Former Fox News media host Tucker Carlson on Saturday released an interview between himself and Rebecca Bextel, the Wyoming Constitution Party nominee in the governor’s race.
Bextel vies for election against the Republican nominee, state Sen. Eric Barlow, and the Democratic nominee, Ken Casner. The election is Nov. 3.
Bextel’s interview ranged across the extensive housing subsidies and programs concentrated in Teton County, her oft-repeated allegation that Barlow is a “Democrat,” heavy restrictions in her own town of Jackson, and her disbelief that Americans have landed on the moon.
Policy-wise, Bextel said she wants to eliminate all property taxes and license-plate reader cameras, find or make her own meals rather than have a publicly funded chef as governor, stop government scams and bring more advance notice to the prospective neighbors of data centers.
The interview concluded with Carlson, who started his own news network in late 2023, saying he’s “rooting” for Bextel.
Then the Daily Caller News Foundation, which Carlson co-founded with backing from the late Wyoming philanthropist Foster Friess, touted the interview in back-to-back stories Saturday.
This isn’t Carlson’s first time taking an interest in Wyoming politics. He donated $7,000 to the primary election campaign of runner-up U.S. House candidate Steve Friess in June.
First, Energy
Bextel said Barlow testified to Congress that the nation should remove dependence on fossil fuels in favor of a renewable-energy model.
Carlson asked, “So the Wyoming Republican is against ...?”
Bextel answered, “Fossil fuels.”
Carlson laughed.
“That's right. It's crazy,” said Bextel.
The claim that Barlow is against fossil fuels merits scrutiny.
When he was 27 years old Barlow, the product of multi-generation ranching family, urged Congress to check what he called fast-track oil and gas development that ran roughshod over ranchers’ private property rights. He spoke of the split estates across Wyoming, and how many ranchers don’t own the minerals under their land.
Barlow asked Congress to require the federal government to obtain surface owners’ consent before leasing underlying oil and gas resources, to require surface use and damage agreements, and to improve notification to landowners regarding lease sales and drilling applications.
He concluded that speech by saying it is time for the nation to “transform our energy paradigm” by shifting to clean and sustainable sources of energy.
Over the 33 years that followed, however, Barlow helped the energy sector in multiple ways.
As a legislator he spearheaded an effort in 2014 to reduce severance taxes for coal. It wasn’t successful that year, but more incremental bills later drove coal severance taxes down in 2022 and 2025 with Barlow’s aye votes.
He also said he ran a budget amendment to move a coal mining road and allow for 97 million more tons of coal to be mined.
“I’m from Campbell County. I grew up in Campbell County,” said Barlow in an August phone interview in which he said he backs traditional energy. “I’ve been elected six times in Campbell County, by coal miners and rig hands.”
Last week, the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, which represents the oil and gas sector, endorsed Barlow.
In response to Bextel's interview, Barlow's spokeswoman Rebekah Fitzgerald said, "Bextel's campaign train continues to careen off the tracks of reality. Eric has run and been elected six times as a Republican. He is the true conservative in this race and his record proves it. Just because she says something louder and faster doesn't make it true."
Liz Storer
Bextel referenced state Rep. Liz Storer, D-Jackson, and called the latter a “foaming at the mouth liberal Democrat.”
“Now, she’s been married twice, but she said the best night of her life was the night that Eric Barlow won the Republican nomination because she had spent years getting rid of the right,” Bextel told Carlson. “So, again, the best night of her life is when my opponent won the Republican nomination.”
Coverage from the local outlet KHOL shows this claim is not accurate.
“Storer called it the best night of her life, second only to their wedding,” reported KHOL, in a story that did not focus on Barlow but mentioned him in its second-to-last paragraph.
The story was about nomination wins by Storer’s husband and two women she’d supported in the Democratic primary for Teton County Commission.
Bextel also lamented that Teton County Commissioner Natalia Macker, a Democrat, is the president of the Wyoming County Commissioners’ Association.
“They say she’s good at paperwork. OK,” said Bextel. “In what scenario would the Democrats – if there’s 60 Democrats and four Republicans – in what scenario would the Democrats put the leader as a Republican? We just keep shooting ourselves in the foot.”
