Conservatives are rallying behind the son of Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, Buckley, a top staffer in Congress, claiming the 25-year-old didn’t benefit from the association with his famous and influential father, after backroom GOP gossip allegedly inspired the Fox host to verbally threaten a Republican representative he thought accused his son of nepotism in the press.
Buckley Carlson is communications director for Representative Jim Banks of Indiana.
The mini-scandal began when The Daily Beast ran a on story on Friday about jostling among the GOP for leadership positions after the midterms.
In the story, an anonymous “GOP strategist” described Rep Banks as hiring Buckley Carlson to curry favour with Republican power brokers.
"Deep down, he dies to be liked by the Establishment,” the source said. “He hires Tucker Carlson’s son, a 24-year-old kid, to be his communications director."
The Independent has contacted Buckley Carlson and Tucker Carlson for comment.
Following the story, Axios reported, Tucker Carlson reportedly called representative Tom Emmer, chairman of the House Republican campaign committee and a potential leadership rival with Rep Banks, and allegedly hit out at the the Minnesota legislator, demanding to know which GOP staffer accused Buckley of nepotism and threatening to consider Mr Emmer the source of the rumour unless someone else came forward.
Top conservatives then rallied to Buckley Carlson’s defence.
“I stand with Buckley Carlson,” representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
Donald Trump Jr, meanwhile, called Tom Emmer a “RINO” (Republican in Name Only) and a “pathetic coward.”
The Minnesota representative has denied accusing Buckley Carlson of nepotism.
"Chairman Emmer and his staff have never attacked any other members’ staff. Period,” a spokesperson told Axios. “These baseless accusations are meant to distract and divide Republicans. Our focus is on retaking the majority and firing Nancy Pelosi.
Buckley Carlson has indeed had a swift rise through Washington.
During his time at the University of Virginia as an undergraduate, he served in the Trump White House as a communications intern.
Upon graduating in 2019, he was hired by Rep Banks.
The Indiana Republican’s staff said at the time that the congressman had never met Tucker Carlson, and that his son didn’t mention his affiliation during the hiring process.
“Jim’s got a reputation as a rising, young conservative leader on the Hill,” chief of staff David Keller told The Journal-Gazette. “We get folks who want to come work for him.”
Since then, Buckley Carlson quickly rose to become communications director, and his boss has been interviewed multiple times on his father’s Fox News show, without the anchor mentioning the affiliation, VICE News reports.
On his show, Tucker Carlson frequently rails against nepotism, affirmative action, and other practices he believes are anti-meritocratic.
“When your dad is president, you get superpowers,” Carlson said in a October 2021 segment about Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden. “The sky is the limit when your dad is in power.”
During a monologue this year, Carlson slammed the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, the first Black woman to ever hold the position, accusing her of getting the job because of “how she looks”.
“Do you want to live in that country? Most people don’t, of all colours,” he said. “They think you should be elevated in America based on what you do, on the choices not on how you were born, not on your DNA, because that’s Rwanda.”
In 2014, the Carlsons reportedly wrote to Hunter Biden and asked for his assistance getting Buckley into Georgetown University, according to The Washington Post. (Carlson has acknowledged being friends with Mr Biden in the past, but told The Post he couldn’t confirmthe emails about Georgetown.)
