Politics makes strange bedfellows, but few are stranger than former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
Yet, preternatural bedfellows they are, after Carlson effectively endorsed him over his Republican opponent by saying “I wouldn’t vote for Mike Rogers at gunpoint” during his podcast, according to Mediaite.
On Monday, El-Sayed returned the favor, telling CNN that Donald Trump and MAGA is “eating itself.”
“Look, Tucker and I don’t agree on much, but we definitely agree on what he just said,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett.
“I think what you’re seeing here is MAGA eating itself, because those who believed in the ideas — the idea that we should have America first, that we shouldn’t go to wars that we shouldn’t be fighting, those who believe in just basic principles — folks are turning on people like Mike Rogers because Mike Rogers was a neocon, and then he decried Donald Trump when Donald Trump came to power,” he continued.
“Now, he’s willing to do whatever Donald Trump tells him to do, so long as Donald Trump is happy with him.”
He said that Carlson’s description of El-Sayed’s campaign as “literally Trumpian” was “less about me.”
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“It’s more about Mike Rogers, and it’s more about recognizing that I am going to be principled — whatever it takes,” he said.
“I’m somebody who came through an 11-to-1 spend; $70 million spent against me because I don’t take corporate money and stood up on my principles. And so I think that’s what [Carlson] is speaking to right now. I’ve never had a conversation with him.
“He’s not somebody whose endorsement I sought, but really, this is more of a non-endorsement for Mike Rogers, an anti-endorsement against Mike Rogers, than it is anything about me.”
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To be fair, this is effectively about two things they both agree upon, which aren’t just that Mike Rogers is bad.
First: They agree on the issue of Islamic terror, which they think doesn’t really exist. Second: They agree on the issue of the state of Israel, which they think shouldn’t exist.
This strange love affair began when it was discovered that El-Sayed told a podcast in 2021 that “9/11 scarred our country in profound ways, but what we did after 9/11 scarred millions of other people.”
“When we talk about 9/11, we often fail to center them,” he added
In other words, the victims of 9/11 were the people in the region where the perpetrators were able to find succor. And when Rep. Rogers called this “disqualifying,” Tucker took to his newsletter to defend El-Sayed.
“El-Sayed did not celebrate airplane hijackings or cheerlead Al-Qaeda; he simply said that the U.S. conducting terrorism of its own in response to 9/11 was not exactly an appropriate reaction. He is obviously right,” Carlson said.
“We are really not sure who Mike Rogers is, but if anyone in Michigan’s Senate race is ‘unfit to serve in public office,’ it is him,” he added.
For those of you not familiar with Carlson’s new podcast, when he says that “we’re really not sure” who somebody is, it’s basically a wink and a nod toward a certain country somewhere in West Asia that has a population that’s a wee little bit different than the others. An average monologue on his show tends to go something like this:
TUCKER: Algebra: we need it, or so they say. But who said? And why are the numbers Arabic? Who’d replace them with letters? Was someone setting up the Arabs? Who would do that? Hmm. My guest, a self-taught mathematician — and the media wants to convince you such a thing doesn’t exist, but they do — has looked into this. The shocking things he found will have you asking questions about Israel.
If you think this pastiche ridiculous, this is actually less offensive and more grounded in reality than a real conversation Carlson had on the same subject with a sculptor and pottery artist who posited that they put letters in algebraic equations “just to f*** with you” and had them agreeing that the subject is stuff for “good little goy slaves.” When the man belies parody, you probably shouldn’t be shacking up with him.
Yet, this is roughly the same thing El-Sayed is doing when he talks about the shadowy money being spent against him “because I don’t take corporate money and stood up on my principles.” Actually, that money was being spent because people were concerned El-Sayed was a radical who loathed both the state of Israel and had general contempt for the people who might move there, if you get my drift.
The only questions are 1) when El-Sayed finally appears on Tucker’s podcast and 2) whether he brings Hasan Piker with him. My guess is October and no. Leave your picks in the comments.
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