Bextel said she got involved with politics to prevent developers from taking over the fairgrounds in Teton County.
She talked about the relatively high bar for qualifying for affordable housing in Teton County, which is the richest county in the state and routinely qualifies as the richest in the nation.
Wyoming Republican Party ‘Worthless’
Carlson asked if Bextel has run for office previously.
She ran for chair of the state GOP two years ago, she noted. Current Chair Bryan Miller defeated Bextel for the position.
“They picked off six people at the end,” said Bextel of that election. “My siblings were in the room and someone walked up and said, ‘What is happening to your sister right now is so corrupt.’ But they were setting … this up to take me out. Take out conservatives. Take out the grass roots.”
The Wyoming GOP leadership has not endorsed Barlow.
Bextel said the GOP hasn’t “lifted a finger to get rid of” him.
“The Republican Party in Wyoming is worthless,” she said. “Now there’s a lot of good people within the Republican Party and they are opening their eyes to what’s going on.”
She said one would think the GOP would come out against Barlow as a “Democrat” but “they’re just silent.”
Bextel this week also lamented in a video that Wyoming’s Republican federal delegation, Rep. Harriet Hageman and Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, have endorsed Barlow.
Data Centers
Bextel and Carlson derided data centers.
“They seem to always worm their way into freebies or no sales tax,” said Bextel.
Wyoming legislators in 2010 passed a bipartisan tax exemption for large data center projects.
In 2021, then-Rep. Clark Stith, R-Rock Springs, tried to repeal that exemption, but a handful of committee delegates, including now Secretary of State Chuck Gray, halted Stith’s efforts.
Bextel said she’d require data centers to put up a bond “because when the technology is obsolete and the companies file for bankruptcy, we’re not going to be left holding the bag in Wyoming.
She said she’d also bar “secret meetings and NDAs” involving county commissioners.
Barlow said at a PBS forum this month that Wyoming should protect its water from impacts by data centers, ensure communities can actually support them, have companies answer communities’ concerns, and pay for their own energy demands.
“If they can do those things, then we don’t say no,” he said.
At that same forum, Casner voiced intense distrust toward data centers.
Data centers are highly unpopular nationally and in many Wyoming communities. They’ve proliferated in Laramie County, in particular, and are eyeing other communities such as Uinta, Fremont and Platte counties.
It’s a paradox for pro-coal Republicans, as Wyoming’s coal industry has called data centers a staple of its revival.
Whether We Landed On The Moon
Bextel referenced the COVID-19 era, saying, “The same people that told us to get vaccinated are also telling us that the world’s overpopulated.”
She added, “You can’t convince me that a data center is safe, right? … I don’t buy it. Are you gonna tell me we landed on the moon next?”
Bextel continued, “If you’ve ever looked at that, I mean they’ve got an umbrella handle like as the gear shift for the lunar module. It’s like, I’m just not falling for it. You know what I mean? Like you can’t trick me.”
Bextel added, “The number one thing that qualifies me to be governor is I can spot bullshit from a mile away.”
About Barlow
As Bextel has called Barlow a “Democrat” throughout her campaign, his legislative history also merits exposition.
Barlow has voted for every abortion ban Wyoming has passed since 2022, the year the U.S. Supreme Court returned abortion-policy primacy to the states.
He voted aye on the successful bills banning males from participating in girls school sports.
He has voted for Medicaid expansion repeatedly but now says that’s not the best path for Wyoming’s rural health care. He now points instead to the Trump-backed rural health-care transformation program.
In 2021, Barlow co-sponsored a bill that did not pass, but sought to authorize a seed-to-sale tracking program and licensure for marijuana retail.
An outside group attacked Barlow during the primary election cycle, saying he voted to allow sex change procedures “to be done on kids.”
That attack omits half the record: In 2023 Barlow voted against one sex-change ban bill that he called poorly worded and voted in favor of a different sex change ban, “Chloe’s law,” that he called more precise.
When Wyoming banned sex-change treatments for kids in 2024, Barlow voted in favor of the ban once again. Its key sponsor, former Sen. Anthony Bouchard, R-Cheyenne, has since credited Barlow publicly with helping to pass it.
Clair McFarland can be reached at: Clair@CowboyStateDaily.com
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
