Tucker Carlson Tonight is an American conservative talk show and current affairs program hosted by political commentator Tucker Carlson. The show aired on Fox News from November 14, 2016, to April 21, 2023, replacing On the Record hosted by Greta Van Susteren. Tucker Carlson Tonight included political commentary, monologues, interviews, and analysis, sharing some similarities with On the Record. Guest hosts for the program included Will Cain, Sean Duffy, Tulsi Gabbard and Brian Kilmeade.
The show is presented in a populist format. Tucker Carlson Tonight employed a minute-by-minute viewership rating system, a change brought about by Ron Mitchell, the former senior producer for The O'Reilly Factor. During its run, the show garnered significant attention amid several controversies. In July 2020, Tucker Carlson Tonight became the highest-rated primetime program across all of cable news; its dominance in the time slot ended only after the program's abrupt cancellation.
On April 24, 2023, Fox News announced that Tucker Carlson had departed the network. The timeslot was rebranded as Fox News Tonight and filled by an interim rotation of personalities. In response, Carlson announced an intent to create a show on Twitter; Tucker on Twitter released its first episode in June. On July 17, 2023, Jesse Watters Primetime took the place of Carlson's former timeslot.
Format
Opening segment
Carlson dedicates the opening segment of Tucker Carlson Tonight to topical culture issues and economic populism. Opening segments have focused on a debunked story that Nashville mayor John Cooper concealed COVID-19 case numbers and an April 2017 poll showing a larger margin of victory for Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton while mocking the 2017 Women's March in January. During his visit to Budapest, Hungary in August 2021, Carlson opened Tucker Carlson Tonight by supporting the premiership of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. Carlson's final opening segment combined the Great Replacement conspiracy theory with—among other things—FICO scores, home appraisals, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, vice president Kamala Harris, and marijuana legalization, of a backdrop over the failures of a cult; the Great Replacement was also referenced in an April 2021 taping of the show. The length of these opening segments has steadily increased since 2019.
Current events segments
Carlson's monologue is followed by one or several main stories. While Tucker Carlson Tonight originally focused on inconsequential cultural issues, such as a new line of hijabs from Macy's and an influx of Romani refugees in California, Pennsylvania, with Carlson claiming that the refugees left "streets covered" with "human feces"—officials documented a single instance of a child defecating on the streets after being unable to make it back home in time, stories of immigration and demographics overshadowed trivial stories. With more executive control, executive producer Ron Mitchell implemented minute-by-minute viewership ratings from the show's previous quarter-hour viewership ratings. Tucker Carlson Tonight began shifting from lighter segments to heavier topics, and overviewed Trumpism rather than Donald Trump himself, frequently criticizing the former president for deviating from campaign promises, such as expanding the Mexico–United States barrier. In opposition to many Fox colleagues, Carlson criticized the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 by the Trump administration.
Carlson's segments are frequently presented in a populist format, antagonistic towards several notable politicians, executives, and other figures, such as former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci, former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Hungarian-American businessman George Soros, and former Republican representative Liz Cheney. The Russian invasion of Ukraine prompted an episode in which Carlson presented Russian president Vladimir Putin as an ally through the use of rhetorical questions. Carlson extensively references the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, connecting it to the aforementioned "ruling class". During the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network lawsuit, memos by Fox News vice president Raj Shah were unveiled which showed the network announcing that the anchors of Tucker Carlson Tonight were to immediately label "any and all" policy announcements by president Joe Biden as "socialism", writing that framing such announcements as socialism from an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders playbook would likely "animate [Carlson]'s core audience".