Tucker Carlson is profiled in the April 10 issue of The New Yorker, the one with this cover.
The wide-ranging interview with Kelefa Sanneh includes a conversation about Carlson’s travels across cable’s news’s “big 3:” first CNN, later MSNBC and now Fox News.
“Carlson had been hanging around the cable-news industry for far too long to be considered a rising star—and so, too, was the result,” Sanneh writes about his ratings success in Megyn Kelly‘s old timeslot.
Carlson thrives on remote interviews, which allow his producers to “box” his face, keeping it onscreen so that viewers can watch him react. When Carlson is talking to someone he agrees with, he pulls back, adopting the role of an earnest student seeking edification from a wise professor. But the segments most people remember are the contentious ones. Carlson grows incredulous and furrows his brow; he grows more incredulous and unfurrows it, letting his features melt into a disbelieving smile, which sometimes gives way to a high-pitched chuckle of outrage. One of his favorite tactics is to insist that his guest answer a question that is essentially unanswerable, as when he pressed Bill Nye to tell him what percentage of climate change was caused by human activity, then berated him for evading the question.
“We’re still the show that’s the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and group think,” he proclaims.