Is this a harbinger? In an op-ed he co-wrote with his Daily Caller co-founder Neil Patel, Carlson said
"Donald Trump should not have been on the phone with a foreign head of state encouraging another country to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden. Some Republicans are trying, but there's no way to spin this as a good idea. Like a lot of things Trump does, it was pretty over-the-top. Our leaders' official actions should not be about politics. Those two things need to remain separate. Once those in control of our government use it to advance their political goals, we become just another of the world's many corrupt countries. America is better than that."
Here’s a link if you can stomach going to that website. Link.
Is Carlson demonstrating a shred of integritY? Perhaps. But it’s also possible he is signalling a strategic retreat to his conservative media fellows and fans. He’s smart enough to realize that, notwithstanding Trump’s protestations that he did nothing wrong and the call was perfect, no one (except the most brainwashed MAGA mavens) will fall for that, at least not if they read the whistle-blower’s complaint, the call summary, and the diplomats’ text messages. So let’s move to plan B: “Yes, Trump did try to strong-arm Ukraine into providing dirt on Hunter Biden, but that’s not an impeachable offense.” And they in fact go there:
The key question with Trump’s Ukraine call, though, is whether the president’s actions, advisable or not, rise to the level of an impeachable offense. It’s hard to argue they do. . . . Impeaching a president is the most extreme and anti-democratic remedy we have in our system of government. A fundamental cornerstone of our entire system is to respect the will of the voters. The American people elected Trump president of the United States, though a huge part of our political class has never been able to stomach it.*
*If doing the will of the voters is so sacred, why hasn’t the Senate enacted expanded background checks?
Well, it’s a start. And I don’t think this new strategy, if that’s what it is, will fly. Once you admit Trump did wrong, once you admit he solicited foreign help in an election, how can any Republican office-holder with the least pretense of ethics look the other way? And Trump won’t cooperate with such a defense, anyway. He’ll continue to proclaim that this was the most awesomest phone call 4eva!! A beautiful perfect call. A call that should be memorialized in the Presidentin’ Hall of Fame.
So on balance, I think this is a good development for us. It represents a major retreat, whether strategic or principled. As more elected Republicans and their media enablers face reality, a narrative will take hold with the public — all but the 30% or so MAGA die-hards — that Trump did something wrong, something Putin wanted no less, tried to cover it up, and thereby damaged our national security. This is the most optimistic I’ve been since election night 2016. There’s a real possibility he’s going down this time.