Tucker Carlson tore into the establishment media Monday night for their coverage of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which took place over the weekend.
Carlson took particular exception with the headline speaker, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Ron Chernow, who took multiple jabs at President Donald Trump for allegedly creating “jitters about the First Amendment.”
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“People are doubting the news media. That’s wrong. You’re seeing misinformation masquerading as news, they are telling us and actually they’re right. We have seen a lot of that recently,” Carlson began, after airing a clip of Chernow’s comments. “How about the last two years of Russia coverage on CNN, for example? ‘Michael Cohen met secretly with Russian spies in Prague. Don Jr. is about to be indicted. The Steele dossier is entirely real.’ They told us all of that and much more. All of it wrong and stupid and totally dishonest.”
“What was odd, though, was hearing them talk about free speech. The First Amendment is, in fact, under ferocious attack, really—more than any time in the last 50 years, at least—and yet the people in that room don’t seem to notice. Where were these same people last summer when the Big Tech companies colluded to silence broadcaster Alex Jones? ‘Alex Jones, he’s bad.’ CNN literally led the effort to make him be quiet. Jeff Zucker doesn’t agree with Alex Jones’ political views; therefore, he thinks Alex Jones shouldn’t be allowed to talk. So Zucker shut him up by force.”
Carlson proceeded to list a number of individuals who were censored for having unpopular beliefs, such as Republican Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn for being pro-life, Tommy McDonald, who has express anti-immigration views, and James Damore, who was fired from Google.
“Did any of the First Amendment defenders — here’s the First Amendment, they say, at the dinner on Saturday — say a single word about any of this? Of course they didn’t. Their job, they say, is to hold the powerful to account. But when given the chance to push back against the truly powerful—the actually powerful, we are not even kidding powerful, Google, Amazon, Facebook, PayPal—do they say anything ever?” Carlson asked. “No. Of course not. They suck up. Every single time. They suck up to power. Because that’s who they are.”
The Fox News host has been very critical in the past of CNN. Just last month, Carlson wondered aloud what CNN’s Jeff Zucker has done to deserve the First Amendment Award he was given last month at the Radio Television Digital News Foundation’s First Amendment Awards ceremony.