Tucker Carlson, ‘belle of the ball’

Tucker time

In the month since his death, Charlie Kirk has been credited for his role as a unifying figure on the American right. Nowhere was that more evident than at the Tuesday afternoon service posthumously awarding him the Presidential Medal of Honor, where four hosts of Fox News’s prestigious 8 p.m. slot posed for a photo together: Jesse Watters, Glenn Beck, Bill O‘Reilly and Tucker Carlson.

Tucker also got a picture with Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham – incredible considering how acrimoniously things ended between him, his former network and a number of his other high-profile colleagues. (Carlson branded Hannity a “warmonger” as recently as June.)

Per a source: “Tucker was the belle of the ball among the press – and was the only guest who ‘gaggled’ with reporters after the ceremony ended, until Katie Pavlich shooed them away. He talked at length to LindellTV’s Cara Castronuova about her work on the new January 6 committee. He was definitely the most goo-gooed figure there. Perhaps evidence of how much the GOP will need Tucker on their side for the next couple of elections.”

On our radar

LIGHT LUNCH President Trump is briefly hosting President Volodymyr Zelensky for lunch – before jetting off to Mar-a-Lago at 3 p.m.

ZOH NO In a Fox News poll taken before last night’s New York City mayoral debate, Zohran Mamdani holds a 21-point lead. (Obviously Cockburn’s debate highlight was the bizarre exchange about parades.)

TRAP HOUSE TISH A new twist in the Leticia James fraud case: the New York Post discovered the New York AG is housing her grandniece Cayla Thompson-Hairston at one of her properties in Virginia. The Post describes 21-year-old Thompson-Hairston as “an OnlyFans star with a public, X-rated social media presence” (which has been nuked since they broke the story last night).

Cockburn would have signed the Pentagon pledge

Not all the media has decided to shun the Pentagon’s new “loyalty pledge” that it asked reporters to sign. Conservative outlets like the Federalist, One America News and the Epoch Times will lick the Department of War’s boots, as will several Turkish journalists. So will Kristina Anderson from AWPS News, with its 212 followers on X, who tweeted that she felt “a profound sense of loss as I walk the Pentagon’s Correspondent spaces today.”

Cockburn would obviously have signed the agreement, but his lunch went long and he missed the deadline, so now he’s out of the loop. You can email any tips about goings-on at the WarDep to cockburn@thespectator.com, safe in the knowledge that he’ll keep your identity anonymous until Pete Hegseth applies the thumbscrews (or offers to share an 11 a.m. gin and tonic).

Cockburn is definitely not interested in leaks about procurement scandals, Venezuela invasion plans, Chinese drone strikes, funneling of Tomahawk weapons systems to Ukraine, disgruntled personnel, or cabinet secretaries being sleazy. That would be thoroughly inappropriate and un-American. So whatever you do, do not email cockburn@thespectator.com because, again, Cockburn missed the deadline and is now inadvertently on the naughty list of the Pentagon – which is his favorite building and favorite shape, that houses his very favorite cabinet department that never conceals any shenanigans. Once again: the tips email to avoid is cockburn@thespectator.com.

State rep kills on Kill Tony

Smash-hit Austin comedy show Kill Tony had a surprise guest at Joe Rogan’s Mothership club the other night when they pulled far-left-wing Delaware State Representative Medinah Wilson-Anton’s name from the “bucket.”

In each edition of the show, Tony “Puerto Rico is a garbage island” Hinchcliffe, Brian Redban and other comics sit on stage as judges while scores of aspiring comics wait in the green room. Wilson-Anton was one of the chosen few on Monday’s episode.

Representative Wilson-Anton, who revealed that she’d taken the Greyhound bus to Austin from Fort Worth, emerged from backstage wearing a red hijab and did a few quick jokes about her vitiligo, a condition that causes the loss of melanin pigment. “My body is gentrifying itself,” she said. “My mom smacked the black off me.”

Hinchcliffe, who described himself as a “common-sense centrist who just saw in the last election that there was only one option,” asked Medinah-Wilson about her ethnic background. She said, “Black and black. Blackety-black.”

Medinah Wilson said that in the State House, “I wish that we had a light. Because my colleagues go on and on. Democrats and Republicans all suck.”

Hinchcliffe liked that – and also nodded along when she said, “this is the America I love. You can have voted for Trump and not agree with everything, just like you can be a Democrat and not suck. We all exist in multiplicities.”

“Indeed,” Hinchcliffe said. “We’re all meeting in the middle. We are the United States of America. The greatest country in the world.”

Then one of Hinchcliffe’s co-hosts pointed to Anton-Wilson’s hijab and said, “Is there a yarmulke under that?”

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