A week has passed since Tucker Carlson made the incendiary declaration that president Donald Trump should be “removed from office immediately” if the use of nuclear weaponry against Iran even came under consideration. Trump hadn’t publicly suggested any such thing, but Carlson was reacting to reporting that the subject was under examination within the Pentagon.

“The second any president actively considers the first use of nuclear weapons, that person should be removed from office immediately, because that’s got to be the red line, destroying all of humanity with a nuclear strike,” Carlson told his audience.

Carlson is not only free to shoot from hip, he’s obliged to because it’s what his legion of loyal listeners demand. Since the US initiated its war with Iran, Carlson’s independent podcast and platform has generated a phenomenal 56 million average views across all platforms – including social media segments. There has been a fervour about his objection to attacking Iran since the beginning. According to reporting in Regime Change – the sweeping, inside account of the first two years of the Trump presidency by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times – Carlson expressly warned Trump against the idea when he visited the White House.

“Your voters don’t want any more wars. You ran on that. That’s the main reason people voted for you in 2016. And the people who didn’t want to change are now trying to lure you into a trap. This is a trap set by your enemies. These people f**king hate you.”

It is not in Trump’s psychological make-up to admit, even to himself, that he should have listened. But six months into the Iran imbroglio, it’s clear he should have. And not for the first time, the stand-off between one of the key Maga whisperers and the 47th president left JD Vance in a delicate position on Thursday.

Following almost a month without briefings, it fell to the vice-president to fill the communications void left by Karoline Leavitt’s departure as White House secretary last week. With no replacement announced, Vance stood in. He knew the president, an avid consumer of news television, would be watching. Vance had joked – a little forcibly- that the president told him to do well but not too well or he might appoint him to the role.

It’s no secret Vance had abhorred the idea of attacking Iran as much as Carlson had. Now, he was being called upon to respond to the podcast hosts remarks.

“Well look, I’m not avoiding discussing anything,” he said.

“Everyone knows that Tucker Carlson and I are friends and it’s very obvious that Tucker has said some things that I disagree with. He said some things about the president of the United States that I think are just wrong. Yesterday somebody sent me a clip that he said he would support [Michigan Democratic senate candidate] Abdul El-Sayed – I think El-Sayed is a crazy person.”

Vance answered questions for well over 40 minutes. In nature and tone, they veered from peachy set-ups from friendly news outlets to mildly interrogative questions on Iran from those among the White House press corps deemed to belong to the liberal press. He was asked about his weight loss, reportedly inspired by the RFK jnr diet of fermented foods.

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“If you want to lose weight, call Bobby Kennedy. If you want to enjoy your food, don’t call Bobby Kennedy,” he said.

One of Leavitt’s legacies was to introduce a seat for “new media” outlets, given to a rotating selection of conservative outlets friendly to the administration aims.

“For too long this room and, I think, this city has tried to lock out non-legacy media,” Vance said early on. “They see it as a threat to themselves …

“And we actually think it is an amazing way to democratise access to information. You should not have to have a fancy credential or a lot of money to tell a story to the American people. If you think about it, the heart of the First Amendment is that all of us are allowed to speak. But if only some people [who] are given a microphone are given access, it strikes to the heart of your ability to tell a story.”

At another stage, he cheerily told the room: “Let’s be honest, most of you are Democrats.”

Few have made the transition from legacy media to independent podcasting platform with the staggering level of success that Carlson has enjoyed. That’s partly down to his peculiar skill as a communicator but also because his rise coincided with the last wave of true cable news network dominance: Carlson moved from magazine journalism to CNN before flipping to Fox after a period in news television doldrums. He was a big noise and name when he went independent. If his political views hardened into far-right conservative orthodoxies, he was, as a lone opinionator, free to voice his prejudices and interview everyone from Vladimir Putin to Nick Fuentes, another far-right podcaster who had made blatantly anti-Semitic views.

Carlson sits among the rare cast of podcasters who would never deign to pass through security to enter the Brady press room. Why should they when presidential hopefuls come to them?

But those heavyweight influencers also belong to the cohort of what Vance nimbly described as representing the administration’s move to “democratise access to information”.

Thursday’s White House press conference illustrated the double bind for what the vice-president termed the “legacy media” – the old staples of television and newsprint around for decades.

The administration likes to claim it is the most “transparent” in the history of modern communication because of the access it gives the media. It’s true that as president, Donald Trump has hosted a phenomenal number of live press conferences, turning the role into a rolling reality television show. But those episodes have nothing to do with transparency and everything to do with shaping the narrative. The same has been true of the White House press briefings. It’s hard to escape the sense that for all the professed loathing of the legacy media, the administration would be shocked if the establishment media simply stopped turning up to cover them.

That cannot – or at least will not – happen, for two reasons. Naturally, outlets feel obligated to cover the events at the White House, even if the point of reporting on the partisan briefings seems increasingly redundant. And also, Trump, even in this summer of plummeting popularity, dominates all the broadcast conversations and all the newsprint.

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So, vice-president Vance can smilingly declare the new media dispensation as a win for democracy in the knowledge that the press room has a new army of true believers.

But as the Carlson episode demonstrates, the problems will start if those true believers grow disillusioned and begin to “tell a story” no longer corresponding with the version the Trump White House is banking on them loyally dispatching to the heartland.

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