The Daily Show has dragged Tucker Carlson plenty of times before, but this time it went deep by devoting a whole brand new segment to him. In the first installment of “The Daily Showography,” Carlson’s entire media career is hauled under the microscope starting with his wealthy childhood as an heir to the Swanson frozen food fortune. The Daily Show segment painstakingly lays out Carlson’s start as a friendly, “non-white supremacist-y” conservative who people actually seemed to like. Carlson’s affable demeanor landed him gigs on PBS and eventually as the host of CNN’s Crossfire where he famously quit after getting ruthlessly read for filth by Jon Stewart who called Carlson a “hack” to his face and asked him why a 35-year-old old man still wears a bow-tie.
After licking his wounds after the CNN debacle, Carlson went to work transforming himself into a radio shock jock under the tutelage of Bubba the Love Sponge. (Yes, the guy whose wife made a sex tape with Hulk Hogan.) While working with Bubba, Carlson began adapting an anti-feminist persona and would often rant about how he doesn’t want to hear women talk. He also made controversial remarks about how underage marriage isn’t really that bad because at least the statutory rapist is making a life-long commitment to their victim.
While those kind of remarks would absolutely destroy a career today, it landed Carlson a plum gig at Fox News, where he started leaning even more heavily into anti-immigration and white supremacist rhetoric while attempting to pass himself off a man of the people who’s different than the other media elites who talk down to audiences. Just ignore the fact that Carlson is a millionaire who regularly talks down to audiences. Case in point, The Daily Show feature highlights Carlson’s more recent remarks where he mocks anyone who doesn’t recognize that the Bidens’ marriage is a PR stunt to hide the President’s senility, and he’s even gone so far as to peddle conspiracy theories about vaccines.
As for what form Carlson will take in the future to stay on the air, “The Daily Showography” notes that he’ll do it with a smile or “whatever’s going on there.”