In a video posted to Twitter, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced that he will be launching a new show — which will be hosted exclusively on Twitter.
The announcement, which was posted late Tuesday afternoon, came after reports began to surface over the last few days that he had been speaking with Twitter CEO Elon Musk about his future after being abruptly fired from Fox News.
Carlson blasted the mainstream media for not telling the whole truth in their reports, arguing that they mislead their audiences by withholding certain information that would change the entire context of the story.
“Hey, it’s Tucker Carlson,” he began. “You often hear people say the news is full of lies. But most of the time, that’s not exactly right. Much of what you see on television or read the New York Times is, in fact, true in the literal sense. It could pass one of the media’s own fact checks, lawyers who’d be willing to sign off on it. In fact, they may have, but that doesn’t make it true. It’s not true. At the most basic level, the news you consume is a lie, a lie of the stealthiest and most insidious kind. Facts have been withheld on purpose, along with proportion and perspective. You are being manipulated.”
“If I tell you that a man has been unjustly arrested for armed robbery that is not strictly speaking a lie, he may have been framed at this point, there’s been no trial, so no one can really say,” he continued. “But if I don’t mention the fact that the same man has been arrested for the same crime six times before, am I really informing you? No, I’m not. I’m misleading you. And that’s what the news media are doing in every story that matters every day of the week, every week of the year.”
“What’s it like to work in a system like that? Carlson asked. “After more than 30 years in the middle of it, we could tell you stories. The best you can hope for in the news business at this point is the freedom to tell the fullest truth that you can. But there are always limits. And you know that if you bump up against those limits often enough, you will be fired for it. That’s not a guess. It’s guaranteed.”
“Every person who works in English language media understands that,” he added. “The rule of what you can’t say defines everything. It’s filthy, really, and it’s utterly corrupting. You can’t have a free society if people aren’t allowed to say what they think is true. Speech is the fundamental prerequisite for democracy. That’s why it’s enshrined in the first of our constitutional amendments.”
Carlson also noted in the video that there were not many free speech platforms left in the world — citing Twitter as the sole example.
“The last big one remaining in the world, the only one is Twitter, where we are now,” he said. “Twitter has long served as the place where our national conversation incubates and develops. Twitter is not a partisan site; everybody’s allowed here. And we think that’s a good thing.”
“And yet, for the most part, the news that you see analyzed on Twitter comes from media organizations that are themselves thinly disguised propaganda outlets,” Carlson added. “You see it on cable news, you talk about it on Twitter. The result may feel like a debate, but actually the gatekeepers are still in charge. We think that’s a bad system. We know exactly how it works, and we’re sick of it.”
“Starting soon, we’ll be bringing a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter,” he concluded. “We’ll be bringing some other things too, which we’ll tell you about. But for now, we’re just grateful to be here. Free speech is the main right that you have, without it, you have no others. See you soon.”
We’re back. pic.twitter.com/sG5t9gr60O
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 9, 2023
The video announcement comes after Carlson’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, sent a letter to Fox News accusing them of fraud and breaching his contract.
The letter to Fox officials Viet Dinh and Irena Briganti, which was sent just before Carlson posted the video, argues that the network broke an agreement with Carlson that prohibited them from leaking his private communications to the media and using his private messages to “to take any adverse employment action against him.”
Media Matters, a left-wing organization focused on smearing conservatives, recently began publishing behind-the-scenes leaked footage of Carlson on set at Fox News. While it appears that the activist organization and whoever leaked the footage thought that it would paint Carlson in a negative light to his fans, most say that the footage just makes Carlson seem more relatable and funny.
