Tipsheet

Many in the 2024 GOP Field Didn't Fare Well Against the 'Tucker Stress Test'

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  July 16, 2023 12:05 AM

Tucker Carlson hosted a candidate forum at the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 14. Politico described it as the “Tucker stress test,” and many 2024 GOP candidates failed. The former Fox News host outright brutalized them. You could argue that Mr. Carlson was the grim reaper to many candidacies this week.

On the other hand, some folks, like Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson, and Mike Pence, didn’t have a shot at winning the nomination anyway. Asa Hutchinson got cornered on transgender issues, which the former Arkansas governor felt wasn’t significant. Carlson reminded him that it’s one of the top cultural debates today. 

Yet, Mike Pence was the one who got spit-roasted, especially on the war in Ukraine, where the former vice president’s position about a lack of military equipment on the ground got vivisected in front of the audience. One attendee at the forum observed that Pence’s long-shot candidacy was probably over after this disastrous event, one that was once the former Indiana governor’s core audience (via Politico): 

Most of the Republican field arrived at a packed convention center Friday for an annual forum traditionally billed as a chance for candidates to pitch themselves to Iowa’s influential evangelicals. Instead, several were subjected to a combative stress test conducted by the ousted Fox News anchor whose 9 million-strong Twitter following demonstrates his continued sway over the GOP. 

One candidate Carlson did not have the opportunity to grill on stage was former President Donald Trump. The GOP field’s frontrunner skipped the event, citing a scheduling conflict — a move that angered the head of the hosting organization, The Family Leader, a large and politically active organization of evangelical church leaders. 

It also offered second-place Ron DeSantis and lower-ranked candidates like Sen. Tim Scott, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy an opening to make further inroads in Iowa. 

[…] 

In the most contentious interview of the day, Carlson laced into the underdog candidate over his position on the war and his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and called for hanging Pence for certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

Carlson — a fierce Trump defender who later soured on the ex-president — challenged, interrupted and contradicted the soft-spoken Pence at nearly every turn. As a result, the devout Christian candidate faced hostility and jeers at a summit that would have once provided him with a friendly audience. 

[…] 

The heated exchange continued throughout the 25-minute interview, with Pence later tweeting that his remarks were taken out of context. A Pence spokesperson declined to comment further on the exchange. 

The tense back-and-forth underscored both Pence’s difficulty in the race and the ongoing shift in the Republican Party, whose traditionalists believe the United States should defend Ukraine and move away from Trump’s influence. 

But it is clear that influence is here to stay. 

“Tucker Carlson is good at what he does. I think some of Pence’s responses — for a vice president to get boos, audible boos, from the audience? That’s a big deal,” Mike Demastus, pastor of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ, said after the event. “I even heard one pastor friend of mine say, ‘His campaign’s over.’” 

Chris Christie did not attend but sealed his fate when he defended FBI Director Chris Wray this week. Trump couldn’t attend due to a scheduling conflict. But we know this is his race to lose. DeSantis is the only person who could overtake the former president, but his campaign has been in a neutral position for weeks.

The point is that Carlson roasted the folks with no business running for president in 2024 because there’s no avenue to the nomination. Their time to undertake that feat has either expired or was never present to begin with—Asa Hutchinson, are you kidding me? And by the crowd's reactions, especially toward Mr. Pence, the base’s view of the old guard in the GOP is loud and clear: go away.

Recommended

Georgia Conducted a Hand Count Audit of Its Election Results. Guess What it Found? Guy Benson
The View Forced to Read Three Legal Notes Within Minutes of One Another Following Trump AG Appointment Sarah Arnold