Thread by @tomlobianco

Tucker Carlson, who has flatly said he doesn't want to run in 2024, opens by citing spending 2000 in Iowa w/ his then-young child and mentioning he may have done the "full Grassley" ... he's also talking up his connections to Iowa, which is, well, very #2024

Carlson also attempting to put some distance bt him and the *very* likely contenders, saying he's on-stage to help tell IA voters how to vet the "sweaty" pols who show up onstage seeking their vote

"It's easy to let your own slide side, when the other side is not an option," Carlson says ... he's ticking through, pretty fast, the top issues for hard right voters -- gender, culture wars, attacks on hard left, and Christian right: "You, on a gut level, feel threatened"

On #2024 Carlson calls it "an open field" right now

Carlson says the "mad scramble" starts the first Wednesday in Nov after Midterms and the swarm of pols that will hit IA. ... "I cannot imagine being in my boxer shorts and bumping in to Beto O'Rourke"

AND This comment: "nobody has an ironclad claim on either side to the nomination" ... cc: Biden and Trump

"I'm not a Putin defender, despite what you may have heard," Carlson says, moving now to Ukraine ... and he says that what Putin does in Ukraine matters less to him than gas prices, which gets some modest applause

Carlson sticking for a bit now on energy prices (and economy in general) v much in step with the polling on right, as of this moment

Carlson makes a glancing reference to January 6th, "we saw it happen on January 6. ... says that rioters became so frustrated that they said, "I'm showing up, I'm gonna go to their doorstep. And over time, it gets worse than that."

Interesting to hear Carlson, who produced a 3-part video series falsely claiming that Jan 6 was a "false flag" operation by FBI, quickly pivot to pocketbook issues after that comment

"Children are the main source of joy and meaning in the human life," Carlson says, to applause, framing it as an attack on corporate America - saying that companies will not "love you unconditionally"

"Your work, in the end, doesn't mean very much. in the end," Carlson says, now arguing that a "ruling class" is telling workers not to value their families ... "it's a totalitarian message"

"everyone we see around us is the product of ideology ... noble ideologies produce beauty, poisonous ideologies produce ugliness," he now ties it to Soviet era, which seems to be trying to make a connection bt corporate America and the USSR

extended riff now on Republicans and corporations "destroying" beauty

Carlson says that he opposes wind turbines, but then says Rs need to be about nature again, rips on Sierra Club, says people need to go outside more

Carlson now closing that argument by saying wind turbines are ugly, god makes beauty, people who make wind turbines need to "go back to New York"

Carlson now doing an extended riff on why he quit drinking

*short riff on his former drinking ... now moves back to how to vet '24 candidates, he says, don't trust anyone who values the NY Times

Carlson, who is often roasted for pushing things like "white replacement theory", says that news outlets need to do more checking before publishing

Carlson says that if he saw Nikki Haley, he'd say, "I like you, don't want you in charge of anything. Bc the second things get intense ... I want a leader who can still think clearly."

Carlson, who hosted a segment on how to tan male genitalia, now telling a story about stepping on bee hive on ground while wearing baggy shorts and how the bees got under everything

"if it's a choice of selling you out or offending the New York Times, it's a very easy choice," Carlson says, pivoting to transgender athletes, "I'm opposed to sterilizing children"

"I hope you will hold them (pols, candidates) in a real way," Carlson says. ... "Twitter isn't real" Carlson saysm, and argues it's "filled" with people with "creepy social agendas"

and that's a wrap for Carlson in Iowa ...