Dan Abrams, who headed MSNBC when Tucker Carlson worked there, recently claimed that the podcaster “liked nothing better” than saying things to “get a rise out of the media.” Carlson, once a well-known Fox News host, has become a divisive figure in conservative politics after he hosted white supremacist and controversial political commentator Nick Fuentes on his show in October 2025.
A clip of Dan Abrams talking about Tucker Carlson during his appearance on The Fifth Column Podcast was recently posted by X account @VigilantFox on January 26, 2026. In the clip, Abrams can be seen talking about working with Carlson during his stint at MSNBC in the mid 2000s, saying that he was a fan of Carlson.
“When I was running MSNBC, Tucker was an anchor at MSNBC. I was a big fan of Tucker’s. I was a fan of him in terms of his intellect, in terms of his show, in terms of his TV presence… I thought he was great. And I pushed very hard to keep him on air. This was a time when MSNBC was doing a kind of balanced, more sort of balanced lineup,” Abrams said.
He added that Carlson was someone who planned how to say things and get a rise out of the media, comparing it with the podcaster’s current content and adding that he didn’t find it funny.
“Tucker likes nothing better than to get a rise out of the media. And he loves…he sits there, I think, and thinks, ‘Oh, this is gonna be great. They’re gonna go nuts when I say this. You know, I can’t wait to see their faces.’… It’s transformed now into something worse. It’s not fun, it’s not funny,” Abrams said.
For those uninformed, Tucker Carlson hosted the show Tucker at MSNBC between 2005 and 2008, with the show ultimately being canceled due to low ratings. Carlson reportedly stayed at MSNBC as a campaign correspondent to cover the 2008 election before parting ways with the network in January 2009 when his contract expired.
In a 2009 interview with The New York Times, Carlson suggested that he parted ways with MSNBC because they did not have a role for him anymore, saying:
“The network changed a lot. I’m not attacking it, but they didn’t have a role for me. It’s just a different network than it was when I joined. Very different.”
Before his stint at MSNBC, he was the co-host of the show Crossfire at CNN for five years. Following his exit from MSNBC, he began working for Fox News. He started hosting his own show in 2016 and remained with the network till he was fired in 2023.
Tucker Carlson currently hosts his eponymous podcast
In 2024, Tucker Carlson began hosting the podcast titled The Tucker Carlson Show, where he spoke about various political incidents and often interviewed guests. The conservative podcaster‘s show has landed in hot water a few times after he was accused of platforming Holocaust deniers and antisemites.
In September 2024, Tucker Carlson interviewed Darryl Cooper, a fellow podcaster on Tucker on X. During the podcast, Cooper implied that the Holocaust happened by accident. He further alleged that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the “chief villain of the Second World War” and “primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did, becoming something other than an invasion of Poland.”
The interview drew heavy backlash from the White House, with senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates telling CNN at the time:
“Giving a microphone to a Holocaust denier who spreads Nazi propaganda is a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans, to the memory of the over 6 million Jews who were genocidally murdered by Adolf Hitler, to the service of the millions of Americans who fought to defeat Nazism, and to every subsequent victim of Antisemitism.”
Tucker Carlson encountered a similar situation for the second time when he interviewed controversial far-right commentator Nick Fuentes in October 2025. The interview was heavily criticized after Freuntes made several antisemitic comments, including mentions about alleged “organized Jewry” in America, and proclaiming himself to be a fan of Joseph Stalin.
According to The Hill, Tucker Carlson’s podcast drew backlash for its antisemitic rhetoric. Many Republicans, including Ted Cruz condemnedit even as Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts defended Carlson.
In other news, Tucker Carlson recently criticized conservatives for their response to the death of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman who was fatally shot by ICE in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. In his newsletter at the time, Carlson called Good’s death a “tragedy, regardless of her partisan affiliations, ideological beliefs, or who pulled the trigger.” He further added that “violence around the world is desensitizing Americans to violence at home.”
Edited by Juhi Marzia