A top staffer has quit working for Vice President JD Vance, and he happens to be well-connected to the man who helped jumpstart Vance’s political career.
Buckley Carlson, the 28-year-old son of conservative media personality Tucker Carlson, quit working for Vance, Politico reports. He has been working as a press assistant in the vice president’s office since January 2025, just after the inauguration.
The vice president’s office said he had planned to leave in December, but stuck around until now for a smooth transition.
Still, the timing of Buckley’s departure raises eyebrows, as President Donald Trump has been in a nonstop rage against his father over Tucker’s criticism of the war in Iran.
Tucker has been one of the most outspoken conservative media figures against Trump’s war with Iran since it was launched Feb. 28.
He has also been against American military action in the Middle East throughout his career, having long railed against the older “neocon” era of the Republican Party.
In recent weeks, he has taken to his online show, The Tucker Carlson Show, to publicly bash Trump for engaging in a war with Iran.
That criticism has not been met kindly by Trump, who has called him “highly overrated” and a “Low IQ person,” in a series of tirades on Truth Social.
“Tucker Carlson, who couldn’t even finish College…was a broken man when he got fired from Fox, and he’s never been the same — Perhaps he should see a good psychiatrist!” Trump said in a 485-word rant on Truth Social.
Tucker, for his part, has taken Trump’s insults and turned them into merchandise, selling T-shirts and hats reading “Low IQ.”
The Daily Beast reached out to the vice president’s office for comment on Buckley’s departure.
But Tucker is widely seen as the man who helped propel Vance, his son’s former boss, to his Ohio Senate seat.
Before Tucker was fired from Fox News in 2023, and when he still had the most-watched cable news show, he invited Vance onto Tucker Carlson Tonight more than he invited any other GOP Senate candidate in the 2022 election cycle onto his show.
Vance appeared on his show 46 times before it was canceled, far more than he appeared on any other Fox program or any other cable news program, for that matter.
On air, Tucker would lather Vance with praise, and behind the scenes, he successfully pushed for Trump to endorse him in the 2022 Ohio Senate race, despite Vance’s past criticism of the president.
Just two years later, thanks to his close friendship with the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., Tucker was able to help propel Vance to the vice presidency as well, as he pushed for him to join Trump on the Republican ticket.
Before being tapped to be Trump’s right-hand man, Vance said he was supporting Trump’s third run for the presidency because Trump “started no wars,” in a 2023 op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal.
