Tucker Carlson has all but broken the internet after he revealed in a video monologue on Tuesday evening that he will be hopping on Twitter a bit more often to launch a new type of news show.
Announcing the news to Twitter, Carlson simply captioned the post, “We’re back.”
In the post, Carlson asserted that news media outlets often do a disservice to the American people by not directly lying, but rather “misleading” its viewers, ostensibly on purpose.
“Much of what you see on television or read the New York Times is, in fact, true in the literal sense,” Tucker said in his proclamation. “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.”
To provide an example of such media malpractice, Carlson explained a hypothetical scenario in which he could claim a man was unjustly arrested for armed robbery, which technically is not a lie, as there has been no trial to conclude otherwise.
“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?” Carlson asked, before answering his own question.
“No, I’m not. I’m misleading. And that’s what the news media are doing in every story that matters every day of the week, every week of the year.”
He then observed that few platforms in the modern day allow for truly free speech, adding, “The last big one remaining in the world—the only one—is Twitter, where we are now.”
Carlson then promised that a “new version” of his show will be brought to Twitter, and emphasized that without the guarantee of freedom of speech, Americans have no rights at all.
We’re back. pic.twitter.com/sG5t9gr60O
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 9, 2023
One Twitter user reacted to Carlson’s announcement with a meme gif showing the former Fox News host beside a smiling Ellon Musk, with the background logo reading ‘MNN,’ short for ‘Musk News Network.’
It’s happening!! Knew it 🤣♥️ https://t.co/yvTAE71NAI pic.twitter.com/BSp5C9TJG7
— Denise 🤌🐾🇮🇹 (@NoDMsPerfavore) May 9, 2023
Another shared a meme showing the blue Twitter bird edited to have the face of Tucker Carlson.
— ForAmerica (@ForAmerica) May 9, 2023
Forbes reported that Carlson has an active contract with Fox that may prohibit him from taking his show to other networks before 2025, but that his attorney Bryan Freedman recently opined it would be “beyond preposterous” for the network to stop the former host from talking to his viewers.
Carlson’s big reveal has already garnered tens of millions of views, with Twitter recording almost 30 million hits at the time of this article’s completion.
