At a recent stop on Turning Point USA’s “American Comeback Tour,” conservative commentator Tucker Carlson was confronted by a student who alleged that Carlson’s late father had covert ties to the Central Intelligence Agency.
The exchange quickly turned tense.
“Your dad was in the CIA, and I was wondering — does our government even want war to stop?” the student asked.
Carlson, visibly upset, replied, “Leave my father out of it,” before adding with a steely gaze, “I’m gonna have to kick your a**, which I could do, by the way, if you bring him up again because he was a wonderful man, whatever he did for a living.”
He went on to warn the student not to “test” him.
WATCH:
Carlson’s father, Richard Warner Carlson, was a journalist, U.S. ambassador, and former director of the Voice of America. He passed away earlier this year.
While Richard Carlson held several government roles, there is no public evidence that he engaged directly in CIA operations. Tucker Carlson has previously said his father “worked in conjunction with the CIA” during the Cold War, but such claims remain unverified.
The Independent provides additional information on Richard Carlson, highlighting his contributions and experiences
The former official, who later served as the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles, told a 1993 oral history project that during his time at Voice of America, the media network was sometimes targeted by foreign intelligence services.
Richard Carlson has denied that his staff were spies and that U.S. intelligence services controlled the content of what they produced, though he acknowledged in the oral history that the VOA’s work often resembled spycraft in the hostile nations where it broadcast.
“The Voice of America correspondents weren’t spies, they were reporters, but unfortunately in the kind of society with the rigidity of the People’s Republic [of China] you end up doing your things covertly simply because you can’t do them in any other way,” he said.
After leaving government, Carlson remained well-connected in Washington lobbying and think tank circles.
In a personal reflection published earlier this year, Carlson described his father’s later career as one of mystery and intrigue: “The last 25 years of his life were spent in work whose details were never completely clear to his family, but that was clearly interesting. He worked in dozens of countries and breakaway republics around the world and was involved in countless intrigues.”
View Carlson’s full response below:
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I’ve never had any use for “bombthrowers” like Tucker. Erratic.
Well, it was the way the person asked the question. He said Tuckers father was in the CIA period and then said will the govt ever want no wars as if being in the CIA meant Tuckers father was making or for continuing wars since that was why his father was in the CIA. As if that is all the CIA does is push wars in countries instead of trying to stop them. We don’t really know what the CIA does as it is a secret govt agency, but the person insinuated that was Tuckers father’s thing in the CIA. Actually, there is no proof that the CIA agrees or mentions that his father was even in the CIA which is typical of the secret govt agencies. Actually, the question doesn’t sound like a question that a true MAGA person would insinuate. Sounds like an infiltrator looking for a “story” to use against the very popular Tucker or the MAGA people and its movement. Considering the places where Tuckers father was and the people he knew sounds like as a reporter he was in the mix of things.