{"id":11466,"date":"2023-08-16T11:42:46","date_gmt":"2023-08-16T11:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=11466"},"modified":"2023-08-16T11:42:46","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T11:42:46","slug":"tucker-carlson-lends-credence-to-the-stolen-election-story-he-dismissed-as-a-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=11466","title":{"rendered":"Tucker Carlson Lends Credence to the Stolen-Election Story He Dismissed As a Lie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n\n&#8220;Based on his private statements to colleagues, we know that former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson did not believe Trump lawyer Sidney Powell&#8217;s wild claims about systematic fraud in the 2020 presidential election. &#8220;Sidney Powell is lying,&#8221; Carlson&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2023\/04\/14\/fox-news-starts-its-defamation-trial-with-several-strikes-against-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">flatly stated<\/a>&nbsp;in a November 16, 2020, text message to fellow Fox News host Laura Ingraham that came to light as a result of the defamation lawsuit that Dominion Voting Systems filed against the channel. Ingraham agreed that Powell could not be trusted: &#8220;Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy [Giuliani].&#8221;<br>&nbsp;We also know, again thanks to discovery in the Dominion lawsuit, that Carlson had a low opinion of Donald Trump. In a November 10, 2020, text message, he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/03\/08\/business\/media\/tucker-carlson-trump.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">called<\/a>&nbsp;Trump&#8217;s decision not to attend Biden&#8217;s inauguration &#8220;hard to believe,&#8221; &#8220;so destructive,&#8221; and &#8220;disgusting.&#8221; He was more broadly critical in a January 4, 2021, text message to his staff.&nbsp;&#8220;There isn&#8217;t really an upside to Trump,&#8221; he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/03\/08\/media\/fox-news-dominion-filings-reliable-sources\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a>, describing &#8220;the last four years&#8221; as &#8220;a disaster.&#8221; Carlson was eager for a change: &#8220;We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can&#8217;t wait. I hate him passionately.&#8221; The day after the January 6 Capitol riot by Trump supporters, Carlson privately&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/03\/08\/business\/media\/tucker-carlson-trump.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">called him<\/a>&nbsp;&#8220;a demonic force&#8221; and &#8220;a destroyer.&#8221;<br>Carlson, who launched a new show on Twitter after Fox News&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2023\/04\/24\/tucker-carlson-fox-news-cnn-don-lemon-fired\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fired him<\/a>&nbsp;in April, was singing a different tune.. t the Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida. &#8220;Why were they so mad?&#8221; he said during a giddy, meandering&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qWfZ8mYiGb4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">44-minute speech<\/a>&nbsp;at the pro-Trump gathering, referring to the Capitol rioters. &#8220;Why do they take the bus from Tennessee to go jump up and down in front of the Capitol?&#8221; The answer, he said, is that they were frustrated by the patronizing, dismissive response to their legitimate concerns about how the presidential election had been conducted.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Carlson suggested it was laughably implausible that Joe Biden had received &#8220;81 million votes&#8221;\u2014&#8221;15 million more than Barack Obama,&#8221; which &#8220;seems like a lot&#8221;\u2014especially &#8220;considering [that] he didn&#8217;t campaign and he can&#8217;t talk.&#8221; But instead of taking that reaction seriously, Carlson said, the political and journalistic establishment told Trump&#8217;s supporters to &#8220;settle down,&#8221; saying, &#8220;We have the source code in the voting machine software, and we&#8217;ve looked at it, and it&#8217;s totally on the level. We&#8217;ve double-checked. We wouldn&#8217;t let an electronic voting [company] hide their software from us.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The unfounded claim that deliberately corrupted Dominion software enabled Biden to steal the election, of course, was the central issue in the company&#8217;s lawsuit against Fox, which the parties&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2023\/04\/18\/in-a-788-million-defamation-settlement-fox-news-admits-that-it-spread-false-claims-about-election-fraud\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">settled<\/a>&nbsp;for a jaw-dropping $788 million shortly before Carlson got the boot. It was also the claim that Carlson privately dismissed as dangerous nonsense. &#8220;It&#8217;s unbelievably offensive to me,&#8221; he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2023\/02\/17\/rupert-murdoch-called-trumps-stolen-election-fantasy-really-crazy-stuff-fox-news-promoted-it-anyway\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">told<\/a>&nbsp;Ingraham. &#8220;Our viewers are good people and they believe it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Carlson, who was transparently craving the adulation of the Trump supporters in West Palm Beach, is reinforcing their conviction that Biden could have won the election only through a vast criminal conspiracy that Carlson publicly called unsubstantiated and privately called a lie. He apparently has swallowed any disgust he once felt at Powell et al.