Clive Palmer cancels Trumpet of Patriots speaking tour after Tucker Carlson pulls out

Clive Palmer, chairman and party spokesperson for Trumpet of Patriots speaking at the National Press Club of Australia in March. Picture: Martin Ollman

Faithful Clive Palmer followers hoping to catch US political commentator Tucker Carlson’s opinions on the local election on the big screen over the next few weeks are set for disappointment, after Palmer cancelled the national roadshow for his Trumpet of Patriots (ToP) part this week.

The main reason, Margin Call hears, is withdrawal of Carlson after the death last week of his father, journalist Dick Carlson, who led the US government-backed Voice of America broadcaster in the Reagan and Bush era – a service now slated for cancellation by US President Donald Trump.

Carlson senior passed away on March 24, but his son still managed to front the Melbourne leg of the ToP national tour on Saturday night. And while Tucker’s absence from the rest of the tour – slated to include Perth on Friday and Brisbane next week – might have deprived the Queensland businessman of his headline speaker, it probably wasn’t the only reason.

There’s a pretty strong argument to say Carlson isn’t much of a drawcard for Australian audiences anyway. Local punters stayed away in droves at last year’s speaking tour featuring the two men.

American Tucker Carlson and Clive Palmer give at a press conference in Brisbane last year. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Even with Carlson speaking in Melbourne on the weekend, the turnout wasn’t exactly spectacular. Photos circulating on social media show a thin crowd clustered down the front of a Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre auditorium, with attendance perhaps sitting somewhere between 100 and 150 people in a room capable of seating 10 times that number.

And it wouldn’t have been cheap to put on. Leaving aside venue hire – unlikely to have been covered by the $45 ticket price – Carlson’s speaking agency lists fees of $US100,000 per engagement. Fellow US conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, also on the card for the tour, charges $US20,000 to $US30,000 in virtual appearance fees.

And, even though Palmer was only dialling in himself, Margin Call is told the Queensland billionaire still flew a security detail down from Brisbane for the event in the private jet of his mining company, Mineralogy.

Then there’s the advertising spend for the events. Google’s political advertising tracker shows that Palmer dropped a lazy $100,000 or so on putting ads for the events on high rotation on YouTube for weeks ahead of the speaking tour.

Still, Palmer’s political outfits are used to spending big for little return. When set against the $110m spent on getting a lone senator elected at the last federal election, almost anything looks cheap.