Tucker Carlson news – Fox host defends QAnon Shaman and calls Zelensky a ‘despot’

Presenter’s reframing of US Capitol riot as ‘peaceful protest’ infuriates lawmakers

Schumer calls Tucker Carlson’s release of Jan 6 footage ‘shameful’

Tucker Carlson continued to double-down on his defence of the Capitol rioters in the latest instalment of his Fox News show on Thursday, interviewing the mother and attorney of “Q Shaman” Jacob Chansley to argue he had been wrongly jailed over his part in the attack.

He also lashed out at transgender people by accusing them of taking over International Women’s Day, called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky a “despot” over his request for US F-16 fighter jets and allowed former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard to push a Russian propaganda line blaming Nato for the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline during an interview.

Mr Carlson has been branded “shameful” by the White House after airing selectively-edited footage of the 6 January 2021 assault on the US Capitol on Monday night – chosen from 41,000 hours of security film handed to his programme by House speaker Kevin McCarthy – in order to argue that the insurrection was “peaceful” and that its participants were only “sightseers”.

The feature provoked an uproar on both sides of the aisle, with the Capitol police chief and both the Senate majority and minority leaders, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, coming together to condemn Mr Carlson’s spin on the insurrection, in which five people died and over which more than 1,000 people have now been charged.

The controversy has coincided with the publication of the latest filings from Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6bn defamation lawsuit against Fox, which revealed, among many other things, that Mr Carlson told a colleague that he “passionately” hated Donald Trump in a bombshell text message.

“We are very very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait,” he wrote. “I hate him passionately.”

Key Points

• Tucker Carlson defends Q Shaman and attacks trans people and Nato
• Host calls Republican critics ‘sociopaths’ over Jan 6 video
• Fox News staffers reveal frustration over Dominion lawsuit revelations
• White House condemns ‘false’ Fox News coverage of ‘violent’ Jan 6 attack
• Carlson said he ‘passionately’ hates Donald Trump

[9 March 2023 11:30 · Rachel Sharp]

Mitch McConnell hospitalised after fall in hotel

Mitch McConnell has been hospitalised after a fall in a hotel in Washington DC.

The Senate Republican leader was attending a private dinnner at a hotel on Wednesday evening when he tripped and fell, his spokesperson said.

The 81-year-old was taken to hospital where he is receiving treatment.

No further details have been revealed about his condition.

The accident comes days after the Kentucky lawmaker became one of the most vocal members of the GOP to condemn Tucker Carlson for his attempt to misrepresent the January 6 Capitol riot on his Fox News’ show.

Mitch McConnell (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

[9 March 2023 12:00 · Oliver O'Connell]

‘Tucker Carlson is not credible’

The White House has condemned Fox News’ recent coverage of the January 6, 2021 insurrection, saying that host Tucker Carlson “is not credible”.

“We agree with the chief of the Capitol Police and the wide range of bipartisan lawmakers who have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our Constitution and the rule of law – which cost police officers their lives,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement obtained by The Independent.

Gustaf Kilander reports on a rare rebuke from the White House.

[9 March 2023 12:30 · Oliver O'Connell]

Gretchen Carlson (no relation) calls out Fox News over Jan 6 ‘lies'

Former Fox host Gretchen Carlson is joining the pile-on against her old network after its star opinion host Tucker Carlson predictably used exclusive access to security footage from January 6 to falsely depict the attack on Congress as a peaceful protest.

Ms Carlson, who bears no relation to her former colleague, furiously denounced the network and criticised the channel’s journalists for covering Mr Carlson’s remarks and the resulting backlash as if they are somehow unattached from the situation.

Notably, her criticism comes just days after Media Buzz host Howard Kurtz revealed on air that Fox bosses have banned him and others from speaking about the $1.6bn defamation lawsuit the network faces for its platforming of the lies that led to the attack.

John Bowden has the story from Washington, DC.

[9 March 2023 13:00 · Rachel Sharp]

Tucker Carlson would have been ‘wetting his pants’ if he was at Capitol riot, Anderson Cooper says

CNN’s Anderson Cooper laid into Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson during a recent segment, suggesting the TV personality would have been “wetting his pants” if he had been at the Capitol riot.

Cooper spoke with former DC Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fannone, who was assaulted during the riot. The pair discussed Carlson’s recent insistence that the rioters who attacked the Capitol and its police on 6 January 2021 in attempt to keep Donald Trump in power were simply “sightseers.”

Graig Graziosi reports on Cooper’s takedown of Carlson.

[9 March 2023 13:30 · Rachel Sharp]

Video resurfaces of Tucker Carlson warning about conspiracy theories

A video has resurfaced showing Tucker Carlson warning about the dangers of conspiracy theories – as he continues to use his platform on Fox News to push his own.

The footage, from a speech in 2006, was posted on Twitter this week as he comes under fire for misrepresenting the January 6 Capitol riot to his viewers.

“In a democracy, it is vital that people have, that citizens have, a common frame of reference for reality,” Carlson said.

