Former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, known for his successful content on the X platform, delivered a somber forecast about the upcoming 2024 election cycle during a Las Vegas conference earlier this week.
Addressing contemporary political and cultural concerns at the Risk On 360! Global Success Conference, as reported by The Daily Caller, the news outlet he co-founded, Carlson expressed his views just over a year ahead of the commencement of early voting for the 2024 elections.
Starting with the observation that the individuals he has recently engaged with are “angry and paranoid,” Carlson clarified that they are not conspiracy theorists but regular citizens expressing concern about the state of the nation.
“I flew out here across the country this morning and spent five hours texting people … and I gotta tell you, every single person I texted, except my wife — who’s not on the internet at all — was angry and paranoid,” Carlson said.
“Seriously, and these are not crazy people. These are normal good people with kids and stuff. With a vested interest in Americans’ success. These are not the burn-it-down caucus. These are the, you know, these are the people you want voting,” he added.
Continuing his remarks, Carlson conveyed that, in his “assessment” of their viewpoints, he sees their emotions as entirely valid. He emphasized that the escalating tension within America is poised to escalate further as the U.S. approaches a tumultuous election season in the coming year.
“And I have to say after assessing their views for five hours, I think they were justified in both. They had every reason to be angry and all the evidence required to become paranoid,” Carlson continued. “I’m just telling you once again, what you already know, which is this is going to be — the next year is going to be, I think I’d bet my house on it, really like nothing we’ve ever seen in the country. And everyone can kind of feel that. You know, most of our perceptions come through intuition rather than reason.”
“But if you’re close to your dog, you know, the dog knows exactly what’s going on … they just watch and they feel. And people are very much the same. And if something bad is about to happen, everybody gets jumpy. And everybody’s jumpy right now,” Carlson stated.
Carlson offered some “guidance” for the upcoming months, emphasizing the significance of staying abreast of political developments.
He drew attention to President Joe Biden’s mental state, highlighted the legal actions against former President Donald Trump, and touched on prevalent social issues, including gender ideology.
Shifting the focus to Trump’s ongoing legal battles, Carlson stated, “Every time he faces charges and each instance adds years to a potential sentence, his popularity increases—and now he’s prevailing.”
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman garnered attention recently by suggesting that there’s a “real” possibility Trump might consider Carlson as his running mate in 2024.
In an interview on The Dispatch Podcast with host Jamie Weinstein, Haberman discussed how the former president plans to populate his administration with staunch supporters if he secures a second term.
In response to rumors about Trump potentially selecting Carlson as his vice president, Weinstein sought Haberman’s opinion on the matter.
“It’s a real thing that I am hearing as a possibility,” Haberman said. “The likelihood of it, I don’t know. I think there will be a pretty professional vetting process, honestly. I know that might sound unbelievable based on what we’ve seen from Trump historically, but Trump’s current political team is the best—at least as a non-incumbent—that he’s had, and there’s just a different level of control.”
While Haberman continued to speak about Carlson as a potential Trump VP pick, she noted that “the risk with Tucker Carlson and Trump is that Tucker Carlson’s a very big star in his own right, and I’m not sure how Trump would contend with that.”
Trump and Carlson have maintained an amicable relationship in the public spotlight. Trump opted to skip one of the GOP presidential primary debates to engage in a conversation with Carlson, and the two have shared social occasions.
In recent weeks, Trump expressed openness to the idea of considering Carlson as a potential running mate in the 2024 election.
“I like Tucker a lot; I guess I would,” Trump said during an appearance on “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show” last week. “I think I’d say I would because he’s got great common sense. You know, when they say that you guys are conservative, or I’m conservative — it’s not that we’re conservative, we have common sense. We want to have safe borders. We want to have a wall, because walls work.”
