Tucker Carlson: Trump is a ‘truth elixir’ and Bill Kristol is a ‘Trotskyite’ The Fox News host delivered the keynote address at a conference co-hosted by American Greatness and The New Criterion
Cockburn, October 18, 2019
On Wednesday, Cockburn stopped by ‘Sovereignty or Submission: Restoring National Identity in the Spirit of Liberty’, hosted by conservative publications American Greatness and The New Criterion at a private club in Washington.
There, Cockburn heard a wide-ranging discussion about nation states and governance, featuring Spectator columnists Daniel McCarthy and Roger Kimball, as well as the Hoover Institution’s Victor Davis Hanson, the Heritage Foundation’s David Azerrad, American Greatness editor Chris Buskirk, National Review’s John O’Sullivan, and Hillsdale College and Claremont Institute fellow Michael Anton.
Over lunch, Tucker Carlson delivered a keynote speech on what he has learned since Trump’s election. The Fox News host observed that President Trump’s arrival to the White House has worked like a ‘truth elixir’: ‘people are sort of admitting what they really think in a way that they never did, especially here in Washington, which is a very buttoned-down city.’ To elaborate, Carlson said that a ‘lot of people here have drinking problems, but they’re all secret.’
Cockburn nearly choked on his chicken meal, worried Carlson was referring to yours truly. Thankfully, the Fox News host directed his attention to Bill Kristol.
Carlson argued that when Trump criticized the Iraq War on the campaign trail, ‘Bill Kristol and the rest of the left,’ referring to the former Weekly Standard editor as a ‘Trotskyite’, launched a full opposition against then-candidate Trump. ‘Within 20 minutes [Kristol] was trying to get Tom Cotton and finally settled on poor David French’, referencing the writer’s failed primary challenge against the future president.