Carville appeared to confuse Kash Patel with Tucker Carlson’s business partner, Neil Patel, for his theory that Carlson has been behind the Trump picks.
James Carville said Tuesday that he believes journalist Tucker Carlson is pulling the strings in the transition team of President-elect Donald Trump. The Democratic strategist, who used to appear on CNN’s bombastic Crossfire in the early 2000s with Carlson, called the popular conservative media star an “old friend” during an interview on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber.
While discussing some of Trump’s most polarizing picks, including Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and Kash Patel for FBI director, Carville said, “One person is driving this, I promise you, and it’s Tucker Carlson,” per the Daily Mail.
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View on RumbleCarlson hosted a top-rated show on cable news before getting axed by Fox in 2023. Since then, he has become one of the most popular commentators on the internet and developed a show that features exhaustive and engaging interviews. He has also grown closer to Trump and has been seen by his side at prominent events.
“Look, I think they pick a lot of these people just to irritate people like us,” Carville told Melber. “The more angst they cause Rachel Maddow, the more likely they are to pick that person.”
Carville suggested some of Trump’s nominees will drop out as the president-elect’s first choice for attorney general, Rep. Matt Gaetz, did; but that other “equally odious” choices will take their places. Carville suggested that Patel is “so outrageous and so out-of-character” with any other nominee to head the FBI because he has linked America’s national police force to the Deep State. “That's why they do it,” Carville insisted.
Carville appeared to confuse Kash Patel with Tucker Carlson’s business partner, Neil Patel for his main argument for theorizing that Carlson has been behind the Trump picks. Neil Patel and Carlson founded the Daily Caller as well as the Tucker Carlson Network.
“Kash Patel was Tucker's business partner,” Carville noted. “Tucker is 40 times more clever than Steve Bannon. He's 40 times more connected, he's also very connected with Elon Musk and everything else, and he’s a very bright man who should not be underrated.”
“Tucker is very, very, very powerful and the Kash Patel pick proves that beyond any doubt at all,” Carville said.
The Democratic pundit said he never suspected that Steve Bannon was influencing Trump on his cabinet nominations but that it had to be Carlson. “Everything that I see is the same thing I heard in the green room in 2002,” Carville said.
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