CNN
—
Tucker Carlson’s podcast surged up the YouTube and Spotify charts last week, buoyed by his confrontational interview with Senator Ted Cruz and his feud with fellow MAGA media stars over the Israel-Iran conflict.
According to the latest available data, “The Tucker Carlson Show” jumped to No. 5 on YouTube’s weekly podcast rankings — a significant leap from his No. 18 ranking upon YouTube’s chart launch last month, and No. 14 just a few weeks ago.
Carlson’s program also landed at No. 2 on Spotify’s podcast chart and No. 14 on Apple’s Top Shows for last week.
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The podcast’s boost in viewership coincided with Carlson’s ongoing feud with fellow MAGA media personalities over US strikes in Iran. Hawkish conservatives like Fox host Mark Levin, with whom Carlson publicly exchanged heated words, want US-led regime change; Carlson wants the US to stay out of the conflict, militarily. Both sides claim to represent the true “America First” MAGA movement.
Amid that rift, Carlson repeatedly made headlines as he attacked Levin, Sean Hannity, and the Fox News empire for their pro-war stance, and as clips from his combative interview with Senator Cruz went viral, further boosting his viewership when the full two-hour conversation was released on various platforms. A single X clip teasing the Cruz interview garnered 39.9 million views on its own.
Carlson’s surge last week was most visible in his YouTube viewership tallies. Throughout June, Carlson has averaged 1.06 million views on his podcast episodes, with five of them surpassing the million-viewer mark. His interview with Cruz garnered 3.5 million views.
In contrast, Carlson averaged 651,000 views per episode last month, with his most-viewed episode receiving 1.9 million views — just one of only two episodes to break the seven-figure mark.
Carlson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump-aligned media veteran launched his independent internet show in 2023 shortly after he was fired by Fox News, a week after the network settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million over Fox’s election lies.
Carlson initially launched the show on Elon Musk’s X, looking to harness his millions of followers in the fallout of his prime time TV ouster. In late 2023, he launched the Tucker Carlson Network, creating his own distribution channel to supplement his social media-first strategy.
Last week was not the first time Carlson’s podcast entered the upper echelon of Spotify’s charts. In July 2024, Carlson briefly dethroned the perennial podcast king Joe Rogan, only to be toppled by Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy.”
