TUCKER CARLSON Tucker Carlson is a conservative commentator for Fox News. He is cofounder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller and formerly co-hosted CNN’s Crossfire and MSNBC’s Tucker.
PARENTS, FACULTY AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS:
INTERVIEW BY ANNIKA LICHTENBAUM
Partisanship and political polarization seem to define Washington at the moment. How do you think we got here?
Congress is dysfunctional. Part of that, though, is the byproduct of increased efficiency in American life. The same force that drives income inequality drives partisanship, and the system just does a better job of sorting people according to belief. 50 years ago there were a ton of conservative Democrats, and there were also quite a few liberals in the Republican party. Now, virtually all conservatives in politics are Republicans and virtually all liberals in politics are Democrats. So the parties are just more efficiently apportioned than they’ve ever been in the past. And that has a lot of consequences. One of them is that there’s no overlap between the two parties. They just sincerely disagree on a lot of things. The automatic budget cuts of the sequester were supposed to spur compromise, but it’s become an excuse for not negotiating. Do you think the sequester was a poor policy?
Oh, I don’t know. Is it ugly? Of course. Is it like watching your parents argue? Yeah. I don’t like watching it. What would Washington be like without it? Would we be reaching deeper compromises that were better for America? I’m not sure. Again, the sequester was a tool that hasn’t turned out to be very effective. But I don’t think it’s the root problem. The root problem is just that there’s a divide.
BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW INTERVIEWS
Would you say that Republicans and Democrats in Congress are more concerned with standing their ground than they are about the negative effects of doing so?
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Well, maybe sometimes. It’s a symptom of dysfunction. Whenever you cut the budget mindlessly across the board, you’re basically conceding that you’re incapable of using your fine motor skills. It’s kind of embarrassing, but that’s not the root problem with America.
It’s been argued that the only two ways to completely balance the budget are through cuts on entitlements or by increasing taxes. Do we need to have a conversation about these options?
I don’t really think there’s any disagreement that the current entitlement system can’t continue. Neither party wants to admit that, because it doesn’t want to face voters. People love free stuff — that’s a bipartisan phenomenon. Republicans as well as Democrats want to keep Medicare and Social Security. But we can’t, because the math doesn’t work. It’s much easier to raise taxes than it is to cut social welfare spending. And that’s one of the reasons we have never cut entitlements at all, and we’ve raised taxes a lot. But at some point somebody brave is going to have to stand up and say, “We’ve promised you this money. We can’t make good on that promise. I’m sorry, let’s negotiate.”
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Why is there a split in the Republican party on Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)?
The Republican electorate, the people who actually vote for Republicans, don’t trust the Republican leadership at all to do the right thing and to represent their views. They think they’re accommodating, they think they’re weak, they think they’re insincere. And of course, they’re completely right. Two weeks ago, you watched the president come out and say, “We need to bomb Syria.” This is something that nobody in America supports; except, the first people who came out and endorsed it were John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy. So if you’re a rankand-file Republican, you’re thinking: “These people are totally untrustworthy. They don’t represent me at all. There is no way I believe they’re going to try and do their best to get rid of Obamacare.” So in jumps Ted Cruz, who’s only been in the Senate for eight-and-a-half months, and he stands up and he says: “You know what? I am completely sincere. I really do represent your views.” And everyone knows he can’t actually do anything to defund Obamacare, but your average Republican appreciates his sincerity. That’s what it’s about.
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There’s talk recently of Congress extracting concessions from President Obama. Do you think that Congress would be willing to reduce sanctions against Iran in exchange for a concession from the president?
No, I don’t, actually. I really don’t. Because in the end, where’s the constituency for pulling back on sanctions? There just isn’t one. There’s no constituency for that. It may be the smartest thing to do, because it would give us leverage in the negotiations. But if you’re a member of Congress, you’re not thinking strategically, you’re thinking about the next election. And do you really want to be the guy who voted to go easy on Iran? It’s just too easy to demagogue on that question. What’s the number one lesson the GOP should learn from 2012?
Don’t nominate lame candidates. I think the candidate matters. What can you actually change? Well, you can make sure that you don’t nominate people who are insincere or inarticulate or completely out of step with the country or unwilling to explain themselves. How hard is it? To nominate someone who can speak fluently? I think we should start there.
Is there someone you’d like to see nominated in 2016?
I will say that Chris Christie is the most talented communicator I’ve ever seen. Chris Christie gives a better speech than Ronald Reagan; Chris Christie is the single best political speaker I’m aware of, ever. He’ll be a great candidate. I think there are some drawbacks, and his politics do not reflect mine — I disagree with him on a lot of things. But just as a communicator, I’ve never seen anyone who comes close to Chris Christie.
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