After being pulled from the air at Fox News in April, Tucker Carlson finally premiered the first episode of his long-running show “Tucker on Twitter” on Tuesday, marking the official beginning of the show’s long-awaited comeback.
According to recent reports, Carlson is still in the process of negotiating his departure from Fox News, where he previously dominated the ratings with his primetime show “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” After he finished his last show on April 21, the network abruptly removed him off the air, but he pledged on Twitter that he will bring it back in some form.
Carlson began the first edition of his new show by discussing the breaching of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine, which he referred to as an “act of terrorism.”
On Tuesday, a portion of the dam and a hydroelectric plant in the surrounding area collapsed, which resulted in the emptying of the Kakhovka reservoir and catastrophic flooding in the areas farther downstream. Thousands of people had to be rescued by emergency teams from both Russia and Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine have leveled charges against one another about the collapse of the dam.
Parts of southern Ukraine and practically the whole region of Crimea, which has been under Russian administration since its annexation by Moscow in 2014, received their supply of fresh water from a dam and reservoir that were located on land that was under Russian control. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was able to receive its water supply from the reservoir as well. Despite the fact that the plant keeps an artificial lake to supply water for its reactors, the officials at the plant are concerned about what might occur in a few months when the lake runs out of water.
“Blowing up the dam may be bad for Ukraine, but it hurts Russia more. And for that reason, the Ukrainian government has considered destroying it,” Carlson said before referencing a December story in The Washington Post that described tests the Ukrainian military ran while considering knocking out the dam.
“When the facts start coming in, it becomes much less of a mystery what might have happened to the dam. Any fair person would conclude that the Ukrainians probably blew it up,” Carlson said.
After that, Tucker went on to criticize what he called the “American media,” which he said “wasted no time this morning in accusing the Russians of sabotaging their own infrastructure.” In addition, he attacked Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Nikki Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations who is currently running in the Republican primary for the presidency, for their unwavering support of Ukraine.
Carlson attacked the media as well as high-profile figures for failing to adequately investigate certain storylines before adopting them as genuine. “Not only are the media not interested in any of this, they are actively hostile to anybody who is. In journalism, curiosity is the gravest crime,” Carlson said.
According to Carlson, his new show will shake up the status quo in the media, and he intends to keep the show on Twitter for as long as it continues to be a platform that is dedicated to protecting free expression.
“As of today, we’ve come to Twitter, which we hope will be the short-wave radio under the blankets. We’re told there are no gatekeepers here. If that turns out to be false, we’ll leave. But in the meantime, we are grateful to be here,” Carlson said.
Ep. 1 pic.twitter.com/O7CdPjF830
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 6, 2023