POLITICO NIGHTLY: How Tucker Carlson’s exit reshapes the Republican primary

 

View in browser   BY CHARLIE MAHTESIAN AND CALDER MCHUGH Tucker Carlson departed abruptly from Fox News today. His 8 p.m. hour will have a rotation of guest hosts until Fox names a permanent replacement. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images TUCKERED OUT — From his perch atop the conservative media food chain, Tucker Carlson has played a singular role in shaping the Republican political ecosystem. His popular 8 p.m. Fox News show defined — or redefined — the parameters of political debate. It launched, elevated and crushed GOP campaigns. Now, the void left by his departure, announced today , stands to reconfigure the GOP presidential primary. Carlson’s influence was such that many speculated that he would make a formidable presidential candidate himself — possibly one who could inherit former President Donald Trump’s populist MAGA movement. Night after night, Carlson arguably spoke to the largest number of Republicans in the country. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” topped all cable news programs with an average of 3.25 million viewers per-night in the first quarter of 2023 — his show still holds the record for the highest quarter of viewership for a cable news show of all time, with a 4.33 million average in the second quarter of 2020. Online, videos of Carlson’s segments regularly top one million views on YouTube. And once Fox announced its split with Carlson this morning, its stock tumbled , losing hundreds of millions of dollars in valuation. He’s insisted that he’s not running this cycle — and probably won’t run ever — but his fingerprints are already all over the burgeoning 2024 Republican primary. In a mutually beneficial arrangement, Trump chose Carlson for his first post-arraignment interview and Carlson devoted his entire program to it, despite the personal contempt with which Carlson apparently views him. So far, two candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy and Larry Elder, declared that they would be running for president on Carlson’s now-canceled show — a platform of incalculable value to long shot candidates like them who are desperate for attention. Their prospects for shaking up the race are immediately downgraded without access to Carlson’s megaphone. One obvious winner is former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Carlson hosted Ramaswamy and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on his program dozens of times. Haley got no such exposure. She was introduced to Carlson’s audience as “fundamentally indistinguishable from the neoliberal donor base of the Democratic Party.” "Nikki Haley believes in collective racial guilt,” he said not long after Haley’s campaign launch. “She believes identity politics is our future. ‘Vote for me because I’m a woman,’ she says. That’s her pitch.” Carlson, who built a devoted audience in part by breaking cable news shibboleths, played more than a kingmaking role. His views influenced both the tone and direction of debates on the right and continue to resonate in the 2024 primary. For years, Carlson has echoed a version of Great Replacement Theory — the idea that white populations are being replaced by a class of immigrants who, in turn, are more sympathetic (or “obedient” to Democrats). “The Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World,” Carlson said in 2021. Immigrants are making the country “poorer, and dirtier, and more divided,” he argued in 2018, leading to an advertiser boycott. That rhetoric, more extreme than his fellow Fox News hosts, helped fuel the intensity surrounding the immigration policy debate and shifted the Overton window for candidates. More recently, on the issue of Ukraine, Carlson has broken even further from the party mainstream. He’s called Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy a dictator and asked “why shouldn’t I root for Russia?” (though later argued he was joking). Carlson regularly featured analysis on the war in Ukraine (and why the U.S. shouldn’t be involved) near the top of his hour. But he also went one step beyond by getting Republican candidates for president on the record about it. In March, he sent a questionnaire to every potential GOP candidate about the war, discussed their answers on his show and published their full responses on Twitter . Those who didn’t respond were listed on his 6.1-million-strong followers account. DeSantis’ politically damaging response — that Russia’s war on Ukraine was a “territorial dispute” — was first rolled out in a statement on Carlson’s show. Carlson’s ultimate replacement may in time find an audience that’s just as loyal and a megaphone just as loud. In the immediate future, though, no one will be able to shape the 2024 race like Carlson could every night at Fox, a fact that even fellow conservative media influencers are readily admitting today. “Tucker was the mainstay of the populist voice over at Fox,” said Steve Bannon. “With his departure, I don’t know why anybody needs to watch anything on the Murdoch empire.” “It changes things permanently,” Donald Trump Jr. told conservative activist Charlie Kirk on his daily radio show. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s authors at cmahtesian@politico.com and cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @PoliticoCharlie and @calder_mchugh .     WHAT'D I MISS? — CNN ousts host Don Lemon: Host Don Lemon has been fired by CNN, he announced this afternoon . “I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated. I am stunned,” Lemon wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. He had worked at the outlet for 17 years, and said he believed “that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly.” CNN then pushed back on the host’s statement, calling his claims “inaccurate.” Instead of being fired without warning, the company tweeted that Lemon was “offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.” — Prosecutors close seditious conspiracy case against Proud Boys leaders: A jury that has heard the case for nearly four months is expected to begin deliberating Tuesday , after each of the five defendants presents a closing argument as well. Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe urged jurors to convict former Proud Boys Chair Enrique Tarrio and four associates — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — of seditious conspiracy, a plan to forcibly prevent the transfer of power from Trump to President Joe Biden, as well as a host of other federal crimes. — Starting Tuesday, Trump will stand trial in a lawsuit accusing him of rape: Less that one month after being indicted on charges related to a hush money payment to a porn star, Trump is about to stand trial in a civil lawsuit from E. Jean Carroll , a magazine columnist who says he raped her decades ago. On Tuesday, jury selection is scheduled to begin in Manhattan federal court for the trial. Though the case is civil and not criminal, meaning there is no threat of jail time for the former president, the stakes are nonetheless high. If Carroll wins, the jury could order Trump to pay Carroll a financial award that one legal expert said could be “many millions of dollars.”   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING : What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today .     NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 LAUNCH ANGLE — The time may finally come this week for Biden. Or, maybe it won’t. Biden’s notorious dithering has again been put on vivid display around the exhaustive questions about the timing of his reelection announcement , write POLITICO’s Christopher Cadelago, Holly Otterbein and Jonathan Lemire. But it’s not just the president who sees the pluses and minuses of launching a full campaign roughly 18 months out from the November presidential election. Inside the White House, and even among his tight-knit circle, there’s been disagreement over when to formally commence. STAFFING UP — Biden is eyeing longtime Democratic operative Michael Tyler for the role of communications director on his 2024 campaign , POLITICO’s Christopher Cadelago and Sam Stein report. Tyler has held numerous high-ranking positions within the Democratic Party in addition to working at various groups within the progressive advocacy ecosystem. Biden is also eyeing Julie Chávez Rodríguez, who is currently a senior adviser and assistant to the president, for the role of campaign manager.       AROUND THE WORLD Ukrainian Marines on a T-80 tank in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. | John Moore/Getty Images TWO-HEADED MONSTER — The Biden administration is quietly preparing for the possibility that if Ukraine’s spring counteroffensive falls short of expectations, critics at home and allies abroad will argue that America has come up short , too, POLITICO’s Jonathan Lemire and Alexander Ward report. Publicly, Biden’s team has offered unwavering support for Ukraine, pledging to load it up with weapons and economic aid for “as long as it takes.” But, if the impending fighting season yields limited gains, administration officials have expressed privately they fear being faced with a two-headed monster attacking it from the hawkish and dovish ends of the spectrum. One side will say that Ukraine’s advances would’ve worked had the administration given Kyiv everything it asked for, namely longer-range missiles, fighter jets and more air defenses. The other side, administration officials worry, will claim Ukraine’s shortcoming proves it can’t force Russia out of its territory completely. That doesn’t even account for the reaction of America’s allies, mainly in Europe, who may see a peace negotiation between Ukraine and Russia as a more attractive option if Kyiv can’t prove victory is around the corner. Inside the administration, officials stress they’re doing everything possible to make the spring offensive succeed.   GO INSIDE THE 2023 MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE:  POLITICO is proud to partner with the Milken Institute to produce a special edition "Global Insider" newsletter featuring exclusive coverage, insider nuggets and unparalleled insights from the 2023 Global Conference, which will convene leaders in health, finance, politics, philanthropy and entertainment from April 30-May 3. This year’s theme, Advancing a Thriving World , will challenge and inspire attendees to lean into building an optimistic coalition capable of tackling the issues and inequities we collectively face. Don’t miss a thing — subscribe today for a front row seat .     NIGHTLY NUMBER $102 billion The amount of money that First Republic Bank reported losing in customer deposits in the first quarter of 2023 , over half of the $176 billion that the bank held at the end of 2022. First Republic Bank has managed to stay afloat in part because of a $30 billion infusion from big banks, and the bank said that the exodus of cash set off by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank had largely stopped by the end of March. RADAR SWEEP ‘I’LL BURN YOU ALIVE’ — For Iranians, the last seven months have been extraordinarily turbulent. Since last September, when Mahsa Amini — a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman — died in police custody after being arrested for “improperly” wearing her hijab, people across Iran have taken to the streets to protest the regime. They have been staunchly supported by the diaspora, which has held demonstrations around the world in solidarity. But the government’s horrifying suppression of the protests has stirred up the diaspora’s emotions , and many Iranian expats have been smeared, harassed and threatened by their angry peers, writes Foreign Affairs editor Daniel Block for POLITICO Magazine. The attacks overwhelmingly target women, most notably in North America and Europe. The victims include gender equality activists, journalists, foreign policy analysts and a historian, each of whom has been accused of colluding with the authoritarian Islamist regime in Tehran. PARTING IMAGE On this date in 2005: Pope Benedict XVI, flanked by rows of cardinals, takes his place during his installment Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. | Gregorio Borgia/AP Photo Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .       Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh Katherine Long @katherinealong   FOLLOW US

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