MSNBC host Rachel Maddow enrages liberals after praising FOX's Tucker Carlson

Progressive MSNBC host Rachel Maddow drew fire from her fans when she refused to outright bash her conservative rival Tucker Carlson in a recent Vanity Fair interview, who she sees less as an ideological opponent and more as a fellow practitioner of her profession.

Maddow mentioned her former boss in response to questions about the future of MSNBC and TV news in the internet age, especially since she had no apparent successor.

“Like, Tucker’s doing great right now, but look at Tucker’s career,” said Maddow, who had been recommended for a primetime slot by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.

“The first show I worked on was his 11 o’clock show on MSNBC that nobody remembers. But he was always kicking around the business and has always been talented. It just — this turned out to be his moment.”

She has long been friends with Carlson, who gave a young Maddow her first paying TV gig when she began appearing on his MSNBC series “Tucker” in 2005.

When asked about a New York Times piece that analyzed over 1,100 episodes of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight and concluded the host “weaponizes his viewers’ fears and grievances to create what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news,” Maddow’s response was more academic than political.

“For me, more than the issue of, you know, how dangerous are Tucker’s ideas, and how do they interact with the growth of the authoritarian right in the Republican Party, more so than that question, which is obviously what the central thrust of the reporting was about, I was interested in how they deconstructed why it works.”

Vanity Fair notes that Maddow has never shied away from professionally engaging with ideological opponents, noting her past work with conservative commentator Pat Buchanan and respect for late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes.

The MSNBC star likened her respect for rivals like Carlson to that between athletes.

“If you think about baseball players, who are extremely competitive and who are fighting to win and who have rivalries, and some of those rivalries are bitter rivalries, that doesn’t mean you don’t study the pitching technique of their star pitcher,” Maddow told Vanity Fair.  

“There’s a sort of, like, respecting the game, in terms of people who are doing well and people who are good at it," she added. 

The interview drew backlash from her supporters on social media once published. 

Attorney Aharon Schrieber tweeted Maddow's respectful comments about Carlson were “giant middle finger to anyone who’s been watching her, believing she was leading a fight against The Right”.

“It’s so offensive. She’s part of the same club as Tucker is. The rest of us are not. Elitism at its finest. Gross.”