The Tucker Stress Test

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The Tucker Stress Test

At the Family Leadership Forum in Des Moines, Iowa on Friday, all eyes were on the GOP candidates as they were grilled by Tucker Carlson. Politico called it the “Tucker Stress Test.” He subjected several candidates to combative interviews, focusing on issues like the war in Ukraine and the state of American cities. Frontrunner former President Donald Trump skipped the event, allowing others like Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy to take the spotlight. Most of the social media chatter came from Tucker fiercely challenging former Vice President Mike Pence, leading to a tense exchange. Some candidates aligned with Tucker's views, while others found the setup challenging.

I was the director of CPAC for five years (2006-2011) and the candidate cattle calls were always the most chaotic. As CPAC grew, of course, that became every year. You may wonder why candidates show up when they know it will be a hostile crowd. For many, the reason they show up isn’t the crowd in the room but the crowd watching at home or the crowd of donors. If the opinion of the crowd in the room is low, getting booed becomes their badge of honor.

Matt Vespa of Townhall wrote, “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.”

Watch the entire forum here.

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