Former President Donald Trump has been “changed” by the assassination attempt against his life, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson told the Republican National Convention on Thursday night.
Speaking to the crowd at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum, Carlson praised Trump for his resilience and toughness and invoked the sentiment that divine intervention played a part in keeping the bullet from taking him out. On July 13 at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., Trump was shot at by a 20-year-old man with a high-powered rifle; he escaped with just a grazed ear.
“In that moment, Donald Trump, months before the presidential election, became the leader of this nation — that was the most obvious to me,” Carlson said. “And I have to say — I think it changed him.”
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After Carlson spoke, retired pro wrestler Hulk Hogan took the stage for another rousing speech praising Trump and noting the former president’s close ties to the WWE going back decades. Hogan got a huge response when he ripped his sleeveless T-shirt in half to reveal a Trump-Vance shirt underneath.
“I won the world title right in front of Donald J. Trump,” Hogan told the crowd. “He’s going to win in November, and we’re all going to be champions again.”
Carlson was ousted by Fox News in April 2023 as the news cabler was in the midst of a costly defamation legal battle with Dominion Voting Systems, the tech firm that became the focus of right-wing conspiracy theories about fraud during the 2020 presidential election. Dominion sued Fox News over remarks made by Carlson and other hosts. Carlson was the top-rated personality at Fox News at the time, but the discovery process in the Dominion cause unearthed text messages with racially charged comments that made it untenable for Fox News to keep him on the air.
After getting the ax from Fox News, Carlson shifted his media platform to Elon Musk’s X. His public profile is greatly diminished but he remains a superstar personality in conversative circles.
To the RNC faithful, Carlson painted a picture of Trump as warm and funny. He also gave his thumbs-up to JD Vance, the junior senator from Ohio who Trump selected on Monday to be his vice presidential running mate. Carlson insisted that Trump has been unfairly vilified by mainstream media coverage.
“Donald Trump — whatever you say about him, and I think he’s a wonderful person — I know him well, by the way — is the funniest person I’ve ever met in my life,” Carlson said. “Actually, you can’t be funny without perspective or without empathy, which is true. But everything else about Trump aside, he actually cares, because he’s interested in the people who live here.”
As for Vance, Carlson called him “a thoroughly decent man” and “a friend of mine.”
“JD Vance has views that are closer to Trump’s voters than anyone else in Washington in office,” Carlson said. “Therefore he is the vice president; that’s called democracy.”
Carlson emphasized that the dynamics in the presidential race have changed in unthinkable ways in just a few weeks, since President Biden stumbled badly in his June 27 debate with Trump on CNN and since the assassination attempt on Trump.
“What’s happened over the past month, since the debate, and particularly on Saturday in Butler, I think a lot of people are wondering, what is this?” Carlson mused. “This doesn’t look like politics. Something bigger is going on here. I think even people who don’t believe in God are beginning to think — well, maybe there’s something to this.”
(Pictured top: Hulk Hogan addresses the 2024 Republican National Convention)
