatory content.

[215] During the episode, Carlson claimed that the US had recovered an extraterrestrial starship and its pilot;[216] that Volodymyr Zelensky is "sweaty and rat-like", and was persecuting Christians;[217] that the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam was done by Ukrainian forces;[218] that the Black Lives Matter riots were organized by an unknown entity;[217] and that the truth behind the September 11 attacks was still classified.

[233] On September 9, all 24 Democratic Jewish members of Congress issued a joint statement saying that they were "appalled that Tucker Carlson hosted and promoted Nazi apologist and Holocaust denier Darryl Cooper on his podcast".

[15] Writing for New York magazine's Intelligencer in 2019, Park MacDougald called Carlson a "Middle American radical", which he described as someone who holds populist economic beliefs; hostility to corporatocracy; fervent positions on nationalism, race, and immigration; and a preference for a strong U.S. president.

[258] Carlson is noted for circulating white nationalist views and terminology into mainstream political discourse, in particular, repackaging the fringe racist "replacement" conspiracy theory into a version that accuses Democrats and "elites" of forcing demographic change.

"[276] Writing for Politico in January 2016, Carlson expressed his support for Donald Trump's candidacy and his positions, such as his proposed "Muslim ban", and criticized the other Republican candidates for not similarly making immigration a core issue.

[319][49] In an interview, he said that economic and technological change that occurs too quickly can cause widespread social and political upheaval, and praised President Theodore Roosevelt, saying his intervention in the economy in the early 1900s may have prevented a communist revolution in the United States.

[325][322] He described the business model of firms like Bain as: "Take over an existing company for a short period of time, cut costs by firing employees, run up the debt, extract the wealth and move on, sometimes leaving retirees without their earned pensions.

[372] During the Israel–Hamas war, Carlson criticized both President Joe Biden and Republican House speaker Mike Johnson for their support for military aid to Israel and called for American neutrality during the conflict.

[395][independent source needed] He criticized LeBron James for speaking out against Daryl Morey, the latter having tweeted in support of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests,[396][397] and referred to the former CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger, as a "propagandist" for the Chinese Communist Party.

[446][447][448][449][450] CBS News, Associated Press, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal described Carlson's segment (with guest Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute) as false or misleading, because violence against farmers had reached an all-time low and the reforms had yet to pass and were primarily aimed at land that had fallen into disuse.

[451][447][448][452][450][453][454] Following the Carlson segment, President Trump tweeted that he had instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to "closely study the South Africa land and farm seizure and large scale killing of farmers".

"[459][460][461][462] The leaked footage was heavily scrutinized in light of other antisemitic statements West had made on social media in the days after the Tucker Carlson Tonight interview aired, including an October 8 tweet in which he threatened to go "death con 3 [sic]" on Jewish people.

[474] Carlson has strongly criticized the transgender rights movement,[475] including saying hospitals that provide gender-affirming healthcare to minors are criminals who harm children, and that they should not be surprised to receive threatening phone calls.

[519][520] Later that month, Carlson cast doubt on unfounded conspiratorial claims made by former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, who alleged that Venezuela, Cuba and unidentified communist interests had used a secret algorithm to hack into voting machines and commit widespread electoral fraud.

[524][525] In July 2021, Carlson suggested that "there actually was meaningful voter fraud in Fulton County, Georgia, last November" despite the state's election results being validated via both hand and machine recounts.

[527][528][529] The following February, Dominion's legal team released texts and other products of discovery against Fox, revealing that Carlson privately doubted the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and mocked Trump advisors, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

[539] In response to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley's defense of studying critical race theory "to understand white rage" as it concerns the storming, Carlson said, "Hard to believe that man wears a uniform.

Carlson subsequently aired portions of it on his show to illustrate his own narrative concerning the event, painting it as "peaceful chaos" and condemning other media outlets as untruthful when portraying the attack as violent.

[553] Carlson's presentation included video of Jacob Chansley — the "QAnon Shaman" — walking the halls of Congress, depicting him as a peaceful demonstrator being escorted by police who was unjustly prosecuted and incarcerated.

"[554] Carlson repeatedly promoted a conspiracy theory that pro-Trump protestor Ray Epps was actually a federal agent engaged in a false flag operation to instigate the January 6 attack.

[561] In October 2020, Carlson alleged on his show that someone was reading his text messages, after documents he claimed had compromising information on Joe Biden's son, Hunter, were lost by the United Parcel Service and then quickly located.

[565] On June 28, 2021, Carlson said on his program that "a whistleblower within the U.S. government" informed him that the National Security Agency (NSA) was "monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air", adding, "The Biden administration is spying on us.

[48][64][1][579][580] In arguments, Carlson can quickly shift between personas as a devil's advocate and a moralizing truth teller, and simultaneously appear outraged and blasé – a use of contradiction that Lili Loofbourow, writing for Slate, referred to as a "joking/not-joking loophole" historically used by radio shock jocks.

[580] Jack Shafer wrote in Politico that "When the host barks questions in your earpiece, you can't help but jolt to life like a puppet on a string", suggesting that successful guests on Carlson's show must match his quick-wittedness and unflappability.

[133] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Carlson has been "recognized for his success in helping to bring far-right viewpoints and vocabulary into the mainstream of American politics" through his promotion of "extreme positions on a range of political and social issues, for his embrace of white nationalism, for his support of authoritarian leaders of other countries, and for his regular reliance on arguably false or misleading claims, including baseless conspiracy theories" and for "exert[ing] an unusual influence on Republican president Donald Trump, who was a regular viewer of Carlson's show.