Tucker Carlson was a CNN commentator from 2000 to 2005 and a co-host of the network's prime-time news debate program Crossfire from 2001 to 2005.
169 Facts About Tucker Carlson
2.
In 2010, Tucker Carlson co-founded and served as the initial editor-in-chief of the right-wing news and opinion website The Daily Caller, until selling his ownership stake and leaving in 2020.
3.
Tucker Carlson has written three books: Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites, Ship of Fools, and The Long Slide.
4.
An advocate of former US president Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson was described by Politico as "perhaps the highest-profile proponent of 'Trumpism" but was willing to criticize Trump when he believed that the former president was straying from that ideology.
5.
Tucker Carlson was said to have influenced some of Trump's decisions as president, including the cancellation of a military strike against Iran in 2019, the firing of National Security Advisor John Bolton the same year, and the commutation of Roger Stone's prison sentence in 2020.
6.
Tucker Carlson has been described as a leading voice of white grievance politics.
7.
Tucker Carlson is known for circulating far-right ideas into mainstream politics and discourse.
8.
Tucker Carlson is a vocal opponent of leftism and critic of immigration, and has been described by the Washington Post and The Atlantic as a nationalist and by CNN as a right-wing extremist.
9.
In 1976, Tucker Carlson's parents divorced after the nine-year marriage reportedly "turned sour".
10.
Tucker Carlson's mother left the family when he was six and moved to France.
11.
Tucker Carlson attended La Jolla Country Day School and grew up in a home overlooking the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club.
12.
Tucker Carlson's father owned property in Nevada, Vermont, and islands in Maine and Nova Scotia.
13.
Tucker Carlson was briefly enrolled at College du Leman, a boarding school in Switzerland, but said he was "kicked out".
14.
Tucker Carlson attained his secondary education at St George's School, a boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island, where he started dating his future wife, Susan Andrews, the headmaster's daughter.
15.
Tucker Carlson then attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, graduating in 1991 with a BA in history.
16.
Tucker Carlson began his career in journalism as a fact-checker for Policy Review, a national conservative journal then published by The Heritage Foundation and later acquired by the Hoover Institution.
17.
Tucker Carlson then worked as an opinion writer at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, before joining The Weekly Standard news magazine in 1995.
18.
Tucker Carlson sought a role with the publication after hearing of its founding, fearing he would be "written off as a wing nut" if he instead joined The American Spectator.
19.
In 1999, Carlson interviewed then-Governor George W Bush for Talk magazine.
20.
On June 21,2021, New York Times reporter Ben Smith reported that Tucker Carlson was a media source for several journalists and authors including Michael Isikoff, Michael Wolff, Brian Stelter, and others who wrote critically of Donald Trump.
21.
In 2000, Tucker Carlson co-hosted the short-lived show The Spin Room on CNN.
22.
In October 2004, comedian and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart appeared on Crossfire, ostensibly to promote America, but he instead launched into a critique of Crossfire, saying the show was harmful to political discourse in the US Tucker Carlson was singled out by Stewart for criticism, with Tucker Carlson in turn criticizing Stewart for being biased toward the left.
23.
Tucker Carlson announced he was leaving the show roughly a year after it started on June 12,2005, despite the Corporation for Public Broadcasting allocating money for another show season.
24.
Carlson wanted to focus on his new MSNBC show Tucker and said that although PBS was one of the "least bad" instances of government spending he disagreed with, it was still "problematic".
25.
Carlson's early evening show Tucker premiered on June 13,2005, on MSNBC.
26.
Tucker Carlson hosted a late-afternoon weekday wrap-up for the network during the 2006 Winter Olympics.
27.
Tucker Carlson appeared live from Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and reported the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting and Johnson Space Center shooting in 2007.
28.
Tucker Carlson was canceled by the network on March 10,2008, owing to low ratings; the final episode aired on March 14,2008.
29.
Tucker Carlson remained with the network as a senior campaign correspondent for the 2008 election.
30.
Tucker Carlson was a contestant on season 3 of the reality show Dancing with the Stars, which aired in 2006; he was paired with professional dancer Elena Grinenko.
