Fox News host Tucker Carlson donated to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s campaign

The $250 contribution was used to purchase a ticket for the campaign’s raffle giveaway of a .50-caliber rifle

Tucker Carlson donated $250 to the campaign of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). (Richard Drew/AP)

Fox News host Tucker Carlson donated $250 to the congressional campaign of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) this past September, according to a Federal Election Commission filing.

The Sept. 15 donation, which was first reported by the Hill, appears to be earmarked for Greene’s 2022 primary reelection campaign.

A person familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that Carlson’s donation stemmed from the purchase of a raffle ticket for a .50-caliber rifle that was auctioned off by Greene’s campaign as a promotion. Valued at $10,000, the Barrett M82A1 rifle is “the same type of gun that TRIGGERS the Fake News Media and Democrats all across the country,” according to the campaign’s online promotion.

It’s not clear who won the “50-Cal giveaway,” which Greene announced in a video in September. “I’m doing a gun giveaway of my own, but for Americans only,” she says in the promotion. “I want you to win this .50-caliber rifle that Democrats will ban if they keep the House next year.”

Television news hosts are generally prohibited, or at least strongly discouraged, from donating to political campaigns — though there’s a long history of on-air hosts and journalists making such contributions. Asked on Tuesday night whether Fox News hosts are permitted to make campaign contributions, network representatives did not respond.

In 2018, “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade acknowledged that he inadvertently donated roughly $600 to the Trump campaign when he purchased Trump-themed Christmas tree ornaments online as a gift for his friends and family members in November 2016. “I had no idea that would go to a campaign contribution,” he said at the time. “Even if I wasn’t in this business, I would never be giving contributions out to people — especially after an election.”

Some television networks have taken disciplinary measures against prominent employees who have made donations. In November 2010, MSNBC suspended star host Keith Olbermann after he made donations to three Democrats. (Networks also have murky guidelines regarding the political activities of on-air contributors, who are genuinely given more latitude as partisans.)

During an appearance on Carlson’s prime-time show in June, the host praised Greene as a consummate “Washington outsider” who “often notices things that people who have been there for a long time miss.”

After Greene took office in January 2021, Carlson said she has been criticized only for having “bad opinions.”

Messages sent to Taylor Greene’s campaign and congressional spokesperson were not immediately answered.

Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.