Trump floats Tucker Carlson as potential vice president

Ex-president says he like former Fox News host ‘a lot’ and the two share ‘great common sense’

Donald Trump said he will consider Tucker Carlson as his potential running mate.

The former president was asked on the conservative podcast The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show if he could have Carlson on his list of potential vice presidents.

“Oh wow,” replied Mr Trump before talking about how his interview with the former Fox News host “broke every record in history”.

“Yeah, I think it just hit over 300 million people,” he said.

“But it was for that evening over 207 million, it then got to 275 [million] within a day or two and the biggest ever was Oprah’s interview with Michael Jackson, which was 125 million.” The former president did not provide any evidence to back his claims.

Mr Trump compared traditional television ratings with views of the interview that aired on X/Twitter. The views are counted any time a given post passes through someone’s timeline.

Pressed again for a more direct answer, Mr Trump said: “I like Tucker a lot! I guess I would, I think I say I would.”

He also praised the former anchor for having “great common sense”. He said they both shared the same trait.

“You know, when they say that you guys are conservative, or I’m conservative, it’s not that we’re conservative, we have common sense,” he said.

Mr Trump and Carlson have shared a dramatic history.

A fallout between them was reported after Carlson’s private messages revealed he “hated” the former president even though he had regularly defended Mr Trump on air throughout his presidency and its aftermath.

The messages had been revealed after Dominion Voting Systems had filed a lawsuit against Fox News that it later settled for $787m.

Carlson had later backtracked on the comments made in the texts.

Mr Trump had also said Carlson had been “terrific” to him.

“I’m surprised. He’s a very good person a very good man and very talented and he had very high ratings,” he had said, after Carlson’s departure from Fox News.

Mr Trump, the Republican front-runner for the 2024 presidential election, has snubbed the party’s primary debates and refused to participate in the third debate on Wednesday.

He had chosen to air a pre-taped interview with Carlson on X during the first debate.