Aha Dua Permata: Tucker Carlson comments on running as Trump’s Vice President

Saturday 9 December 2023

Tucker Carlson comments on running as Trump’s Vice President

Melania Trump is pushing for her husband to pick Tucker Carlson as his 2024 running mate if he secures the Republican nomination for president, according to a report.

The former first lady is advocating for Tucker Carlson to campaign as Trump's running mate in the 2024 presidential race, according to Axios. Melania allegedly believes Carlson would make for a commanding onstage extension of her husband.

Trump stated last month he would consider the political commentator for the vice presidency.

"I like Tucker a lot," the former president told "The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show." "He's got great common sense."

People close to the former president believe Trump would forgo Carlson as his running mate out of fears the pundit would outshine him, according to Axios. Trump's staff also reportedly believes they wouldn't be able to control Carlson.

In November, 2023, Former President Trump says he’d consider Tucker Carlson as a potential running mate in 2024.

“I like Tucker a lot; I guess I would,” Trump said during an appearance on “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show” this 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,” he said.

Carlson was fired by Fox News in April just days after it agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787 million to settle claims of defamation out of court. The host has since launched a video series on the X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and remains under contract with Fox.

On the night of the first Republican presidential primary debate, in August, Carlson hosted a wide-ranging interview with Trump on his X program.

Last week, Carlson told Roseanne Barr he would have to think about accepting a vice presidency nod. He put the possibility "in the category of an asteroid striking the Earth," noting it's "so far outside of my control."

"I have spent my whole life looking at politicians and commenting on them and passing judgment on them and I've never run for, you know, room mother," Carlson said. "And so the idea of that is so far from anything I've ever done, it's kind of hard even to imagine."

The commentator would share Trump's Cabinet with other figures loyal to the former president, like Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Mike Davis and Kash Patel, according to Axios.

Carlson believes Bannon could be Trump's chief of staff. Bannon has supported the former president even after his ousting as chief strategist, a position that enabled him to head personnel and policy decisions, according to Axios.

What was Tucker Carlson's response?

Tucker Carlson has stopped short of ruling out becoming former US President Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate in 2024, suggesting that he would need a directive from God to take the job if it’s offered to him.

Carlson, who has attracted millions of viewers to his channel on X (formerly Twitter) since being fired by Fox in April, made his comments on Thursday night in response to a media report that he was the potential VP candidate favored by former First Lady Melania Trump. Asked about the report after he gave a speech at an event in Washington, Carlson said, “God would have to yell at me very loud” to accept such an offer.

Independent media outlet Semafor was first to report on Carlson’s response. The political commentator noted that he doesn’t really know the first lady. He has repeatedly insisted that he has no interest in running for elected office. “To go from being, like, a well-paid street corner schizophrenic to, like, a politician – it’s just kind of hard to envision,” he said on Thursday. However, Semafor reported, there were cheers from the audience when he didn’t fully rule out joining Trump’s 2024 ticket.

Axios reported on Thursday that the former first lady was advocating for her husband to pick Carlson as his running mate. “She thinks Carlson would make a powerful onstage extension of her husband,” the outlet said, citing an unidentified person close to Trump.

Trump is polling as, far and away, the leading Republican candidate to face Democrat incumbent Joe Biden in next year’s presidential election. He also faces 91 felony charges in four separate criminal cases filed by prosecutors in Washington, New York, Florida, and Georgia.

Carlson has said that he became an avid Trump supporter after the FBI raided the former president’s home in Florida last summer. He has vowed to vote for Trump and lead protests if the ex-president is convicted of a crime and jailed: “You cannot allow the regime, the president of the United States, the Justice Department, to knock the frontrunner out of the race. You can’t do that.”

Other potential Trump VP candidates include Senator J.D. Vance, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Representative Byron Donalds, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, according to the Axios report.