Tucker Carlson Receives Praise From Rachel Maddow in New Interview – Opinion

Vanity Fair published a Sunday interview in which Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s host, praised Tucker Carlson, Fox News host, for bringing together the network. Maddow received her first television job from Carlson in the early years of Maddow’s career. About 17 years ago, Maddow worked on Carlson’s series called “Tucker.”

Maddow said the following:

“Tucker’s doing great right now … But look at Tucker’s career. The first show I worked on was his 11 o’clock show on MSNBC that nobody remembers. He was always in the business, and he has always been talented. It just — this turned out to be his moment.”

When Maddow was asked about the New York Times “investigation” on how Carlson “weaponized his viewers’ fears and grievances to create what may be the most racist show in history of cable news,” Maddow said:

“For me, more than the issue of, you know, how dangerous are Tucker’s ideas, and how do they interact with the growth of the authoritarian right in the Republican Party, more so than that question, which is obviously what the central thrust of the reporting was about, I was interested in how they deconstructed why it works.”

Maddow stated that she doesn’t automatically turn down Fox News hosts.

“If you think about baseball players, who are extremely competitive and who are fighting to win and who have rivalries, and some of those rivalries are bitter rivalries, that doesn’t mean you don’t study the pitching technique of their star pitcher … It doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate whatever they’re doing in terms of, you know, where they put their shortstop in order to give them a better defense. There’s a sort of, like, respecting the game, in terms of people who are doing well and people who are good at it.”

Elle continued:

“I mean that was the basis of my professional friendship with Roger Ailes. He gave me tips on how to do better in TV. And he was willing to talk to me about what I was doing well, and doing poorly, to help me get better.”

This was not a good idea for liberal Nandini Jammi who posted:

We are not surprised to hear that Rachel Maddow has been a part of Tucker Carlson’s protection group. pic.twitter.com/T8gmH0obLD

— Nandini Jammi (@nandoodles) August 8, 2022

It’s good to see Maddow complimenting competitors with whom she disagrees on policy, and they disagree about virtually everything regarding politics. Yes, she noted that Tucker has “dangerous” ideas, but that is her opinion. It did not stop her from calling Tucker “talented,” or that she had a “professional friendship with Roger Ailes.”

Joe Biden kept repeating his promise to bring unity back when he ran in 2020 for the presidency. Maddow showed more unity with someone who’s her polar opposite than Biden has his whole presidency. This was a good thing in a period of so much division.