Tucker Carlson’s performance as moderator of the Family First Summit in Iowa may prove to be a pivotal moment in the 2024 GOP primary. The fired Fox News host was the star of the show on Friday at Des Moines, where one candidate after the other was subjected to his probing interrogatories on everything from transgender children to Ukraine to whether the 2020 election was stolen by the Democrats and President Biden.

Mr. Carlson, whose high-profile departure from Fox News only partially de-platformed him, was the star of the show, even more so than the candidates he was interviewing.  

He began the day sitting opposite Senator Scott of South Carolina, to whom Mr. Carlson made clear the issue he most wanted to discuss: American involvement in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Are you concerned that we’re moving toward war with Russia?” Mr. Carlson asked. 

“America’s national, vital interest is degrading the Russian military,” Mr. Scott responded. “When we degrade the Russian military, we make sure that our home front is safer, and that our NATO allied partners — that would cause us to send soldiers over — [are] safe.” The “primary objective,” Mr. Scott said, is to invest in the Ukrainian defense so that the threat of Russian expansion farther into Europe would be contained. 

Mr. Carlson — in a sign of how he would treat many of the candidates throughout the day — struggled to mask his dissatisfaction with that answer. 

“You’re saying it’s in our national interest — vital national interest — is to degrade the Russian military, in other words to fight Russia’s military with other people’s soldiers?” he asked, leading Mr. Scott down a line of inquiry that would end with Mr. Carlson openly disagreeing with the senator. “The United States military cannot as you know … actually defeat Russia and China united,” Mr. Carlson told him. 

The sharp questions and interjections from Mr. Carlson were frequent throughout the day, with most of the candidates arousing his ire when the discussions eventually made their way to the war.

When Vice President Pence took the stage, Mr. Carlson spent a few minutes asking about the events of January 6, 2021, but then spent the latter part of their “fireside chat” focused solely on Ukraine and Mr. Pence’s ironclad support for the embattled nation, which irritated Mr. Carlson. 

At one point, Mr. Carlson brought up the reported persecution of Orthodox Christians by the Ukrainian government, and asked how Mr. Pence reconciles his own devout Christian faith and commitment to the free exercise of religion while also supporting Ukraine despite those alleged abuses. 

Mr. Pence — in a rare sign of frustration from the typically unflappable Midwesterner — sternly replied that he had met with both the Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelensky, and the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church during his recent visit to Kyiv, both of whom denied such persecution was occurring. 

“I sincerely wonder how a Christian leader can support the arrest of Christians for having different views,” Mr. Carlson said to the former vice president. Mr. Pence quickly pushed back, insisting that arrests were not happening, which led Mr. Carlson to grow even more frustrated.

“The problem is you don’t accept my answer,” Mr. Pence said to Mr. Carlson, raising his hand and talking over the former Fox News host. “I just told you that I asked the religious leader in Kyiv if it was happening. You asked me if I raised the issue and I did,” Mr. Pence continued, raising his voice. 

Mr. Carlson nearly brought the conversation to the point of shouting while trying to reconcile Mr. Pence’s support for Ukraine with what Mr. Carlson called the lack of investment in America’s cities, which have become “much worse” in recent years, he claimed. 

“Drive around,” Mr. Carlson said, waving his hand and raising his voice. “Name one city that has gotten better in the United States. It is visible. Our economy has degraded, the suicide rate has jumped, public filth and disorder and crime have exponentially increased, and yet your concern is that the Ukrainians … don’t have enough tanks. I think it’s a fair question to ask: Where is the concern for the United States in that?” The assembled crowd erupted in applause. 

Despite the dismal reception Mr. Pence received, he apparently wasn’t the worst. The Blaze’s Glenn Beck estimated that while Mr. Pence’s performance was poor, it still outdid that of the former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson. 

Mr. Carlson tangled with Mr. Hutchinson over two issues: transgender children and vaccines. Mr. Hutchinson served as governor of Arkansas between 2015 and 2023, and announced his presidential candidacy shortly after leaving office. Mr. Carlson was quick to point out that while he was governor, Mr. Hutchinson vetoed a bill that would have banned surgeries and hormones for transgender children, which conservatives have called “mutilation.”

“It was unconstitutional,” Mr. Hutchinson said of the legislation. “It interfered with parents and so I sided with parents on that bill in managing the most sensitive issue that a parent can face. And I believe in a limited role of government.”

Mr. Carlson was clearly dissatisfied, interrupting Mr. Hutchinson during his answer. “Well, this is one of the biggest issues in the country and I think … every person in this room would agree,” Mr. Carlson said. 

One of the biggest applause lines for the conservative star was when he asked Mr. Hutchinson “how many vaccines” he had taken to protect against Covid. Mr. Hutchinson declined to answer, instead asking Mr. Carlson how many he himself had taken. 

“Zero,” Mr. Carlson responded, which elicited rapturous applause. 

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy received a warm reception from the gathered crowd, espousing the values of free speech and “merit” in education and the workplace. He also said he had decided to run for president because of a “crisis” of purpose in this country, meaning he felt that too few Americans felt connected to one another. 

The jovial chat with Mr. Carlson was light on policy, but Mr. Ramaswamy was greeted with cheers when he called for an end to all American support for Ukraine, saying he feared the conflict could become another “Vietnam” or “Afghanistan.”

Ambassador Nikki Haley punched above her weight, according to Mr. Beck, though he did feel she was “out of step” with the party on the issue of Ukraine. Mrs. Haley has said she would continue military and diplomatic support for the besieged nation until the conflict ends, though she did not specify what a victory would look like. 

She remained lighthearted, cracking jokes and sparring with Mr. Carlson about everything from the classified Kennedy assassination files to the baggie of cocaine recently discovered in the West Wing.

The main event, though, was Mr. Carlson’s conversation with Governor DeSantis, who is widely seen as the runner-up in the contest to President Trump, who himself skipped this event. Mr.Carlson opened the conversation quickly and with a heady topic: abortion rights.

“You signed a ban on abortion after six weeks in Florida,” Mr. Carlson said. “Would you do the same as president, nationally?” he asked. “I am proud to be a pro-life governor and I will be a pro-life president,” Mr. DeSantis said, dodging specifics. 

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Carlson probed Mr. DeSantis’s position on Ukraine, as he had done with all other candidates throughout the day. Mr. Carlson, in asking his question, accused the Florida governor of changing “his view” of the war. First, Mr. Carlson said, the governor had described the war as a “territorial dispute,” and later clarified his statement by saying the Russian president was a “war criminal” for initiating the war. 

“Why did you change and where are you now?” Mr. Carlson asked. 

Mr. DeSantis responded by saying “the D.C. foreign policy elite” had no “concrete idea” of what it was trying to achieve, and qualified his assessment by saying he had been informed by his own service in the Iraq War. 

“It’s not all peaches and cream out there,” Mr. DeSantis said. “You have to make a judgment about what’s in America’s national interest.”