Tucker Carlson Mocked After Video Resurfaces Dissing Bill O’Reilly
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Wednesday wasn’t such a great day for Tucker Carlson’s credibility.
First, the White House slammed the Fox News host for spreading lies about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and then #TuckerCarlsonIsALiar became a trending hashtag on Twitter.
But the biggest insult to his reputation may be a resurfaced video from 2003 showing Carlson being interviewed on C-SPAN about his book, “Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News,” and, in particular, Bill O’Reilly, who was at the time the biggest name on Fox News.
Carlson claimed to admire O’Reilly, but also sounded out a possible warning to the Fox News host, who was later fired in 2017 after a series of sexual harassment accusations against him.
“Bill O’Reilly is really talented, he’s more talented than I am, he’s got a lot more viewers, he’s a better communicator than I am,” Carlson, who at the time was a commentator on CNN’s “Crossfire,” said, “but I think there is a deep phoniness at the center of his schtick, and again as I say the schtick is built on the perception that he is the character he plays.”
Here’s a link courtesy of Twitter user Ron Filipowski.
It’s a good time to revisit what Tucker Carlson said in 2003 about Bill O’Reilly: “O’Reilly success is built on the perception that he really is who he claims to be. If he ever gets caught out of character, it’s over. There’s a deep phoniness at the center of his shtik.” pic.twitter.com/Y1mJ9PFSFX
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) March 8, 2023
Although Carlson’s comments could be seen as slightly critical of O’Reilly, Politico columnist Jack Shafer noted that “with a little tweaking, this assessment of O’Reilly could be cut and tapered to dress Carlson.”
Twitter users seemed to agree with that take.
This is great! Thanks for sharing this! Not surprising that Tucker Carlson is a giant hypocrite when it comes to authenticity! He's no different from that swaggering charlatan Bill O'Reilly. Two plutocrats who pretend to be populists. Carlson deserves a similar forced exile. pic.twitter.com/63YjvlJ73N
— Russell Drew (@RussOnPolitics) March 8, 2023
Tucker predicting his own future, sadly.
But the difference is much of the base won’t even hear about how fake he is cuz our media is afraid to speak against him. You think influencers want to be banned from his show? Doubt it. https://t.co/PR9wr8sIJe— Joshua Fontanilla (@joshfontanilla) March 8, 2023
Really amazing, it’s like he was exactly talking about his future self.
By his own words, it should be ‘over’ for him, after he got caught out of character, saying he “passionately” hates the greatest populist president in U.S. history, and called him a “demonic force”… https://t.co/nfVEH1M2o1— MAGA 𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 (@MAGAoriginalist) March 8, 2023
Projection of the highest order.
— Christine King (@ckwest542) March 8, 2023
Not only does TC play a character, but he stole it from Stephen Colbert who created it for the Daily Show/Colbert Report by mocking and exaggerating the Bill O’Reilly character TC accurately accuses O’Reilly of creating.
Is there a parallel on the left?— EdgeOfTheMidwest (@EdgeMidwest) March 8, 2023
Tucker wanted to be the next George Will and bring a sense of professorial, intellectual legitimacy to conservatism.
Instead, he became the next Rush Limbaugh -- a demagogue who built a big following, made a lot of money, and did a lot of damage, whom nobody... /1— Langdon Grant (@langdongrant2) March 8, 2023
Truth is, Carlson is sometimes honest about lying.
In September 2021, the Fox News host admitted to conservative media host Dave Rubin that he sometimes lies on his show.
“I mean, I lie if I’m really cornered or something,” Carlson admitted. “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.”
In 2020, Fox News won a defamation lawsuit against Carlson by successfully arguing “that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statement he makes,” according to NPR.