31.
Tucker Carlson had a cameo appearance in the 2008 film Swing Vote, again playing himself.
32.
Tucker Carlson served as editor-in-chief, and occasionally wrote opinion pieces with Patel.
33.
Tucker Carlson reportedly offered his employees free junk food, an unmonitored keg, provided them with a ping pong table, and allowed them to sleep under their desks.
34.
Tucker Carlson had earlier attempted to join the forum on May 25,2010, but was denied by Klein.
35.
In February 2012, The Daily Caller published an "investigative series" of articles co-authored by Tucker Carlson, purporting to be an insiders' expose of Media Matters for America, the liberal watchdog group that monitors and scrutinizes conservative media outlets, and its founder David Brock.
36.
The watchdog said Tucker Carlson had a conflict of interest and had violated journalistic standards.
37.
In May 2009, Fox News announced that Tucker Carlson was being hired as a Fox News contributor.
38.
Tucker Carlson Tonight aired at 7:00pm each weeknight until January 9,2017, when Carlson's show replaced Megyn Kelly at the 9:00pm time slot after she left Fox News.
39.
In March 2017, Tucker Carlson Tonight was the most watched cable program in the 9:00pm time slot.
40.
Tucker Carlson Tonight was the third-highest-rated cable news show as of March 2018.
41.
Tucker Carlson alleged "someone started throwing himself against the front door and actually cracked the front door," though police observed no damage to the door, nor did Washington Post columnist Erik Wemple when he visited the Tucker Carlson home the next day.
42.
Tucker Carlson's ratings rose eight percent that week despite the boycotts.
43.
Tucker Carlson was spotted the same day with his wife in Boca Grande, Florida.
44.
The Wall Street Journal wrote that Tucker Carlson was dismissed due to private messages in which he supposedly criticized Fox's management, using vulgar and offensive language.
45.
Fox reportedly has a "stockpile" of damaging information that they would be ready to release in case of any retaliation made by Tucker Carlson; Fox denied this.
46.
Just before making the announcement, Tucker Carlson's attorneys sent a letter to Fox executives, alleging that Rupert Murdoch and other senior executives "intentionally" broke their promises to him, an alleged breach of contract that he says ought to free him from his non-compete clause.
47.
Tucker Carlson authored the memoir Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News, published by Warner Books in September 2003, about his television news experiences.
48.
Tucker Carlson has been described in the media as a conservative, paleoconservative and right-wing extremist.
49.
In 2021, Time magazine said Tucker Carlson "may be the most powerful conservative in America".
50.
Tucker Carlson is noted for circulating white nationalist views and terminology into mainstream political discourse, in particular, repackaging the fringe racist "replacement" conspiracy theory into a version that accuses Democrats and "elites" of forcing demographic change.
51.
Tucker Carlson was previously registered as a Democrat in Washington, DC, from 2006 to 2020.
52.
In 2017, Tucker Carlson said his registration as a Democrat was to gain the right to vote in the primaries for mayoral elections in the district, and that he nevertheless "sincerely despise[s]" the Democratic Party and "always vote[d] for the more corrupt candidate over the idealist" in order to favor the status quo and stem progressivism.
53.
Tucker Carlson campaigned for Republicans and Republican-affiliated causes during his time as a Democrat.
54.
In public correspondence in Slate with Texas Monthlys Evan Smith on November 29,1999, Tucker Carlson agreed with Smith's low opinion of Donald Trump, who was then running for president with the Reform Party.
55.
Tucker Carlson wrote that Trump was "the single most repulsive person on the planet" and that the Reform Party consisted of "a bunch of wackos".
56.
Tucker Carlson told Salon in 2003 that some Washington conservatives suspected he was "secretly liberal" because he liked John McCain.
57.
Tucker Carlson said in an interview, "by my criteria, Bush isn't much of a conservative".
58.
Tucker Carlson did not vote in the 2004 election, citing his souring on the Iraq War, his disillusionment with the once small-government Republican Party, and his disappointment with President Bush and like-minded conservatives.
59.
Tucker Carlson was reportedly floated as a potential candidate for the Libertarian nomination in the 2008 presidential election.
