There is "no doubt" someone is trying to disparage fired Fox News star Tucker Carlson, but the efforts aren't working, Lara Trump, a senior adviser for former President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign and the host of the Right View Podcast, told Newsmax.
"Someone somewhere is trying to do their best at disparaging Tucker, [but] none of the things that have come out by the way have, I think, had that effect at all," Trump, who is married to the former president's son Eric, told Newsmax's "Eric Bolling: The Balance."
"I don't think people really care about any of the things that have been leaked out by whoever is doing it," and as a result, people are reacting "so negatively" to Fox News, and the firing has hurt the network, Trump said.
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"You look at their ratings and it's certainly different than it was when Tucker was there," she said. "That is because I think people are desperate for the truth, and what is real. We feel like we live in a world right now where we really don't know what is real."
But with Carlson, for so many people, "was one of the few that would give it to you in a very real way," Trump said. "He would speak the truth, even when it was perhaps unpopular to do so on so many fronts, and I think that's why people really gravitated to him. That's why he became so popular, and that's why people tuned in every night at 8 p.m. to Fox, to see Tucker."
For Carlson to leave "abruptly," and for people not to hear a reason from Fox News about his firing is confusing, said Trump.
"It was just one and done, and we should all kind of move on with it," she said of Fox's lack of a reason. "People are upset. They feel a little betrayed, I think, by Fox at this moment, and it's going to be tough for Fox to gain back the trust of a lot of people because it leads people to speculate as so many of us have.
"Why was Tucker let go at Fox? What happened? What led up to this?"
Bolling, also a former Fox News reporter, said he agrees with the opinion of former Fox colleague Megyn Kelly, who said the network has staged a "destruction campaign" against Carlson.
Bolling also said Fox fired Carlson because "they're moving left … they're clearly doubling down on the establishment, the RINO [Republican in name only] wing of the party."
Meanwhile, several leaks have come out since Carlson's firing, including his comments on a fight from the Jan. 6, 2021 protests at the Capitol. Bolling said the leak is giving conservatives' enemies "ammunition," and Trump said she agrees and finds it "sad."
"Shouldn't we all be on the same team here?" she said. "I think that's the really sad part of all of this is that there really aren't that many spaces out there where conservatives can go for information. Newsmax, thank goodness is out here, and I know you guys have had a lot of people start tuning in because of the Tucker Carlson situation. But Fox News for a long time was really it."
And as for being "all on the same team," Trump said, the "goal" is to restore the White House to Republican control, keep the House, and return a GOP majority to the Senate.
"It's really sad that this is kind of the space we've ended up in where you have a person with such a strong voice like Tucker, who it appears, has been silenced," she added. "All they're doing is making him more powerful right now and making people more interested in what he has to say."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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