Tucker Carlson is the sole TV news personality to make the 2021 Time100 List, with the magazine honoring him in its “Leaders” category.
“Love him or hate him, Tucker Carlson may be the most powerful conservative in America,” writes Time’s Charlotte Alter, who also published a profile on him this past summer.
Alter points out that his 8 p.m. Fox News show is averaging “roughly 3 million viewers every night,” adding it’s “the top-rated show in cable-news history.”
She adds: “His diatribes against ‘the elites,’ the federal government and the scientific consensus shape the belief system of millions,” and she states that the fact that Americans aren’t agreeing on much these days, is “partly the evidence of Tucker Carlson’s influence.”
Ironically, Carlson is now on a list with “elites” he rails against on air.
Carlson joins a long list of TV newsers to make recent Time100 lists. Over the past decade, they have included Gayle King in 2019; Sean Hannity, Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb in 2018; Gretchen Carlson in 2017; Lester Holt in 2016; Jorge Ramos, who graced the cover of the 2015 issue; Charlie Rose and Megyn Kelly in 2014; Matt Lauer in 2012; and Joe Scarborough, Ayman Moyheldin in 2011.