What's Up With Tucker Carlson???

Since Trump's win he's steadily devolved into something now unrecognizable

Is Tucker Carlson a racist charlatan who lost his way and became an asset for foreign powers—powers that increasingly use social media as a weapon in a global hybrid warfare environment? It’s hard to tell what’s happened to him since the election of Donald J. Trump. One would think this would be the golden age for Trumpers in the media—a time to stretch out their ideological legs, satisfied in annihilating their lifelong political foes. Instead, Tucker Carlson has become an angry racist angling for the destruction of the conservative movement in America. Why would such a glorious victory for Trump just a year ago lead to Tucker’s meltdown into mainstreaming Groypers while turning his attacks on Trump loyalists?

I never worked with Tucker, but some of my work overlapped with his over the years. When I was investigating Senator Bob Menendez, Tucker’s Daily Caller was also publishing a series of stories. From the outside, it might have seemed we were working together. Nothing could be further from the truth. I first saw some of Tucker’s deeper issues while working parallel to his outfit. While I was exposing serious corruption involving Menendez, The Daily Caller became a major impediment. I would show The New York Times evidence that the senator was using his office to enrich his biggest campaign donor, and before the story could print, Tucker’s site would flood the space with false allegations that Menendez had sex with underage prostitutes. “Menendez’s alleged Dominican prostitution spree coincided with crusade against prostitution in Cuba” was one of the headlines running beside Times stories like “Senator Has Long Ties to Donor Under Scrutiny.”

The Times article ran on the front page, above the fold. I sparked an FBI investigation that proved Menendez had used his office to help his donor secure a lucrative port deal in the Dominican Republic. But under that legitimate cloud of corruption, Tucker’s Daily Caller ran sensational, bogus stories that went nowhere. The public and the media focused on Daily Caller propaganda instead of the serious charges my work raised. That distraction helps explain how Menendez managed to fly under the radar for so long. When he faced the biggest corruption scandal of his career, he had Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller there to divert attention from the real crimes he was committing. America became enthralled by a tawdry prostitution story and ignored the national-security risk Menendez had become.

I could never understand why Tucker’s publication helped Menendez the way it did—until I co-authored the newly released book Gold Bar Bob: The Downfall of the Most Corrupt U.S. Senator, which chronicles Menendez’s life and demise. In the book, we show how Menendez likely became a target of Manuel Rocha around the time The Daily Caller broke the salacious Dominican prostitution series. Rocha had just left a role with the U.S. military to become CEO of Barrick Gold’s Pueblo Viejo mine. Menendez and his donor friend, ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, were entangled in several high-level Dominican government disputes—one involving that same mine. Melgen’s cousin, the island’s minister of mining, was pushing to annul the multibillion-dollar deal Barrick had signed. Rocha took over at Barrick four months before the infamous “Pete Williams” emails began circulating to The Daily Caller and others, alleging Menendez was partying with prostitutes in the DR.

Rocha had no experience in gold mining—or any mining at all. He was a lifelong diplomat suddenly running the biggest gold mine in the hemisphere while embroiled in an international sex scandal tied to Menendez. Rocha’s arrest in December 2023 revealed he was a Cuban spy when all hell broke loose for Menendez in the DR. CIA sources later confirmed to major outlets like The Washington Post that known Cuban intelligence IP addresses were used to send the emails The Daily Caller relied on for its bogus stories. It all points to a Cuban spy operation designed to make Menendez an asset through blackmail. The sex stories Tucker was pushing weren’t real, so there was no risk of prison for Menendez—but they were humiliating. So humiliating that he might have decided to play ball with the Cubans rather than endure Daily Caller sextortion.

At the time, I didn’t realize my evidence-based reporting on Menendez’s corruption had also become a problem for Tucker and The Daily Caller. Looking back, I can see how the book I co-authored now reads as a roadmap to where Tucker Carlson took a very bad turn. A few years ago, Manuel Rocha was still considered a heroic American diplomat who swam in the same anti-Castro circles as Menendez. Any work Tucker did with Rocha could have been seen—at least until Rocha’s arrest—as CIA-adjacent. Rocha fit the profile of a CIA operative: connected to top U.S. decision-makers on Caribbean and Latin American issues, and serving as CEO of the largest gold mine in the Americas. It would have been natural for Tucker, a failed CIA applicant, to jump at the chance to work with such a figure against Menendez. So when Rocha was arrested in 2023, Tucker’s world likely collapsed.

Since then, I’ve watched Tucker talk about being attacked by demons that left cuts and bruises on his body. I’ve seen him sitting beside a shirtless man in Moscow at the Russian Ballet while interviewing Putin like a student deferring to his master. Each time I’ve watched, I’ve wondered more about the Daily Caller–Menendez affair and whether that was Tucker’s turning point. It might have been when he “went over to the dark side”—a phrase we quote Menendez using in the book when sending a former staffer into international diplomacy and business deals. Now Tucker supports Maduro in Venezuela, along with Putin and a host of others aligned with Cuban interests. He’s even undermining institutions like the Heritage Foundation, long a bulwark against Cuba’s repressive regime. Maybe the demons Tucker wrestles with are the Santería kind the Cubans are known for in Miami. Trump’s victory should have been a milestone in Tucker’s career; instead, it’s become an anchor around his neck. As Tucker himself has often said about those he’s covered, I hope he comes out of this okay. But it’s increasingly looking as though this won’t end well for the conservative pundit.