Tucker Carlson said Saturday he was throwing away his crystal ball after the ‘humiliation’ of the midterm results when the predicted red wave failed to materialize and several of his picks lost.
Like many Fox News hosts he had talked up the chances of Republicans taking New York’s governor’s mansion and had backed a string of hardline, Trump-backed candidates- even in traditionally blue states.
But at a gathering of conservatives in Phoenix he admitted he had got it all badly wrong.
‘The midterm elections were like a grave disappointment, I think, to every normal person, but they were particularly painful to me because I got them so completely wrong,’ he told the audience of Turning Point USA’s America Fest.
‘Like I’ve never gotten anything wronger in my life.’
Tucker Carlson was the main attraction for Turning Point USA’s America Fest event on Saturday evening, when he admitted he was humiliated by the midterm election results
The gathering in Phoenix is the first big conference where conservatives can unpick just what wrong in November, and begin to plot a path forward.
There is a chance to replace Ronna McDaniel as Republican National Committee chair with a more rightwing pick.
And there is a string of House investigations to look forward to in the new year when Republicans take charge of committees.
But the first day of the Phoenix gathering was dominated by talk of why the midterms did not deliver a red tsunami.
A week before the election, Carlson had opened his show by claiming that ‘the conventional view among people who follow politics is that the Democratic Party is about to suffer a humiliating repudiation in next week’s midterm elections.’
He predicted that Democrats would lose the Senate as well as the House in a ‘realignment’ election that would see a Republican become governor of New York.
‘Like I’ve never gotten anything wronger in my life,’ said Carlson about the midterms
Carlson pushed harliners including Blake Masters (right), who appeared on his show 10 times in the year before losing his election in Arizona, and Joe Kent, who appeared 14 times before losing his run for the House of Representatives in Washington state
On Saturday, Carlson – one of the most certain men on television – was a self-deprecating picture of humility, explaining that his humiliation offered a chance for growth.
He said he had been taken in by the expected pendulum cycle of politics, swinging from one party to the other.
‘I thought this is super simple,’ he said.
‘You have a political party in charge that is not only not delivering – and by delivering I mean, making people’s lives better in measurable ways – but is failing in very measurable ways …. like people are getting poorer.
‘The country is getting more chaotic like it’s not you know, I could belabour this for an hour. In fact, I do Monday through Friday, if you care to tune in but you almost don’t need to because it’s so obvious that it doesn’t kind of need explanation.’
He promoted a slew of hardline candidates including Blake Masters, who appeared on his show 10 times in the year before losing his election in Arizona, and Joe Kent, who appeared 14 times before losing in Washington state (according to a Rolling Stone analysis of data from the Media Matters watchdog.)
Charlie Kirk said the Republican Party must embrace early voting if it is to avoid the mistakes of this year’s midterms, ahead of a Turning Point USA gathering in Phoenix, Arizona
Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon will also be speaking at the four-day gathering of young conservatives in Phoenix, Arizona, which began on Saturday afternoon
He backed Dr. Oz for the Senate in Pennsylvania and Kari Lake for governor in Arizona.
He said the results were a ‘humiliation’ for him.
‘So I did the thing that I think all adults should do. When confronted with their own failure. I went pheasant hunting for three days No, I did. I literally did. I literally did. I went to South Dakota and stood in the cold walks through cornfields,’ he said.
About 11,000 young conservatives are expected at the America Fest event.
‘People are coming to get charged up and revitalized,’ Charlie Kirk, who heads Turning Point USA, told DailyMail.com.
‘And there will be I’m sure a lot of questions the audience has about what could have gone differently back in November.’