60.
Tucker Carlson was included in polling at the 2008 Libertarian National Convention, with unconfirmed speculation arising that he was personally funding the effort.
61.
Tucker Carlson spoke at Ron Paul's independent Rally for the Republic convention, opposite the official 2008 Republican National Convention, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which served as a "message of revolt to the Republican Party" and a general celebration of Paul's policy proposals.
62.
Tucker Carlson expressed his disappointment with the Republican nominee for the 2012 election, Mitt Romney, and the healthcare reform he signed in 2006 as governor of Massachusetts, which contained an individual mandate, saying, "out of 315 million Americans, the Republican Party managed to find the one guy who couldn't run on Obamacare".
63.
Tucker Carlson's commentaries did not uniformly praise Trump, but he had frequent scorn for Trump's critics; some commentators called Tucker Carlson an exemplar of "anti-anti-Trump" arguments.
64.
In March 2023, Tucker Carlson defended Trump after he was indicted in New York calling the indictment elections interference.
65.
Tucker Carlson criticized the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, ordered by Trump in January 2020 and said in June 2020 that Trump had let Black Lives Matter protests go too far.
66.
In July 2021, Tucker Carlson told Time magazine that the Republican Party is "inept and bad at governing" and "much more effective as an oppositional force than it is as a governing party".
67.
Tucker Carlson supported JD Vance in the 2022 Republican US Senate primary in Ohio and privately persuaded Donald Trump to endorse him despite Vance's past opposition to Trump.
68.
Tucker Carlson opposes abortion and has said it is the only political issue he considers non-negotiable.
69.
Tucker Carlson wrote in 2000 that capital punishment "deserves more vigorous debate", and in 2003 told Salon, "I'm opposed to the death penalty as I am adamantly opposed to abortion".
70.
Tucker Carlson has opposed gun control and the assault weapons ban.
71.
Tucker Carlson has a concealed carry permit in the District of Columbia.
72.
Tucker Carlson aired segments defending Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old who shot three protesters, killing two, in August 2020 in confrontations during unrest after a police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
73.
Tucker Carlson supported Ron Paul's 1988 presidential candidacy, when Paul ran as the candidate for the Libertarian Party, along with his 2008 presidential candidacy, when Paul ran as a Republican.
74.
Tucker Carlson has criticized hedge funds and private equity.
75.
Tucker Carlson has said that he does not consider climate change a threat.
76.
Tucker Carlson is skeptical of foreign intervention, has expressed regret for his public support of the US invading Iraq in 2003, and has said "the US ought to hesitate before intervening abroad".
77.
In 2019 Tucker Carlson criticized Mitt Romney for supporting, in Tucker Carlson's words, "an internationalist style" of foreign policy.
78.
In July 2017, Tucker Carlson said that "we actually don't face any domestic threat from Iran".
79.
Tucker Carlson reportedly told Trump that if he listened to his hawkish advisors and went ahead with the strikes, he would not win re-election.
80.
In 2019, Tucker Carlson lobbied Donald Trump to fire his national security advisor, John Bolton.
81.
Tucker Carlson said Bolton was "demented" for seeking a military strike against Iran and accused him of undermining Trump by disagreeing publicly with Trump's decisions.
82.
Tucker Carlson called the 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani a "quagmire".
83.
Tucker Carlson opposes overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has downplayed some of the Assad regime's human rights violations in the Syrian Civil War.
84.
In November 2019, Tucker Carlson repeated this claim and queried whether the attack had happened at all.
85.
Tucker Carlson compared Assad's war crimes during the Syrian Civil War to Saudi Arabia's war crimes in Yemen.
86.
Tucker Carlson praised the country and its prime minister, Viktor Orban, for rejecting asylum seekers on its border, and ridiculed the idea that Orban was authoritarian.
87.
Tucker Carlson spoke at a conference sponsored by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium.
88.
In January 2022, Tucker Carlson released the film Hungary vs Soros on Fox Nation.
89.
In May 2019, Tucker Carlson defended Trump's decision to place tariffs on Mexico unless Mexico stopped illegal immigration to the United States.
90.
Tucker Carlson has stated he does not consider Russia a serious threat to the United States, and he has called for the United States to work with Russia in the Syrian Civil War against a common enemy like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
91.
Tucker Carlson has compared Russian President Vladimir Putin favorably to American liberals on multiple occasions: he has asserted that Putin does not hate the United States as much as American liberals do, and he has suggested that there is no reason to hate Putin, asking his viewers to consider whether Putin has ever called them racist or threatened to get them fired for disagreeing with him.
92.
Tucker Carlson has said that it is "not treason, it is not un-American" to support Putin: "It's the whole point of America".
93.
Tucker Carlson condemned Putin for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but he supported pro-Russia arguments both before and after the invasion, describing the build up as a "border dispute" and later supporting the Russian conspiracy theory that the US and Ukraine were purportedly developing biological weapons in Ukraine.
94.
Many of Tucker Carlson's broadcasts have been used by Russian state television to support their messaging, and Mother Jones reported that the Kremlin sent a memo to state-friendly media outlets saying it was "essential" to use video clips of Tucker Carlson "as much as possible".
95.
Mother Jones further observed Tucker Carlson was the only Western media pundit the Kremlin adopted in this way.
96.
Peter Beinart of The Atlantic said Tucker Carlson has been an "apologist for Donald Trump on the Russia scandal".
97.
Tucker Carlson described the controversy over revelations that Donald Trump Jr.
98.
When President Trump met the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the country's border with the South in June 2019, Tucker Carlson, who was touring with Trump, defended Trump's friendship with Kim.
99.
Tucker Carlson went on to argue that "a lot of countries commit atrocities including a number that we're closely allied with".
100.
Tucker Carlson has said normalization of relations with China following President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit led to unforeseen consequences, and that America became progressively worse off for it.
101.
However Tucker Carlson still hosted her on his show for a second appearance.
102.
Tucker Carlson was criticized in India by figures such as the politician and historian Shashi Tharoor, who had written a book detailing atrocities by the British Raj.
103.
Tucker Carlson is a frequent critic of immigration, and has been described by multiple writers as demonizing both legal and illegal immigrants.
104.
Tucker Carlson has described white supremacy as "not a real problem in America".
105.
Tucker Carlson has compared the Obama administration's stance on anti-police protests to Nazism for "[categorizing] people by race", and he has alleged that the George Floyd protests were about "ideological domination" rather than police brutality.
106.
Tucker Carlson has falsely claimed that Floyd was not killed by officer Derek Chauvin and that Chauvin was only found guilty because the jurors felt threatened by rioters.
107.
In February 2022, Tucker Carlson criticized President Joe Biden's nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, calling her "ignorant of the law", in contrast to many legal analysts who have described Jackson as highly qualified.
108.
Tucker Carlson wasn't running a shakedown racket to fleece guilty white liberals.
109.
Tucker Carlson is critical of Islam and has hosted guests on his program that criticize Islam.
110.
Tucker Carlson has described the existence of an "Islamic cult" and an "Islamic problem", describing it as a threat to the United States.
111.
Tucker Carlson was critical of the Obama administration's terrorism policy, arguing that it should have considered Islam as a cause of terrorism.
112.
In 2019, advocacy group Media Matters for America released recordings of racist comments that Tucker Carlson made in 2006 including that Iraq was not worth invading because he believed it to be a country made up of "semi-literate primitive monkeys" and "lunatic Muslims who are behaving like animals".
113.
In 2018, Tucker Carlson described the effects of mass immigration on the United States using the terms dirtier, poorer, and more divided and said it "has badly hurt this country's natural landscape".
114.
Tucker Carlson has accused Democrats of supporting increased immigration to change the racial demographics of the United States to increase the Democratic voter base.
115.
Tucker Carlson has accused President Joe Biden of engaging in eugenics and "Great Replacement" through a policy of increased immigration.
116.
Tucker Carlson has questioned the popularity of the conspiracy theory after it was invoked by multiple white supremacist mass shooters, including the 2019 El Paso shooting and the 2022 Buffalo shooting, contradicting his previous endorsement of the conspiracy theory and calling its existence a "hoax".
