Tucker carlson

Peter Thiel. Tucker Carlson. John Bolton. What’s most striking about the trio headlining the National Conservatism Conference is that none of the three has ever been elected to anything.Bolton may be national security adviser, but judging by his recent exile to Outer Mongolia and his stymied efforts to force regime change in Iran, his influence is ebbing. He may be rejoining the civilian corps soon enough.So why is a major new conference so honoring these folks? The question could be inverted. Why aren’t we hearing from over 200 Republican members of Congress? Sen. Josh Hawley, a freshman, will close Tuesday night at the NCC, but his address seems to have been a late addition.

Fred Fleitz doesn’t like me. When I last saw national security adviser John Bolton’s former chief of staff, in January, he told me my journalism was ‘crap,’ that I was ‘crap,’ and that he ‘didn’t have anything to say’ to me. Fair enough. This was the second time I’d tangled with Fleitz, a career conservative, civil servant and intelligence officer. Our first interaction came before he became Bolton’s chief of staff in 2018. Fleitz had publicly condemned my profile of his ally and mentor, Frank Gaffney. Gaffney, controversial in his own right, has since been entirely decent to me. But Fleitz is both Gaffney and Bolton’s pitbull, and seems to have no time for less than obsequious journalists.

Will President Trump switch up his ticket in 2020? The Wall Street Journal editorial page, bastion of the establishment right, certainly hopes so. A little over a week ago, it called for former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to replace the dutiful Mike Pence as vice president. But there’s well-placed chatter in Washington that suggests the president will take a different route. Trump does indeed feel he needs VP change, but it is not Nikki Haley he is considering. It is Fox News host Tucker Carlson.The Trump 2020 campaign needs panache, not more cash. If Trump wants to make a switch – as both his predecessors, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, flirted with doing – why would he lean further into the establishment?

The strong favorite for the Nobel Peace Prize this year is Greta Thunberg, a girl who lectures grownups about climate change. In a sane world, the award would go to somebody who stops wars. In 2019, that somebody should be Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson. Carlson is a Fox News host, which means the smart people who give out awards will never take him seriously. In the last few weeks, however, he may have done more to advance the cause of peace than any other human on the planet. Anyone with half a brain can tell that some of President Trump’s cabinet and his advisers are itching to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran — as the late, hawk Saint John McCain so delicately put it, to the tune of the Beach Boys’ Barbara Ann.

There are some furrowed brows (as well as some furtive giggles) over Tucker Carlson’s recent hypothetical musings about what the president might do should he decide he wanted to lose his 2020 reelection campaign. Maybe he would cut funds for E-Verify, gratifying businesses that profit from exploiting the low-wage labor of illegal immigrants (that’s ‘undocumented workers’ in weeny-speak), but hurting American workers. Maybe he would make cuts to Medicare. Maybe — most deadly — he would raise taxes on gasoline, something that would matter hardly at all to those East coast elites who don’t drive much but that would have an immediate effect on those in the heartland who tend to drive more and are on a tight budget.

Ever the showman, Donald Trump did something during his press conference that was another presidential first. He broke into song in the middle of his soliloquy about the need for a border wall. In a refrain that was sure to send shivers down the spines of those who see him as an aspiring tyrant, Trump mocked the judicial system in a sing-song voice, declaring that while he might experience a few bumps in the rutted constitutional road, victory at the hands of the Supreme Court was a foregone conclusion. It would be the Muslim ban all over again. Not everyone was in harmony with Trump. Perhaps the most notable dissenter is Ann Coulter. Trump threw shade at her during his press conference. Rush Limbaugh is a tireless speaker. Tucker Carlson is a fine fellow. And Coulter?