&#8217;s deception of &#8220;good people.&#8221;&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2023\/07\/17\/tucker-carlson-lends-credence-to-the-stolen-election-story-he-dismissed-as-a-lie\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/reason.com\/2023\/07\/17\/tucker-carlson-lends-credence-to-the-stolen-election-story-he-dismissed-as-a-lie\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Based on his private statements to colleagues, we know that former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson did not believe Trump lawyer Sidney Powell&#8217;s wild claims about systematic fraud in the 2020 presidential election. &#8220;Sidney Powell is lying,&#8221; Carlson flatly stated in a November 16, 2020, text message to fellow Fox News host Laura Ingraham that came to light as a result of the defamation lawsuit that Dominion Voting Systems filed against the channel. Ingraham agreed that Powell could not be trusted: &#8220;Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy [Giuliani].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> We also know, again thanks to discovery in the Dominion lawsuit, that Carlson had a low opinion of Donald Trump. In a November 10, 2020, text message, he called Trump&#8217;s decision not to attend Biden&#8217;s inauguration &#8220;hard to believe,&#8221; &#8220;so destructive,&#8221; and &#8220;disgusting.&#8221; He was more broadly critical in a January 4, 2021, text message to his staff. &#8220;There isn&#8217;t really an upside to Trump,&#8221; he said, describing &#8220;the last four years&#8221; as &#8220;a disaster.&#8221; Carlson was eager for a change: &#8220;We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can&#8217;t wait. I hate him passionately.&#8221; The day after the January 6 Capitol riot by Trump supporters, Carlson privately called him &#8220;a demonic force&#8221; and &#8220;a destroyer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Carlson, who launched a new show on Twitter after Fox News fired him in April, was singing a different tune.. t the Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida. &#8220;Why were they so mad?&#8221; he said during a giddy, meandering 44-minute speech at the pro-Trump gathering, referring to the Capitol rioters. &#8220;Why do they take the bus from Tennessee to go jump up and down in front of the Capitol?&#8221; The answer, he said, is that they were frustrated by the patronizing, dismissive response to their legitimate concerns about how the presidential election had been conducted.  <\/p>\n<p>Carlson suggested it was laughably implausible that Joe Biden had received &#8220;81 million votes&#8221;\u2014&#8221;15 million more than Barack Obama,&#8221; which &#8220;seems like a lot&#8221;\u2014especially &#8220;considering [that] he didn&#8217;t campaign and he can&#8217;t talk.&#8221; But instead of taking that reaction seriously, Carlson said, the political and journalistic establishment told Trump&#8217;s supporters to &#8220;settle down,&#8221; saying, &#8220;We have the source code in the voting machine software, and we&#8217;ve looked at it, and it&#8217;s totally on the level. We&#8217;ve double-checked. We wouldn&#8217;t let an electronic voting [company] hide their software from us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The unfounded claim that deliberately corrupted Dominion software enabled Biden to steal the election, of course, was the central issue in the company&#8217;s lawsuit against Fox, which the parties settled for a jaw-dropping $788 million shortly before Carlson got the boot. It was also the claim that Carlson privately dismissed as dangerous nonsense. &#8220;It&#8217;s unbelievably offensive to me,&#8221; he told Ingraham. &#8220;Our viewers are good people and they believe it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Carlson, who was transparently craving the adulation of the Trump supporters in West Palm Beach, is reinforcing their conviction that Biden could have won the election only through a vast criminal conspiracy that Carlson publicly called unsubstantiated and privately called a lie. He apparently has swallowed any disgust he once felt at Powell et al.&#8217;s deception of &#8220;good people.&#8221;&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[221,372,249,171,132,170,1368],"class_list":["post-11466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-donald-trump","tag-election","tag-fraud","tag-lie","tag-lies","tag-trump","tag-tucker-carlson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11467,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11466\/revisions\/11467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}