Tucker Carlson is now set to join Donald Trump for a campaign rally on Halloween, after he raised eyebrows for his bizarre rally speech where he likened the former president to a “dad” coming home to give his “bad little girl” a “vigorous spanking.”
The former Fox News host is hosting an event, described as a hurricane relief benefit, in the battleground state of Arizona on October 31 – just five days before Election Day. Trump is one of the guests billed to join him at the event.
Carlson’s latest foray into Trump’s campaign trail comes days after he delivered a speech on the Republican presidential nominee’s behalf at the Turning Point USA gathering in Duluth, Georgia, on Wednesday evening.
At the event, he told the crowd that, while he had covered many political rallies over the course of his career as a journalist, he had never spoken at one, before going on to liken American society under Joe Biden to a family home riddled with tensions between the parents and children.
“There has to be a point at which Dad comes home,” Carlson told his audience, referring to Trump.
“Yeah, that’s right. Dad comes home. And he’s p***ed. Dad is p***ed. And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? ‘You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl. And it has to be this way’.”
He continued: “‘And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie, it’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this.’”
Carlson’s analogy inevitably drew plenty of mockery online and attracted the attention of the late-night comics, who had a field day.
On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the host introduced his segment by describing the anchor as a “formerly relevant TV dweeb” and, after playing the offending clip, asking simply: “Everything at home OK, Tuck?”
On The Daily Show, Michael Kosta observed: “This might be why you’ve never been invited to speak at a political rally before.
“I can’t wait to hear Tucker’s thoughts on the economy: inflation is like a babysitter and she’s been naughty.”
On Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host likewise interpreted the speech as Carlson confessing his darkest erotic fantasies and concluded: “I’m just glad he’s standing behind a podium! You know most people just clear their browser history, they don’t put it in their speeches.”
Perhaps the most devastating response of all came from Chris Hayes on MSNBC, who told Carlson: “First of all: Get some therapy.
“Second of all: This is not just the creepy fantasizing of a disgraced TV personality with mommy issues you can see from space or one of those weird right-wing podcasts.
“He said that on a national stage, as part of the Republican presidential campaign. Warming up for a man whom a jury of his peers found liable for sexual assault after he defamed the woman who said that Donald Trump raped her in a dressing room.”
WATCH: @chrislhayes has some advice for Tucker Carlson after his bizarre speech comparing America to a "bad little girl." pic.twitter.com/PWqF3VMvQP
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) October 25, 2024
Hayes continued: “The Republican Party is now very much explicitly running on a campaign of male dominion. Trump’s your daddy.
“And he stands ready to put all the nasty women, as he calls them, in their place.”
Carlson left Fox in acrimonious circumstances in April 2023 after the network paid more than $787m to settle a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over the false statements and conspiracy theories it aired in the wake of the 2020 election amplifying Trump’s unfounded allegations that voting machines were manipulated to rob him of victory.
Text messages released as part of that suit revealed that Carlson held a very different opinion of Trump in private to that which he expressed on air, with the journalist referring to the politician as a “demonic force” in one.
He has since begun hosting his own show on X and recently interviewed the company’s CEO Elon Musk, now an enthusiastic Trump supporter.
Carlson made headlines around the world earlier this year when he visited Russia to interview Vladimir Putin and also addressed the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July.
