The first primary debate of the challenging Republican Party’s candidates of the 2024 US presidential election cycle took place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Wednesday night. However, one person—as expected—was conspicuously absent from the stage. It was none other than Former President and the far-and-away frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump. Instead, he was at one of his private residences in Bedminster, New Jersey, being interviewed by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a recent guest of an MCC event in Budapest. (Stay tuned for our interview with him coming soon!)
Another twist in the story is that the Republican debate was broadcast on Fox News, the channel that abruptly fired Carlson, despite having the highest-rated cable show at the time, back in April of this year. Trump and Carslon clearly set out to upstage the Fox debate. According to the numbers, they seem to have managed to do so.
The pre-taped interview was posted on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) also on Wednesday evening. As of the time of writing this,
it has accumulated a staggering 251.6 million views, with 764,000 likes and 59,500 comments.
Among the 50,000-plus comments, there is one from the social media giant’s owner, Elon Musk, as well. He wrote: ‘Interesting to hear things directly vs through the media filter.’
Meanwhile, the Fox GOP debate was watched by 12.8 million viewers. While the difference between 250 million and 12.8 million is colossal, it is misleading. Tucker Carlson’s video is a so-called ‘video-on-demand’, or VOD for short, that can be viewed any time after its upload date. Thus, it has days to accumulate a high view count. Meanwhile, the Fox debate’s ratings only count live viewers, those who tuned in during that two-hour period while it was airing on TV.
Furthermore, the number of viewers for the Republican debate was restricted geographically as well, not just in time, as only American audiences get to watch Fox News. Meanwhile, Tucker Carslon’s X video can be viewed from anywhere in the world; and X’s view counter takes even a one-second watching time into account.
However, that does not mean that Carlson and Trump failed to upstage the Republican debate.
There is no doubt that the interview’s immense social media reach, which far outweighs the Republican debate’s, is a great triumph for them.
Donald Trump’s Interview With Tucker Carlson
So, what was actually said in that interview?
Evidently, President Trump was asked why he had chosen to not attend the debate. He answered that it was because he is up 40–50 points in the polls, so he does not have to be ‘harassed’ by ‘people who shouldn’t even be running for President’. Aftress some pressing from Carslon, he specified that two of those people are former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie. President Trump also ‘threw some shade’ at his former Attorney General Bill Barr, who he believes did not investigate potential election fraud to the extent he should have.
Tucker Carlson then posed a very provocative question, asking President Trump if he fears being assassinated, as after organised protests, impeachments, and indictments (four ‘in the bag’ already) did not stop him, violence is the next logical step. Trump, however, was not really phased by the question, after calling his unspecified political enemies ‘savage animals’ and ‘people who are really sick’, he stuck to talking about the failed legal actions against him so far.
About the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, the 45th POTUS had this to say:
‘That’s a war that should end immediately. Not because of one side or the other, but because hundreds of thousands of people are being killed.’
This falls in line with the opinion of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, who expressed multiple times that he believes that President Trump returning to the White House would be better for peace in Eastern Europe than the incumbent President Biden’s re-election.
In the interview with Carlson, President Trump claimed he is not even sure if Biden would run again, and called him physically and mentally weak, and also taking a jab at his Vice President, Kamala Harris, whom she described as speaking ‘in rhyme’ which he declared is ‘weird’. The conversation ended with the question what Donald Trump’s top priority is in his new election campaign, to which he answered it is still border security, just like it was in 2016, when he won.
Read more:
