Tucker Carlson Gets Into Heated Exchange At Charlie Kirk Event
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson found himself in a heated confrontation this week at a Turning Point USA debate at Indiana University Bloomington, where a student’s broadside about “the deep state” and an allegation about Carlson’s late father provoked a forceful, personal response.
During the exchange, the student pressed Carlson on foreign policy continuity between the Biden administration and the Trump administration, lamenting continued U.S. assistance to Israel and Ukraine and advancing a “deep state” theory. The student asked:
“So, I kinda just don’t see a lot of change between, you know, the Biden administration and now the Trump one on foreign policy. You know, we’re still giving a sh*t ton of money to like Israel and Ukraine. Nothing is happening. You know, you promised it’d be done in a day and it’s, I don’t know, how many months? Eight months or something like that? It’s a long time. Your dad was in the CIA and I was wondering, does our government even want war to stop? Do they want conflicts to end? It seems like we have a difference of interests where we’re getting told one thing and the other is happening and I feel like there’s not enough communication between different sects of government, and I just really think the deep state’s controlling everything and we have no control.”
Carlson bristled at the personal attack. He replied:
“You probably sense that I agree with a lot of that. Obviously, leave my father out of it. I’m gonna have to kick your ass — which I could do by the way — if you bring him up again ’cause he was a wonderful man, whatever, you know, he did for a living. So I really do hate that.”
The record shows no evidence that Carlson’s father, Dick Carlson, worked for the CIA; Dick Carlson died in March at age 84. Still, the student’s invocation of Carlson’s family life struck a raw nerve — a reminder of how campus debates sometimes slide from political disagreement into personal animus.
Carlson later got into another tense back-and-forth at the same event, admonishing a student who claimed the former host’s net worth was $50 million: “get off the fcking internet,”* Carlson told him.
In a separate, darker development tied to TPUSA, prosecutors say Tyler Robinson allegedly fatally shot TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk at an event on Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University. Robinson faces a slate of serious charges including aggravated murder, obstructing justice, criminal discharge of a handgun causing serious bodily injury, witness tampering, and committing a violent crime in front of a child.
Court papers cited by authorities reportedly include a text Robinson allegedly sent his roommate, Lance Twiggs, asking him to “look under my keyboard,” and a note photographed by the roommate reading: “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I’m going to take it.” When the roommate asked, “You weren’t the one who did it right????” Robinson allegedly replied, “I am, I’m sorry.” Robinson is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 30.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Neama Rahmani told Fox News that the defendant’s motive will be a focal point during the sentencing phase if Robinson is convicted — because prosecutors will attempt to “dirty up” the defendant to persuade jurors to impose the death penalty. Rahmani explained the prosecutor’s strategy bluntly: they will emphasize motive to convince all 12 jurors that capital punishment is warranted.
“The Utah County prosecutor is going to try to put Robinson to death, and the motive for the killing is going to be something that is key evidence in the case. It’s going to dirty up Robinson,” Rahmani said.
Rahmani also noted the procedural reality of capital cases: a death sentence requires unanimous agreement from the jury, making the prosecution’s narrative during sentencing critically important. As the legal process unfolds, both the heated campus exchanges and the violent attack on a conservative organizer underscore a fraught national debate about civility, political violence, and accountability.