In the hours after conservative commentator Tucker Carlson apologized for voicing support for President Donald Trump during the 2024 election, social media users seemed divided on whether Carlson was telling the truth.
Reactions ran quite the gamut:
Carlson now joins other conservative public figures like Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, Alex Jones and Candace Owens, who have cut ties with the president. Carlson endorsed Trump for the 2024 presidential election and interviewed the president when Trump chose to skip the first Republican primary debate in August 2023.
Not everyone was convinced by Carlson’s apology, which Cindy Frantz, a social psychologist at Oberlin College, said is to be expected for a public figure.
“Whenever a public figure apologizes, there’s always a bunch of people who say it isn’t sincere, it isn’t a real apology,” Frantz said. “In part, that’s because there are so many mixed motives why somebody might be apologizing, [and] it’s really hard for people to know what to think or to be able to really tell with any certainty why they’re apologizing.”