117.
AfriForum, a South African non-governmental organization focused mainly on the interests of Afrikaners, took credit for Tucker Carlson's and Trump's statements, saying it believed that its campaign to influence American politics had succeeded.
118.
The evening after the segment, Tucker Carlson acknowledged that the proposed amendment was still being debated and added that no farms had yet been expropriated, though he did not admit to having made errors.
119.
Tucker Carlson later said in an interview that his South Africa segment made "an argument against tribalism".
120.
Carlson concluded Tucker Carlson Tonight on July 9,2019, with a three-minute monologue about Representative Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia and immigrated to the United States as a refugee as an adolescent.
121.
Tucker Carlson's monologue was described by The Guardian as "racially loaded" and "full of anti-immigrant rhetoric".
122.
Philip Bump of The Washington Post wrote that Tucker Carlson had presented "a very specific version" of West's remarks that "mirrored Tucker Carlson's rhetoric on race and politics".
123.
Tucker Carlson was rebuked by the US military in March 2021 after he ridiculed maternity flight suits for US women soldiers and described a decision by the Chinese military to build ships as "more masculine".
124.
In 2022, Carlson released The End of Men, a Tucker Carlson Original alleging a decline in American masculinity.
125.
Tucker Carlson has highlighted what he considers excesses of LGBT people on the political left.
126.
In 2021, Tucker Carlson belittled the paternity leave taken by US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, a gay man, joking that Buttigieg could be "trying to figure out how to breastfeed".
127.
Tucker Carlson has strongly criticized the transgender rights movement, including saying hospitals that provide gender-affirming healthcare to minors are criminals who harm children, and that they should not be surprised to receive threatening phone calls.
128.
Tucker Carlson criticized stay-at-home orders brought on by the pandemic and defended protests against lockdowns in rural areas.
129.
Tucker Carlson mentioned the anti-parasite medication ivermectin as a possible COVID-19 treatment, though the FDA warned against its use.
130.
Tucker Carlson has repeatedly misrepresented the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and asserted that US officials were "lying" about them.
131.
Tucker Carlson has likened vaccine passports to segregationist Jim Crow laws, and he claimed that a vaccine mandate in the US Armed Forces was designed to oust "the sincere Christians in the ranks, the free thinkers, the men with high testosterone levels, and anyone else who doesn't love Joe Biden".
132.
Tucker Carlson has falsely claimed that the government was attempting to "force people to take medicine they don't want or need" through door-to-door vaccines.
133.
Tucker Carlson has declined to answer when asked about his vaccination status.
134.
Tucker Carlson routinely criticized National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci during Fauci's tenure.
135.
Tucker Carlson was a vocal critic of the use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, calling people wearing masks outdoors "zealots and neurotics".
136.
Tucker Carlson received significant public backlash for his claim that having children wear face masks was tantamount to child abuse and that it warranted a response "no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart".
137.
Tucker Carlson has pointed to the use of masks as evidence that vaccines do not work, falsely claiming that there would be no benefits to mask use with an effective vaccine.
138.
Ahead of the 2020 election, in September, Tucker Carlson told viewers that Democrats were promoting mail-in voting to create "uncertainty over the outcome of the election, so they can manipulate the results".
139.
Tucker Carlson distanced himself from Trump's post-election legal fights, in which Tucker Carlson said the election was "not fair" but acknowledged that it still would not produce a Trump victory.
140.
Later that month, Tucker Carlson cast doubt on unfounded conspiratorial claims made by former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, who alleged that Venezuela, Cuba and unidentified communist interests had used a secret algorithm to hack into voting machines and commit widespread electoral fraud.
141.
Tucker Carlson said "what Powell was describing would amount to the single greatest crime in American history", but that Powell became "angry and told us to stop contacting her" when he asked for evidence of widespread voter fraud.
142.
In July 2021, Tucker Carlson suggested that "there actually was meaningful voter fraud in Fulton County, Georgia, last November" despite the state's election results being validated via both hand and machine recounts.
143.
PolitiFact found that none of the evidence provided by Tucker Carlson substantiated his conclusion.
