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James s carlyle's avatar

I think you nailed these two. You ask “why is Musk in politics when he has so many talents?” and Tucker doesn’t do his homework. Many thanks.

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Joseph Kaplan's avatar

Agreed.

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Tapestrygarden's avatar

I have watched a number of previous network stars venture into Independent Media. Some very successful: Megyn Kelly for one. Some have flopped horribly. Sadly I think Tucker is one. I adored Tucker when he was on Fox. When he was fired I was shocked. I waited patiently for him to emerge like Megyn, freed of the fetters of corporate media.

What a disappointment. I immediately subscribed but found his interviews uninteresting. I did watch the Putin interview and couldn’t believe how he fell for Putin’s “charms.” Like some, Tucker has become more and more outrageous.

Attention must be paid! But we do remember the end of that story.

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Joseph Kaplan's avatar

I was excited about him when he left Fox and hoped he would be doing great things. After the first couple of interviews he got weird and lost his attraction. Now he’s totally off the rails and on his way to oblivion. Sad because he is a talent that could have been

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

How is it exactly he is off the rails?

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Tapestrygarden's avatar

He seems to give credence to wacky theories and apparently believes people like Putin are being honest.

There was always a whiff of anti Jew in his guests and monologues. Lately it seems more obvious.

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Mark Portaro's avatar

Tucker has a much bigger audience than Megyn, and he does not have to dress skimpily and be pretty to do it!

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Tapestrygarden's avatar

I did try to get numbers for TCN but could not find anything current. He had very high ratings at Fox.

I was a big fan. Was being the operative word. I paid a hefty subscription fee as soon as TCN was established. After a year I didn’t bother to renew. I

FWIW Megyn’s appeal is not just her looks or her “skimpy clothing” (do you think sleeveless is skimpy?) She is an excellent interviewer, has an interesting variety of guests and a very large following

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Mark Portaro's avatar

She wears date clothes on the air and is easy on the eyes for sure! And is not as questioning of our knee jerk bias towards Israel.

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MLR's avatar

I’m sure Tucker will tell you that some of his best friends are Jewish. He just doesn’t want them belonging to his club or living next door. It’s the old kind of american Christian patrician antisemitism with an added suspicion that Jews have dual loyalties.

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

Antisemitism, really? He does not bash Arabs as far as I can tell. Which semites is anti toward?

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Stuart Nachman's avatar

Does Jew hatred work for you?

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

LoL Ask the world, Stuie?

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Dan Jestic's avatar

I figure Tucker has gone off the rails, and Musk’s party is a a spiteful vanity project. He seems unbalanced, lacking definable operating principles…a loose canon.

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Robin Bernhoft's avatar

If I could add another comment as a Catholic, "Christian antisemitism" is an oxymoron. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Peter, John, Paul, etc etc All Jews

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Paul Hilsenrath's avatar

Like many others, after the interview with Cooper his heaping praise on him, I abandoned Tucker.

It does not surprise me that he holds a "negative view" of Israel and likely Jews as well. I think he will ultimately self immolate as his views depart further and further from common sense and reality.

As for Elon, I liken his relationship with Trump as that of the prodigal son and his father, that is my hope.

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BBS's avatar

There is a fine line between a journalist who sincerely wants to get both sides of the story out there and a journalist using his platform to sway traitorous behavior and opinions among the readers/listeners. Not to mention, there is a fine line between a journalist whose goal is to make a name for himself and a jouuranalist whose main goal is report the facts and as a result, makes a name for himself. Tucker has been sending up a lot of red flags lately. I can put up with his disturbingly annoying laugh, but I cannot put up with being manipulated.

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Richard Rosen's avatar

Roger. As always, a great wake-up in more than one way.

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Euroinv's avatar

Really? Labelling two of the most successful people in their fields as "attention Seekers" is a wake up call?

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Capitan Kitty's avatar

There’s a big difference between Nusk and Carlson. Musk doesn’t need the money and is throwing a tantrum. He will get over it.

Carlson on the other hand is only in the media business because he needs the money. He has no other skill than to craft stories for dissemination on the Internet. This is not a tantrum for him, but a way of attracting a large gullible audience. His moral culpability for the outright lies often told on his show these days is profound. He has become Tokyo Rose, Baghdad Bob, Lord Haw-Haw.

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Robin Bernhoft's avatar

It's sad to see people like Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens going down that rabbit hole. I think are destroying their support At least I hope so. As a Catholic who visited Bethlehem in 2019, I must say the Jihadis are slightly less likely to throw Christians off the roof than they are Jews, but a brief thumb through the Koran showed 6 "Kill Jews" to only one "Kill Christians" so perhaps they like us better??? Ugh

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Angela R Thomas's avatar

I am so incredibly disappointed in Tucker Carlson. When he was on Fox, I never missed his show and almost always agreed with him. Now, I cannot even listen to him express his views anymore than I am able to listen to AOC and her Squad. What happened to drive him to these positions?

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Paula Bolyard's avatar

Terrific piece, Roger. I'm baffled by the number of media personalities joyfully crossing over to the dark side, not realizing—or worse, not caring—that they're dupes for these murderous regimes. How brave and edgy!

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Cathy Yonkers's avatar

I came to similar feelings about Tucker Carlson and stopped reading his posts when I saw him as just another hack reporter believing things I knew were not true, but propaganda. His antisemitism surprises and disappoints me. As for Musk, I will always feel gratitude for the job he did when forming DOGE. But his entrepreneurial brilliance does not translate into a political leader. His time and money would be better spent on making his companies, now and in the future, the best they can be. Besides, I think his anger over the Tesla tax breaks being eliminated is hypocritical. I think it is disingenuous of him to not recognize that this particular tax break is not necessary; but his Starlink and SpaceX companies, I think, do deserve tax breaks for the good they do for everyone.

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Jane Whitson's avatar

Good piece, Roger. Agree with Trump that Musk has gone completely off the rails. And Tucker lost me a while back.

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alexander.helphand's avatar

This was very good. I think Elon Musk will find that there hasn't been a viable 3rd party in 150 years. The media will blow it up. It will take away as many votes from the Democrats as Republicans, maybe more. See John Anderson. As for Tucker Carlson, I doubt that this is theological Jew hatred. That smells different. Cant explain it, but this is whatever the Jews do and of corse Israel, is wrong. So the Catholic position is beside the point, ( its sane) the evangelical position on Jews is beside the point. These people just don't like Jews.

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Lyle Pettigrew's avatar

Good stuff, again, Roger! I did watch the Tucker interview of the Iranian President. Some of the questions were good, but some follow-ups were never asked. For example...Tucker asked if Iran had killed Americans? When the answer was no, there was no follow-up saying what about groups SPONSORED by Iran? They count, too!

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