If Tucker Carlson wanted to snipe at every comment made by every person who spoke during last night’s first primetime January 6th hearing, he could have gone full Mystery Science Theater 3000 and riffed with his guests from the sidelines. Instead, he spent essentially the entirety of his Thursday night show boasting about how Fox News was the only American news network not broadcasting the hearings… while the hearings played on the screen behind him.
Carlson kicked off his show by declaring how ridiculous it was that networks were preempting their regularly scheduled programming “to bring you yet another extended primetime harangue from Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney about [insert Tucker fake-mad voice] Donald Trump and QAnon.” Apparently traumatized by missing a week of Young Sheldon, the Fox News host went on to boast that his network was “the only American news channel” (news?) that wouldn’t be carrying the “insulting” and “deranged” “propaganda” live, because “They are lying and we are not going to help them do it.”
The only problem was: The hearings were playing right over Carlson’s shoulder, and occupying about three times as much screen space as his head.
Fox News is the only channel not showing the live Jan 6 hearings:
"This is the only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live. They are lying and we are not going to help them do it. What we will do instead is try to tell you the truth." pic.twitter.com/uT8TKZYJ81
— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) June 10, 2022
It was really just a taste of what the next hour would bring, as Carlson welcomed a seemingly never-ending string of MAGAites like failed 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, sports columnist Jason Whitlock, and American Conservative Union head Matt Schlapp—who, per The Wrap, claimed that, “When the political violence benefits [Democrats], they turn a blind eye toward it. When it doesn’t, they want to put people in jail.”
In downplaying the events of January 6, Carlson and his guests brought out all their greatest hits, including their baseless claims that the “Black Lives Matter protests” of the summer of 2020 were much more deadly than the Capitol riots and that Trump offered to call the National Guard in to assist the Capitol police. Except, as Cheney noted during the hearings, Trump never made that call.
To prove how serious they were about protesting the hearings, Fox took no commercial breaks during Carlson’s show (or Sean Hannity’s, which followed). Meaning that they looked ridiculous and possibly lost money doing it.
(Via The Wrap)