144.
Also published were texts of Tucker Carlson regarding Donald Trump, with Tucker Carlson stating: "I hate him passionately".
145.
In June 2021, Tucker Carlson promoted a conspiracy theory alleging that the Capitol storming was a "false flag" FBI operation intended to "suppress political dissent".
146.
Legal experts said Tucker Carlson's claim was unfounded because prosecutors cannot describe an undercover agent as an unindicted co-conspirator.
147.
Tucker Carlson said Russian president Vladimir Putin raised "fair questions" when Putin mentioned the fatal police shooting of a rioter inside the Capitol while denying involvement in the poisoning of a Russian politician.
148.
Tucker Carlson subsequently aired portions of it on his show to illustrate his own narrative concerning the event, painting it as "peaceful chaos" and condemning other media outlets as untruthful when portraying the attack as violent.
149.
In late October 2021, Patriot Purge, a three-part series produced by Tucker Carlson, was released on the Fox Nation streaming service.
150.
Tucker Carlson stated on-air that the government had "launched a new war" on American citizens and characterized his series as "rock-solid factually".
151.
In October 2020, Tucker Carlson alleged on his show that someone was reading his text messages, after documents he claimed had compromising information on Joe Biden's son, Hunter, were lost by the United Parcel Service and then quickly located.
152.
Tucker Carlson responded on-air that the NSA did not deny reading his emails.
153.
The reporter of the Axios exclusive story, Jonathan Swan, later confirmed he had contacted Tucker Carlson seeking pre-publication comment, but said he had not told Tucker Carlson that anyone had shared the email contents with him.
154.
On that night's program, Tucker Carlson said that he had contacted people about interviewing Putin, but did not mention it to anyone because he did not want to "rattle the Russians, and make the interview less likely to happen".
155.
Tucker Carlson said that the NSA had unmasked his identity and that "the contents of my emails left that building at the NSA and wound up with a news organization".
156.
The New York Times observed there was a distinction between Tucker Carlson's communications being intercepted by the NSA and intercepts of foreigners who were discussing Tucker Carlson.
157.
James Carville, a Democratic strategist and friend of Tucker Carlson who has appeared on his shows, called Tucker Carlson "one of the world's great contrarians".
158.
Tucker Carlson is known to interrupt guests repeatedly with direct demands to answer questions he poses, sometimes focusing on an embarrassing episode or statement from a guest's past.
159.
Jack Shafer wrote in Politico that "When the host barks questions in your earpiece, you can't help but jolt to life like a puppet on a string", suggesting that successful guests on Tucker Carlson's show must match his quick-wittedness and unflappability.
160.
Charlotte Alter of Time wrote in July 2021 that Tucker Carlson sometimes tells "outright falsehoods", but generally "avoids assertions that are factually disprovable, instead sticking to innuendo".
161.
Tucker Carlson describes George Orwell as his favorite writer and cites Strunk and White's The Elements of Style as having an influence on his writing.
162.
Tucker Carlson was baptized as an Episcopalian but has said he grew up with secular beliefs; he credits his wife for his religious faith.
163.
In 2013, Tucker Carlson said, "We still go to the Episcopal Church for all kinds of complicated reasons, but I truly despise the Episcopal Church in a lot of ways," citing his opposition to the church's support for same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
164.
Tucker Carlson has said he stays in the church because he "loves the liturgy" and "likes the people".
165.
Tucker Carlson is a Deadhead ; he has attended more than fifty Dead concerts, and the title of his 2018 book Ship of Fools was inspired by the Grateful Dead song of the same name.
166.
In 2017, Tucker Carlson sold his home and purchased another nearby.
167.
In 2020, Tucker Carlson sold his home in Kent and bought a house on Gasparilla Island, on Florida's Gulf Coast, and in the summer of 2022, a second home next door.
168.
In September 2022, Tucker Carlson spoke at the funeral of Hells Angels president Sonny Barger.
169.
Tucker Carlson said that he had been a fan of Barger since his college years, quoted Barger as saying "stay loyal, remain free, and always value honor", and added "I want to pay tribute to the man who spoke those words".