Miranda Devine was close to Tucker Carlson for years, so much so that he asked her to write his biography. She was halfway through it when he left Fox. She was on his show frequently and knows him better than most, and does not recognize him anymore. Her explanation is kind, insightful, honest, and concerning. Tucker is powerful and has a broad reach.
Tucker started in journalism, working for Bill Kristol in the neoconservative world. He was talented, charming, a gifted writer, and a force on air. Tucker believes Kristol used those gifts to prosecute the case for the Iraq War—a war Tucker later concluded was a catastrophic mistake. He had a friend die there. He beats himself up about it constantly, Devine says. That guilt is real. That anti-war conviction that grew from it is genuine. Pete Hegseth also came out of the Iraq era deeply skeptical of military intervention and the people who sold it to them. Many or most conservatives feel the same way. Devine said that is not the problem.
Her View Is Worth Hearing
At Fox, Tucker had an exceptional team around him. Executive producer Justin Wells is described as first among equals in Fox’s behind-the-scenes talent. A retinue of genuinely gifted people took Tucker’s immense natural ability and turned it into the number one cable news show in America. You do not achieve that without excellent editorial judgment challenging you.
When Tucker left Fox, he could not keep those people. And now, according to someone who knows him well and has no axe to grind, he is pretty isolated. Isolation is how talented people go wrong. It removes the friction that produces good judgment. It removes the trusted voices that say, “Wait, think about this differently.” It removes the editorial check that separates a genuinely great broadcaster from someone who platforms whatever confirms his existing worldview.
The Tucker Carlson who was brilliant on Fox was Tucker Carlson plus a world-class team that made him better. The Tucker Carlson who sounds like he is rooting for Iran to win, who praises communist dictators, who questions whether Hamas is a terrorist organization, who bought a home in Qatar, and whose content is distributed by the Muslim Brotherhood—that Tucker Carlson is isolated and nursing a decades-old wound about Iraq, writes X poster, M.A. Rothman.
Tucker is isolated and surrounded by the wrong people.
This isn’t Miranda Devine saying this. I’m saying that the new Tucker is causing a lot of damage, and we are going to end up with communists running the country. This bickering is destroying the alliance, and the larger issue is that we are going to end up with a Democrat Party that is allowing the radical far left to take it over.
— M.A. Rothman (@MichaelARothman) March 16, 2026
Add to that the fact that he sees himself as one of the most powerful people who can change all this.
Tucker Carlson: "I'm one of the most powerful people with the ability to change America's foreign policy."
Tucker Carlson when he finds out he's being investigated by the CIA for conspiring with Iran: "I'm just a journalist. This is an attack on my free speech!" pic.twitter.com/5vB9PXKpC1
— Nathan Livingstone (MilkBarTV) (@TheMilkBarTV) March 16, 2026
