What to expect from the Tucker Carlson, Clive Palmer roadshow

When asked how Clive Palmer had approached him to come to Australia, American uber-conservative commentator Tucker Carlson revealed his waggish side.

“A text message. Which is an emerging technology in the United States where you use your phone to do some chat with people,” he said.

Tucker Carlson and Clive Palmer launch their event series in Brisbane at one of Palmer’s homes.Credit: Glenn Hunt

Of course there is more to Carlson than sarcasm. He has been called “the most influential voice in right-wing media”.

A former Fox News commentator who continues to argue that the 2020 US presidential election was rigged, Carlson now runs his own media outlet and broadcasts on X.

He recently became the first Western journalist to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin since the Ukraine war started, but was roundly criticised for his soft line of questioning.

Now he’s the star attraction at Palmer’s Australian Freedom Conference tour, which begins in Cairns on Friday before travelling to Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne.

Former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson (left) continues to claim the 2020 US presidential election was rigged.Credit: Glenn Hunt

Carlson tops a bill of speakers that also includes Queensland GP and anti-COVID vaccination campaigner Dr Melissa McCann and American filmmaker and conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza.

The magnate and the pundit joined forces in Brisbane on Wednesday to launch the tour, where an often-combative Carlson described Palmer as “refreshing”.

“It’s nice to see someone with billions of dollars who’s asking honest questions about what the government is doing. No one else is doing that, at least in my country,” he said.

The 55-year-old said one reason he wanted to visit Australia was his outrage over the lockdowns, vaccination mandates and quarantine hubs (which he described as “camps”) that formed the country’s response to the pandemic.

“Two years ago, when I watched the government eliminate freedom of movement for Australian citizens, and freedom of speech, and then put people in camps, I thought to myself, something really profound is happening,” he said.

“The government can force you to take a drug against your will? Are you freaking kidding? That’s insane ...

“And the media not only went along with it, they abetted it, and they attacked anyone who pushed back against it. It’s one of the most shameful moments in the history of the West.”

Carlson said he would vote for Donald Trump, despite the exposure in court of a series of text messages from 2021 in which the commentator wrote: “I hate him passionately ... I can’t handle much more of this.”

Tucker Carlson said of Clive Palmer it is “nice to see someone with billions of dollars who’s asking honest questions”.Credit: Glenn Hunt

“That day I had received news about information that I’d gotten from the Trump campaign that dead people had voted. I put that on television … and of the six, three turned out to be alive,” he explained.

“I was humiliated, and I blamed the Trump campaign [when] I should have blamed myself.”

Carlson said he was frustrated with the former president for not building his promised wall along the Mexican border, but that he was “affectionate towards Trump personally, and always have been”.

As for Palmer, he used the launch of his conferences to weigh in on the federal Coalition’s plan to build seven nuclear power plants, saying “nuclear power makes sense”.

“There are no emissions with nuclear power whatsoever and, of course, Australia has got unprecedented resources in uranium, so this makes common sense,” he said, arguing that nuclear power stations were now “very safe”.

Carlson agreed that cheap energy was a good thing, but added that those concerned about climate change should be more worried about Ukraine.

“We are on the cusp of nuclear war, right now,” he said. “That’s also a form of climate change, nuclear war. It heightens the temperature pretty intensely.”

When asked about local politics, Carlson admitted he did not know who Queensland Premier Steven Miles was.

“My purpose is not, of course, to lecture Australians on their country,” he said.

“I do know who Steven Miles is,” quipped Palmer. “And I think he’s going to destroy the Olympics and destroy Australia’s reputation.”

Tickets to the Australian Freedom Conference originally started at $200 but have been reduced to as little as $80.

Palmer said the price reduction was possible because they had already covered their costs.

“We just want to get more people in there,” he said. “I mean, I have got another income besides running these events, as you’ll probably appreciate.”