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

Fox News host Tucker Carlson is facing widespread condemnation after his latest attempt to change the truth to better suit Donald Trump’s needs.

The primetime host even found himself criticised by Capitol Police, the very organisation whose officers suffered the most at the hands of Carlson’s ideological allies on the day that they stormed the US Capitol and attempted to stop the certification of the 2020 election.

It all began with an episode of Carlson’s show airing Monday evening, the first of several set to feature footage from the January 6 attack provided exclusively to his producers by Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, who now faces ridicule by the left and some of his own Republicans for the overt effort to throw a bone to the far-right and allow Carlson first dibs at the footage.

John Bowden reports.

Tucker Carlson said he “passionately” hated Donald Trump and fantasised in 2021 about the day he would no longer have to cover his fellow conservative, according to new messages released as part of a defamation lawsuit against Fox News.

“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson told an unknown Fox News employee just two days before the January 6 Capitol riot, according to the court documents. “I truly can’t wait.”

“I hate him passionately,” he added.

Josh Marcus reports.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted House SpeakerKevin McCarthy’s decision to turn over January 6 footage to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Carlson broadcasted selectively edited security footage of the January 6 riot on his highly-watched show on Monday evening in an attempt to portray the majority of those who broke into the Capitol as mostly peaceful and said “ These were not insurrectionists. They were sightseers.”

Ms Ocasio-Cortez, who has said she feared for her life on the day of the insurrection, told The Independent that Mr McCarthy’s actions made the Capitol less safe.

Eric Garcia reports from Capitol Hill.

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.

John Bowden filed this report.

The White House has condemned Fox News’ recent coverage of the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and in a rare named rebuke said 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.

Senator Chuck Schumer has called out House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s reaction to Tucker Carlson’s depiction of the Capitol riot as “peaceful” on Fox News, calling him a “January 6th denier”.

“Those of us who were here on January 6th know the attack was a violent insurrection—including Speaker McCarthy,” Mr Schumer tweeted. “Every leader on Capitol Hill has done the right thing calling out Fox News’s lies—except for Speaker McCarthy.”

He added: “The Speaker is outing himself as a January 6th denier.”

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.

Maroosha Muzaffar reports.

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 controversy throughout the week by airing selectively chosen clips to claim falsely that the riots at the Capitol in 2021 weren’t violent.

Josh Marcus filed this report on Wednesday night.

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.

Ahmed Baba writes:

There is no better indication of the deep divides within the Republican Party than their reaction to Tucker Carlson’s depiction of January 6 on Fox News. After Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) handed the Fox host over 40,000 hours of Capitol footage, Carlson aired some of the footage seeking to depict the insurrection as peaceful. This caused a firestorm not only from pro-democracy liberals but from within the GOP itself. Ultimately, this is resulting in an internal debate of whether or not the party will continue to embrace the Big Lie and Donald Trump.

Read on: