Over the weekend, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said he’ll “lie” when “cornered,” but said he makes an effort not to do so on his primetime program.
“I mean, I lie if I’m really cornered or something. I lie. I really try not to. I try never to lie on TV. I just don’t… I don’t like lying. I certainly do it, you know, out of weakness or whatever,” the “Tucker Carlson Tonight” host told Dave Rubin on Sunday’s “The Rubin Report.”
In the segment, first flagged by activist and watchdog group Media Matters for America, Carlson and Rubin were discussing hosts on other networks, who, they said, “lie” often.
“To systematically lie like that without asking yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ So, if these people ask themselves, ‘Why am I doing this?’ And they say, ‘Well, I want to protect the system because I really believe in the system,’ okay, who’s running the system? You’re lying to defend Jeff Bezos? Like, you’re treating Bill Gates like some sort of moral leader? Like, are you kidding me? How dare you do that? How dare you use your power to protect and guard the powerful even as you put your boot on the neck of the weakest people,” Carlson exclaimed.
Carlson has, in fact, lied on his show — on everything from windmills to being spied on by the NSA. Last year, Fox News actually won a defamation lawsuit — with Carlson as the defendant — by arguing that “reasonable viewers” will know he’s not “stating actual facts” on his show.
Watch the stream above.