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Ex-Fox News host, election lie propagator and conservative provocateur Tucker Carlson said that Donald Trump offered to stand guard at his home after demonstrators came to his Washington property in 2018.
Carlson received the biggest applause at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on the fourth and final night of the Republican National Convention ahead of Trump’s speech.
“This feels a lot different from what I thought it was going to feel like,” Carlson said, when he came to the stage.
Fox News fired Carlson last year but he remains a massively popular and influential figure in rightwing circles. Carlson opened by speaking about Trump’s shooting in Pennsylvania, and said that the moment solidified his status as a leader.
“Everything was different after that moment, everything this convention is different,” Carlson said. “ When he stood up after being shot in the face, bloodied, and put his hand up. I thought at that moment, that was a transformation.”
Throughout the convention, Republicans have sought to humanize Trump. On Wednesday, his granddaughter Kai Trump spoke before her father Don Jr, depicting him as an ordinary grandfather. Similarly, Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, sought to make Trump seem like a pious religious leader.
“Just because you call yourself the president doesn't mean that much inherently, I can call my dog the CEO of Hewlett Packard doesn't mean she is,” Carlson said, before suggesting President Joe Biden was a mannequin. “And you hate to say it, but it is also true that you could take, I don't know a mannequin a dead person and make him president.”
He then repeated the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
“With enough cheating that could happen,” Carlson said.
Carlson also praised Senator JD Vance, calling him a friend.
“He is a thoroughly decent man, and I'll just admit it a friend of mine,” he said. “But JD Vance has views that are closer to Trump's voters. than anyone else in Washington in office. Therefore, he's the vice president. That’s democracy.”
Carlson then claimed how in 2018, Antifa protesters came to his house when his wife was home, dubbing them “the Democratic party’s militia”.
“I was at work, it was obvious when I was at work because it was public. My wife was alone, they tried to come through the front door and they terrorized her,” he said.
Carlson said that the next day, Trump called his wife Susan.
“It’s coming through, I can hear it,” he said. “And the first thing he says is ‘I’m going to stand guard outside your house.’”
Despite not being on network TV anymore, Carlson hosts a show on X. Earlier this year, he came under criticism for interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Carlson’s speech signified a sharp turn for the Republican Party. Earlier in the convention, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had railed against Carlson for interviewing Putin, was roundly booed. Vance and Carlson have both criticized support for Ukraine.
Carlson joined GOP politicians and celebrities, including WWE wrestler Hulk Hogan.
But Carlson said there was another VIP in the room. “But I will say this unequivocally,” he said. “God is among us right right now. And I think that’s enough.”
