Tucker Carlson

• PBS's "Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered," host and managing editor
• CNN's "Crossfire," co-host
• "The Chris Matthews Show," panelist
• Policy Review, editorial staff

Media Matters report

Doctored Gore quotes

Earth's $100B balance

As a staff writer for The Weekly Standard, Carlson wrote a May 19, 1997, cover story titled "The Real Al Gore." Referring to Gore's book on the environment, Earth in the Balance, Carlson wrote:

Gore lets it drop that his "Global Marshall Plan" to save the environment will cost the United States "almost $100 billion a year."

But in the same section of the book, Gore explicitly said the US would not pay all the costs:

Today, of course, the United States cannot conceivably be the principal financier for a global recovery program. ... The financial resources must now come from Japan and Europe and from wealthy, oil-producing states.

The missing global civil war

Carlson also quoted Gore as writing "We now face the prospect of a global civil war", calling it a typical quote. But Gore said no such thing. Instead, Gore wrote we faced "the prospect of a kind of global civil war".

Callous towards his sister?

Carlson further claimed Gore had kept up a busy campaign schedule on the day his sister died in 1984, accusing him of callousness. But as his advance person wrote the magazine, Gore immediately flew to the hospital upon hearing she'd "taken a turn for the worse" and before that had often driven across the state of Tennessee to visit her.

Upon hearing this, Carlson responded by saying the real issue was not Gore's campaigning, but "the cheap way he treated her memory at the Democratic convention last year."

What was he referring to? Gore had recounted his final conversation with his sister, who died of lung cancer, and explained how it inspired him to fight to protect "our children from the dangers of smoking."

Carlson claimed that during Gore's 1984 senatorial campaign, Gore "didn't talk much about curbing smoking that year." But he later went on to quote a journalist who said that during the campaign Gore "was willing to call the tobacco industry Merchants of Death."

Told lies about Wellstone memorial service

On Crossfire, Carlson said:

a memorial service for the late Senator Paul Wellstone was hijacked by partisan zealots and turned into a political rally. Republican friends of Senator Wellstone were booed and shouted down as they tried to speak.

He went on to say "It is revolting" and "It makes me sick."

But as Carlson admitted to Al Franken, he hadn't actually watched the service. And, in fact, no Republicans were "shouted down as they tried to speak". But he also told Franken he'd watched it for the next day's show. But he continued to mischaracterize the service, implying that Wellstone's children had said "the most important thing" was to defeat Wellstone's opponent in the campaign. His children never said that.

• Carlson on women: "[T]hey want to be spanked vigorously every once in a while."
• Carlson's Hillary Clinton fantasy: "Every time I see her I think I could, you know, help.... She seems tense."

Duncan B. Black, Tucker Carlson: An unfiltered Media Matters for America analysis of the new PBS host, Media Matters for America, June 17, 2004.

Democrats love crossdressers...

Introducing a story on Crossfire:

CARLSON: "... the Democratic Party has announced a new affirmative action plan for gays, lesbians, and cross-dressers. According to the Associated Press, the party has set sexuality-based quotas ..." [1]

But the AP article said exactly the opposite: "Officials are quick to point out that the goals aren't quotas. Neither a state nor a presidential campaign is penalized if they do not reach these goals." It also noted the plan was not affiliated with the national party, but state parties.

... but hate churchgoers

Commenting during The Chris Matthews Show:

CARLSON: "People who run the Democratic party, its activist wing have contempt for churchgoers, and my experience is they absolutely do have contempt for churchgoers." [2]

Carlson provided no evidence for the claim. However, a CBS News/New York Times poll conducted two months earlier showed that 67% of Democrats think religion is very or extremely important, while only 9% consider it not at all important. [3]

Shant Mesrobian, "Tucker Carlson on Dems' outreach to "gays, lesbians, and cross-dressers"", Media Matters for America, May 26, 2004.
Nicole Casta, et. al., "It's not just the cable guys: conservative misinformation on Sunday morning", Media Matters for America, May 24, 2004.

Against the 'do not call' list, but don't call me

Carlson denounced the federal government's do-not-call list, which allows people to opt-out of receiving phone calls from telemarketers, saying: "Score one for any yuppie community. They've won the right to trample on free speech" and calling it "special interests legislation". [4] When the audience dared Carlson to give out his home phone number, he pretended to comply but actually gave out the number of Fox News's Washington switchboard. [5]

Hughes a liar

Carlson also interviewed George W. Bush for a 1999 profile in Talk, which featured Bush "swearing like a truck driver, making fun of Karla Faye Tucker's death penalty appeals, mimicking her saying, 'Don't kill me!'". In response, Bush communications director Karen Hughes said Carlson was lying and told Carlson she'd never heard Bush use profanity, even though Carlson claims he'd seen Hughes listen to Bush use profanity. Carlson told Salon:

I've obviously been lied to a lot by campaign operatives, but the striking thing about the way she lied was she knew I knew she was lying, and she did it anyway. There is no word in English that captures that. It almost crosses over from bravado into mental illness. [6]

Norquist a "creep"

Carlson has broken ranks with some conservatives, calling fellow conservative Grover Norquist a "mean-spirited, humorless, dishonest little creep ... the leering, drunken uncle everyone else wishes would stay home."[7]