Tucker Carlson’s One-Way Street

Behind the viral Ted Cruz smackdown is a familiar trick: ask the questions, win the debate.

Tucker Carlson is a very smart man. Trust me — I spent six years working for him and with him — which is to say, we occupied the same office space roughly 80% of the time.

And yes, he’s genuinely sharp. No cue cards needed.

He was also, at least in my experience, a mensch — something I said publicly when I left The Daily Caller in 2017. Of course, by 2019, I also said he was increasingly, conspicuously wrong on a whole lot of things. Both of those things can be true. Welcome to adulthood.

But that’s not really the point. The point is his recent interview with Senator Ted Cruz — a spectacle less about foreign policy and more about ambushing people on camera.

Regardless of your views on Israel, Iran, or the metaphysical importance of ancient scrolls, let’s acknowledge what was actually happening: Tucker was practicing Grade-A sophistry. Asking Cruz to recite demographic stats about Iran wasn’t an earnest pursuit of truth — it was a trap dressed up as journalism. A clever “gotcha” that conveniently sidesteps the actual question: is Iran a dangerous, theocratic regime with nukes on the brain?

Same goes for the Bible verse stunt. Whether Cruz knows the chapter and verse about blessing Israel is utterly irrelevant to whether it informs American policy — or whether it should. But hey, if you can make a U.S. Senator look like a deer in headlights, theological nuance can wait.

Tucker pulled it off, too — not because Cruz is stupid (he isn’t), but because Carlson was the one asking the questions. That’s the game. It’s always easier to throw punches when you’re the one holding the mic.

Which brings me to a curious omission: Tucker, master interrogator, seems recently to be unavailable when invited to come on someone else’s show as a guest.

My friend, Jamie Weinstein, host of the Monday edition of The Dispatch podcast, has publicly challenged him to come on his podcast — or Ben Shapiro’s.

As far as I know, crickets.

Funny how that works.