“There has to be a place where all citizens can go, and look at facts about what happened yesterday, and say, you know what, I agree that that’s probably roughly what happened.”

[9 March 2023 14:00 · Rachel Sharp]

VOICES: Tucker Carlson ‘passionately’ hates Donald Trump. But that’s not all

“Tucker Carlson has long portrayed himself as a Trump true-believer. Based on new documents, though, his enthusiasm for Trump appears to have been a lie – or, at the very least, greatly exaggerated.

“In new January 2021 texts released as part of a defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems, Carlson declared that he “passionately” hated Donald Trump. He fantasized about the day when Trump, defeated by Joe Biden, would become irrelevant. “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson said in text messages, according to legal filings. “I truly can’t wait.”

“These texts, and other materials, show that Carlson and other Fox News hosts were leery of Trump’s claims about voter fraud, and did not believe the election rigged. But they feared that if they told the truth they would lose viewers to other right-wing networks like Newsmax. So they lied, and reassured their viewers that Trump was the rightful victor in 2020 in hopes of retaining their market share.”

Noah Berlatsky writes for The Independent:

[9 March 2023 14:30 · Josh Marcus]

Tucker Carlson calls critics ‘sociopaths’ and accuses Merrick Garland of lying about Jan 6 officer deaths

Tucker Carlson blasted his bipartisan critics in Congress as “sociopaths” during a broadcast on Wednesday and accused attorney general Merrick Garland of lying about the number of police officers killed during the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol.

It’s the latest headline-grabbing moment after the Fox News host caused a controversy throughout the week by airing selectively chosen clips to claim falsely that the riots at the Capitol in 2021 weren’t violent.

“The sociopaths turned out to be both Democrats and Republicans,” Carlson said, hammering GOP leaders like senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham as “weak men” for their criticisms of the Jan 6 video segments.

Legislators from both parties have accused Carlson of distorting the facts about Jan 6 in recent episodes.

Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor, said this week that the American people “saw what happened on January 6”.

[9 March 2023 15:00 · Maroosha Muzaffar]

Tucker Carlson claims BLM protest was ‘Antifa’ plot to ‘force Trump from office’

Tucker Carlson has now said the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality in 2020 were an “Antifa” plot.

On his show late on Wednesday, the Fox News host said that Antifa had “descended on Washington, DC to force the sitting president out of office”, referring to the 2020 protests. “But it was Trump, so that’s cool,” he said.

Carlson has made problematic comments on the BLM movement in the past as well.

“This may be a lot of things, this moment we’re living through, but it is definitely not about black lives. Remember that when they come for you, and at this rate, they will,” he had said in June 2020.

The remarks by Carlson come as he was given exclusive access to more than 40,000 hours of surveillance video from the Capitol riots by a top congressional Republican and his broadcasting select footage to call rioters “peaceful” has been severely criticised.

[9 March 2023 15:30 · AP]

Court records show political pressure behind Fox programming

In May 2018, the nation’s top Republicans needed help. So they called on the founder of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch.

President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were trying to stop West Virginia Republicans from nominating Don Blankenship, who had been convicted of violating mine safety standards during a lethal accident in one of his coal mines, to challenge the state’s incumbent senator, Democrat Joe Manchin.

“Both Trump and McConnell are appealing for help to beat unelectable former mine owner who served time,” Murdoch wrote to executives at Fox News, according to court records released this week. “Anything during day helpful, but Sean (Hannity) and Laura (Ingraham) dumping on him hard might save the day.”

Murdoch’s prodding, revealed in court documents that are part of a defamation lawsuit by a voting systems company, is one example showing how Fox became actively involved in politics instead of simply reporting or offering opinions about it. The revelations pose a challenge to the credibility of the most watched cable news network in the U.S. at the outset of a new election season in which Trump is again a leading player, having declared his third run for the White House.

[9 March 2023 16:00 · AP]

Lawsuit against Fox shows the news behind the Trump news

Fresh revelations flowing from a major defamation lawsuit are shedding light on what was happening inside Fox News following the 2020 presidential election. Here are some things to know about the case.

THE CASE

Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox for $1.6 billion, claiming the news outlet repeatedly aired allegations that the company engaged in fraud that doomed President Donald Trump‘s re-election campaign while knowing they were untrue. Fox contends that it was reporting newsworthy charges made by supporters of the president and is supported legally by libel standards. The case is scheduled for trial next month.

ELECTION DISCONNECT

Dominion has produced evidence that prominent people at Fox knew the fraud allegations were untrue, even as they and the president’s allies were given airtime to repeat them. Fox’s Sean Hannity said in a deposition that he did not believe the fraud claims “for one second,” but he wanted to give accusers the chance to produce evidence. Fox founder Rupert Murdoch, questioned under oath, agreed the 2020 presidential election was free and fair: “The election was not stolen,” he said. Murdoch also said he was aware some Fox commentators — Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Hannity — at times endorsed false claims, but he did nothing to stop them.