In the latest episode of “Tucker on Twitter,” former Fox News host Tucker Carlson provided details and commentary on the network’s panic over a controversial chyron.
Fox News is facing attacks from both sides of the aisle after they apologized for a chyron deeming President Joe Biden a “wannabe dictator.” While even some conservatives believe the chyron was in poor taste, the network’s apology and the subsequent resignation of the producer behind the phrasing has been portrayed as just another example of Fox News moving away from being a conservative network.
The president spoke at the White House on Tuesday evening soon after former President Donald Trump was arraigned on controversial charges by Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ). While Biden was speaking, Fox News’ chyron briefly stated: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”
On Thursday night, Carlson posted the fourth episode of his new Twitter show, titled “Wannabe dictator” — where he responded to the controversy and gave his audience some insider information.
“Those words were up for less than 30 seconds, but the effect was immediate,” he said. “Inside Fox, the women who run the network panicked.”
According to Carlson, network executives first “scolded the producer who put the banner on the screen,” and “less than 24 hours after that, he resigned.”
Carlson said they first “scolded the producer who put the banner on the screen,” and then less than a day later, “he resigned.”
“He had been at Fox for more than a decade,” he continued. “He was considered one of the most capable people in the building. He offered to stay for the customary two weeks, but Fox told him to clear out his desk and leave immediately.”
Fox News then issued a public apology for the chyron, noting that it was “taken down immediately” and that the issue was “addressed.”
“That was all true, but it was not enough to save Fox News from the ensuing scandal. For a time in the rest of the media, Fox’s assessment of Donald Trump’s arrest seemed to overshadow Trump’s arrest itself,” Carlson said.
The former Fox News host then blasted the mainstream media for their response to the incident, citing comments from disgraced “perennial MSNBC guest and full-time Ukraine promoter” Alexander Vindman — who used the incident to demand censorship, calling for Fox News to be banned on all military bases.
It is absolutely unacceptable for American Forces Network @AFNtelevision to carry programming that directly (spuriously) attacks the Commander-in-Chief of American Armed Forces @POTUS . What are you going to do about this @SecDef @DepSecDef @JakeSullivan46 ? https://t.co/Jd3zVCz8d7
— Alexander S. Vindman ❎ (@AVindman) June 14, 2023
“In other words, Joe Biden must ban all criticism of himself because that’s what non-dictators do,” Carlson commented.
“And so it was all over the internet. Democrats were very, very angry. But why were they angry? If the banner on Fox was false, why the hysteria? Lies don’t seem to bother anyone anymore,” he added.
“If some cable news producer had called Joe Biden a genius or accused of being secretly Sudanese, would anyone be yelling about it? Would Fox News have apologized for it? Probably not. But calling Joe Biden a wannabe dictator, that stunk. So you’ve got to wonder if you’re being honest with yourself is Joe Biden a wannabe dictator?” Carlson asked.
Ep. 4 Wannabe Dictator pic.twitter.com/MDcs5g0gxB
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 15, 2023
For the remainder of his fourth episode, Carlson provided evidence for the claim that Biden is a wannabe dictator.
“Of course, Joe Biden is not a wannabe dictator. Just because he’s trying to put the other candidate in prison for the rest of his life for a crime he himself committed, doesn’t mean he has a totalitarian impulse. Come on. That’s absurd,” he joked. “It takes a lot more than jailing your political rivals to earn the title ‘wannabe dictator.’”
Carlson went on to note that wannabe dictators “enrich themselves and their families, their tribe, even as the countries they govern grow steadily poorer and more desperate.”
“They take kickbacks from businesses and from other dictators,” he continued. “They use the official functions of their government to funnel cash to themselves. They don’t bother to hide the fruits of this. They live in garish mansions, with big lawns far from the teeming cities, even as their own citizens languish in growing poverty in some cases, literally living in tents on the street.”
“People can’t gather in large numbers to protest the rule of the dictator if they try that they’ll be arrested by his state security services, even years after the fact,” Carlson added, showing a clip of law enforcement arresting Ashli Babbitt’s mother while she protested in Washington, DC.
Later in the video, he called out the mainstream media for being stooges of the president.
“Dictators build cults of personality around themselves, and they use those cults to deny the glaringly obvious,” Carlson said.
“If Joe Biden ever developed some profound physical or medical problem that was obvious to everybody. Journalists would say something. This is not North Korea. We don’t have state media here,” he joked. “If Joe Biden was say, incapable of completing a full sentence or mistook his sister for his wife, or suddenly started falling down in public for no reason, the New York Times would report on that and then get to the bottom of what was actually happening.”
