Tucker Carlson hosting first GOP presidential forum — without Trump

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson will host a forum later this week with a handful of candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. 

One member of the GOP primary field will be noticeably absent, however: front-runner former President Trump. 

The forum, which will be held Friday in the early primary state of Iowa, will feature one-on-one conversations between Carlson and leading GOP candidates of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Representatives for several of the candidates confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday their plans to attend the event and said they anticipate a conversation lasting about 25 minutes with Carlson. 

Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of the Family Leader, which is putting on the forum along with Blaze Media, said on Tuesday the organization had learned Trump will not participate. 

“President Trump was in Iowa last week and will be back next week,” a Trump campaign spokesperson told The Hill. “Unfortunately there is a scheduling conflict and the President will be in Florida this weekend headlining the premier national young voter conference with Turning Point Action conference while DeSantis is nowhere to be found.” 

The forum comes just more than a month before the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) first debate in Milwaukee, which several GOP primary candidates have committed to participating in. 

Trump, meanwhile, has not signaled he is willing to partake in the first RNC debate, citing a “hostile” relationship with Fox News and polling showing him ahead of most other GOP primary candidates. 

The RNC event will be hosted by and broadcast on Fox and moderated by network anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. 

Fox pulled Carlson off the air in April, days after it settled a blockbuster defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems stemming from the network’s coverage of Trump’s statements about the company and voter fraud in the 2020 election. 

A number of text messages unearthed as part of the lawsuit showed Carlson disparaging Trump and network leadership around the time of the election. 

A longtime cable news host and conservative thought leader, Carlson remains under contract with Fox and has launched a short video series on Twitter since leaving the network. 

Trump’s allies have criticized the network over its decision to oust Carlson, though the former president has participated in town hall events with hosts including Sean Hannity and has a planned appearance on Maria Bartiromo’s weekend show scheduled for Sunday. 

Friday’s forum will be available to watch via streaming on Blaze TV’s YouTube channel, the outlet said, which holds just under 2 million subscribers. 

Julia Manchester and Caroline Vakil contributed.