The Dictatorship
The lesson in Tucker Carlson’s surprisingly effective dismantling of Ted Cruz
Talk show host Tucker Carlson skewered Sen. Ted Cruz, R.-Texas, in what could be considered a minute-and-a-half version of the meme “The worst person you know just made a great point.”
In a segment of his show released Tuesday, Carlson bombarded Cruz with questions related to his support for regime change in Iran as the U.S. supports Israel’s war on Iran. And Carlson was effective — despite being motivated by right-wing isolationist ideas rather than progressive anti-war sentiment.
It is important to know basic demographic facts about a state one is calling for subverting.
“How many people live in Iran, by the way?” Carlson asks at the start of the clip.
“I don’t know the population,” Cruz replies.
“At all?” Carlson asks.
“No, I don’t know the population,” Cruz says.
“You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?” Carlson presses.
After Carlson tells Cruz that Iran has about 90 million people, he asks, “How could you not know that?”
Cruz retorts that he doesn’t “sit around memorizing population tables.”
Carlson insists it’s relevant because Cruz is calling for the overthrow of the government. He then quizzes Cruz about the ethnic makeup of Iran, and eventually Cruz erupts in exasperation, saying, “This is cute,” and defending himself by saying, “OK, I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran.”
Some might say Carlson pounced on Cruz with gotcha questions. But it is important to know basic demographic facts about a state one is calling for subverting through brutal bombardment and potentially other kinds of attacks.
From a strictly strategic perspective, it is crucial to have an understanding of the population of a country that would — assuming regime change efforts are successful — experience a period of mass instability and displacement in a region of acute geopolitical interest to the U.S. Consider, for example, how the U.S.’s naivete about ethnic sectarianism in Iraq played a role in dooming its imperialistic nation-building efforts there and created fertile soil for the emergence of ISIS. And it makes sense for Carlson to point out that Iran is not a small country. It should affect how the American public perceives what kind of war it could be getting into, and what Iran’s capacity to retaliate against Israel in the long term might be.
But it’s just as important on a moral, humanistic level to have a basic familiarity with a population one is proposing to wreak havoc on through the use of force. Despite what the hawks might want the U.S. public to believe, Iran is not a bunker filled with cartoon villains. It’s a vast country with a rich cultural, political and social history. It’s a country filled with tens of millions of people, the vast majority of whom are just trying to live their lives like in any other country in the world. And acknowledging the texture of that reality makes it harder to propose taking a wrecking ball to it.
Despite what the hawks might want the U.S. public to believe, Iran is not a bunker filled with cartoon villains.
Distaste for facts or realistic appraisals of threats is integral to the case for war. Cruz has recently called Iran getting a nuclear weapon “the most acute threat the United States faces today,” which is utter nonsense. Iran is an economically struggling regional power in the Middle East that doesn’t have nuclear weapons; it is far less of a threat to the U.S. than Russia and China, or North Korea, which has nuclear weapons and some demonstrable ability to send them far distances.
Despite Cruz’s a manmonueing about the prospect of a “mushroom cloud over New York City or Los Angeles,” the U.S. has many other more realistic threats to worry about. And neither Cruz nor any of his war-hungry colleagues have explained why Iran wouldn’t theoretically be deterred from using nuclear weapons by the same principle that has long prevented nuclear warfare around the world: mutually assured destruction.
Throughout the rest of the interview clip, Carlson pushes Cruz to clarify how dangerous Iran actually is and what the exact scope of the U.S.’s involvement in Israel’s operations are. And he does it with a kind of doggedness often absent from mainstream reporters when they interrogate American politicians about war.
Carlson’s positions don’t come from a humanitarian perspective or a principled defense of sovereignty — consider how soft he is on Russia as it dominates Ukraine. Rather, his ideological case against foreign involvement comes from a right-wing nationalist preference for withdrawal from the world and a skepticism of interventionism that is at least partially rooted in bigotry in some instances. (Carlson has said Iraq “wasn’t worth invading” because it’s filled with “semiliterate primitive monkeys.”)
Ultimately, Carlson’s skepticism of involvement in Iran aligns with where much of the Republican base appears to be at the moment. According to an Economist/YouGov poll conducted between June 13 and June 16, only 23% of Republicans think the U.S. military should get involved in the conflict between Iran and Israel. We will see if Carlson and his faction prevail in the war of ideas — and policy — in the coming weeks.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for BLN Daily. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Blue Light News, and he has also been published in, among other places, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept. You can sign up for his free politics newsletter here.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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