OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A political action committee that will try to entice former top-rated Fox News star Tucker Carlson into launching a 2024 presidential bid is set to air a new ad.
The attempt to drag Carlson into next year’s presidential election comes after Fox News decided to pull him off the air in mid-April, leaving a major void at the network that has resulted in a substantial loss of viewership, with Fox News now regularly losing out to rival networks MSNBC and CNN.
Right-leaning Newsmax, whose line-up of talent features a growing number of former Fox News hosts, has especially benefitted from Carlson’s demise as conservative viewers flocked there instead. And in fact, the new ad by the Draft Tucker PAC began airing on the upstart network last week, The Hill reported.
The ad is set to run for a week, the report noted further.
“Republicans need a new leader, and Tucker Carlson is ready to lead,” the ad says. “No one in America is more articulate and pins down leftists in both parties better than Tucker.”
The ad went on to compare Carlson to the late, great conservative talk radio king Rush Limbaugh.
“Tucker Carlson is witty, sharp, and mocks woke nonsense,” the ad says. “Tucker will whip Biden in a debate.”
The Hill reported that Chris Ekstrom, a former congressional candidate from Texas and Republican donor, is the PAC’s chairman and principal financial backer.
Ekstrom mentioned that he has a vague familiarity with Carlson and revealed that he was approached about creating the PAC before Carlson’s termination from Fox News, the outlet said. However, the idea was considered unworkable as long as Carlson remained a primetime host.
Now that this obstacle has been removed, Ekstrom believes that a Carlson presidential campaign is a realistic opportunity. He went on to express his dissatisfaction with both former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, finding neither of them fully satisfactory, The Hill added.
“I’m very concerned that they’re going to not move the debate as far right as it ought to be,” Ekstrom told the outlet. “If Tucker Carlson entered the race in a reasonable amount of time and just continued in the same territory that he was covering at Fox, I think that’d be a rude awakening for both President Trump and Governor DeSantis.”
Charlie Kolean, the executive director of the PAC and a GOP political consultant, believes that the strong voter enthusiasm for Carlson can have a significant impact on the rest of the primary field, the outlet reported.
“I think it will move the conversation to the right, just in a macro way, with candidates taking more solid stances rather than being like a moderate Republican,” he told The Hill.
Carlson’s name was dropped recently as someone who could toss his hat into the ring and run for president, and the former host himself has actually fed into that rumor, albeit for just a brief moment.
Mattathias Schwartz of Insider, who interviewed Carlson via text earlier this week, displayed, more than anything, that liberal writers have little-to-no sense of humor when it comes to conservatives.
“When I asked Tucker Carlson in a text on Tuesday evening if he was planning a run for president, the newly self-employed far-right firebrand had a shocking answer: ‘Yes. Announcing Friday in New Hampshire,’” Schwartz wrote in his article, which was published earlier this month.
“But my earthshaking scoop was short-lived. After I credulously asked him to confirm that he was serious before I blasted out the news, which would reshape the 2024 presidential race, the former Fox News broadcaster confirmed what millions of Americans have already concluded: He’s just an a**hole,” he added.
Carlson initially claimed he would be announcing a presidential bid in New Hampshire soon, he then responded to Schwartz’s request for confirmation: “Totally kidding,” adding, “Sorry. I can never control myself. I’m fundamentally a d**k. My apologies.”