Last night former Fox News host Tucker Carlson made his first public appearance since being fired by Fox News last week at a nonprofit fundraiser in Alabama, with video showing Carlson generally avoided the subject but did crack jokes about his new found unemployment.
Carlson spoke to a sold-out crowd of 1,189 – who paid as much as $125 to hear Carlson speak, according to AL.com – for more than an hour at the Oxford Performing Arts Center on behalf of Rainbow Omega, Inc., a faith-based nonprofit that provides vocational and residential programs for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“I’m probably the first unemployed person you ever invited to speak,” Carlson joked. “It’s funny. I never give speeches because I’m working. When I accepted this speech six months ago or something, I didn’t realize how much free time I would have.” He added, “One never knows, does one?”
Carlson spent a significant part of his speech elevating Alabama and its people as an example of proper American living and extolling the virtues of the state.
“I do love Alabama,” said Carlson, explaining that he had two reasons for leaving his purpose-built studio in Maine to deliver the speech. “We (wife, Susan, and four kids) spend a lot of time in rural Maine, which is so close to this culturally, you have no idea. In a great way. The food is not very good in rural Maine. The food here is unbelievable. I’ve spent a lot of time in this state, and part of the reason is you have great hunting and fishing.”
“The real reason is it has everything that I like. It has really nice people. It has amazing food. I have the world’s worst eating habits and here that’s not judged,” Carlson joked again. “Fried Oreos? Okay! I love that. I love the lack of judgment.”
Carlson then described a changing perception of the southeastern state that was once the butt of jokes from progressive city dwellers.
“The rest of the country’s view of Alabama is one of those things that just changed completely. Nobody makes fun of Alabama, at all, because they realize actually that’s how you’re supposed to be living,” asserted Carlson. “The only way to know what people think about something is to not listen to what they say, I say this as someone who has talked for a living for a long time, ignore the words. Watch what they do. Watch how they live. That’s the only accurate measure of what people really think.”
“Ignore that. Be like your dog, who understands not a single word of what you’re saying but knows exactly who you are.”
He continued, “Driving around here today, I thought to myself, you think of Alabama, if you don’t live in Alabama, as a place that has a lot of past attached to it. And I thought today, especially reading the numbers about what’s happening in your state, Alabama is not the past, Alabama’s the future.”
The former host’s two week absence from the network has left prime time viewership down 30% across the remaining lineup, with the statistic rising to 50% during Carlson’s vacated 8 p.m. time slot. Fox News’s ratings among the coveted 25-54 demographic have ranked among its worst since 2001.
