As RedState reported, Tucker Carlson returned to the public sphere on Tuesday with his first official Twitter episode. That came after the once top-rated cable news host was fired by Fox News.
Demand for Carlson’s new show was so high that some had trouble getting it to play at first, but when they did, it became obvious he was only escalating his already straight-ahead style. In a relatively short 10-minute monologue, the topics ranged from Ukraine to Lindsey Graham to Nikki Haley, and none of them were paid any compliments.
Carlson’s words already have many on the left and the right melting down. When you watch the whole thing, it becomes obvious why.
CARLSON: Hey, it’s Tucker Carlson. This morning it looks like someone blew up the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine. The rushing wall of water wiped out entire villages, destroyed a critical hydropower plant, and as of tonight, puts the largest nuclear reactor in Europe in danger of melting down. So if this was intentional, it was not a military action; it was an act of terrorism.
The question is, who did it? Well, let’s see. The Kakhovka dam was effectively Russian. it was built by the Russian government and it currently sits in Russian-controlled territory. The dam’s reservoir supplies water to Crimea, which has been for the last 240 years, home of the Russian Black Sea fleet.
Blowing up the dam may be bad for Ukraine, but it hurts Russia more, and for precisely that reason, the Ukrainian government has considered destroying it. In December, the Washington Post quoted a Ukrainian general saying his men had fired American-made rockets at the dam’s floodgate as a test strike.
So really, once the facts start coming, 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, just as you would assume that they blew up Nord Stream, the Russian natural gas pipelines last fall, and in fact, the Ukrainians did do that, as we now know. It’s not like Vladimir Putin is anxious to wage war on himself.
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong Mr. and Mrs. Cable News Consumer. Vladimir Putin is exactly that sort of man!” The sort of man who would shoot himself in order to annoy you.
Given what transpired with Nord Stream 2, and given that the dam resided in Russian territory, I think I’m currently more likely to agree than disagree with Carlson. Why would Putin blow up a dam his nation built when it is a piece of vital infrastructure in an area he controls? The fact that the Ukrainians did a test run on how to blow it up, as reported by none other than The Washington Post, also seems a bit too convenient for me to ignore.
Carlson then moved to hit Bill Kristol for jumping to conclusions about who blew up the dam in Ukraine before moving to a pretty vicious critique of Volodymyr Zelensky.
CARLSON: No one who’s paid to cover these things seemed to entertain even the possibility it could have been the Ukrainians who did it. Ukraine, as you may have heard, is led by a man named Zelensky, and we can say for a dead certain fact he was not involved. He couldn’t be. Zelensky is too decent for terrorism.
Now you see him on television, and it’s true you might form a different impression. Sweaty and rat-like, a comedian turned oligarch, a persecutor of Christians, a friend of Blackrock. But don’t believe your own eyes. Actually, Mr. Zelensky is a very good man; the best, really. As George W. Bush once noted, he is our generation’s Winston Churchill. Of all the people in the world, our shifty, dead-eyed Ukranian friend in the tracksuit is uniquely incapable of blowing up a dam. He is literally a living saint, a man in whom there is no sin.
From there Carlson then moved to Lindsey Graham, playing a clip of the senator’s recent trip to visit Zelensky. In it, you see Graham proclaiming sending American money to fund Ukraine is the “best money we’ve ever spent” as he stares doe-eyed across the table. “He looks like a starving man contemplating a breakfast buffet,” Carlson said in response during his monologue.
Of all the proponents of the Ukrainian conflict, Graham is probably the worst ambassador. He comes across as blood-thirsty, unable to see or care about any other issue. Even if one agrees with continuing heavy US involvement in the war in Ukraine, it should be done with a solemn disposition, not one of giddiness as Graham displays. Hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money isn’t nothing. It’s something, and people want to feel like politicians are taking the conflict seriously, not treating it like a game of personal revenge.
Next up on the chopping block was Nikki Haley, who recently lectured everyone on the vital American interest present in Ukraine without really describing what that interest is. During the clip Carlson plays, she took a shot at Ron DeSantis for describing the war as a “territorial dispute.”
Carlson wasn’t impressed by her platitudes.
CARLSON: See, it’s very easy to understand. It is vitally important for you to support Ukraine because its necessary for Ukraine to be supported by you. Your support is mandatory until its finished, whatever it is, and whatever that means so shut up and support Ukraine or else you’re in trouble.
Back when they still taught logic, statements like this were known as tautologies. Something is true because it is. The more you repeat it, the truer it becomes. It’s a self-reinforcing reality. There was a time when tautologies were considered illegitimate arguments, not to mention hilariously stupid. Only dumb people talked like that. Now, everyone in power talks like that. “Diversity is our strength, trans women are women, Zelensky is Churchill.” It’s all self-evidently true, it doesn’t need an explanation, and don’t ask questions.
Sound familiar? Of course, it does. That’s the pap they’re serving us day after day in steaming, lumpy portions. By this point, it’s possible that American citizens are the least informed people in the world.
As I’ve written recently, I don’t understand the point of Nikki Haley’s 2024 campaign. She’s far too focus-grouped, and not in a good way. She comes across as stiff and overly rehearsed, relying on bland, generic statements that do nothing to persuade anyone.
Carlson wrapped up the video by hitting on a theme he shared during his original two-minute teaser last month. Namely, that the press focuses on so much that doesn’t matter while burying real stories. There are articles on Donald Trump, trans people, and climate change, but not a single article on the government admitting the existence of UFOs, Carlson quipped.
Things wrapped shortly after that, and all in all, I’d say Carlson’s return was a success. As of this writing, the video has over 16 million views and 255,000 likes. That’s far more eyeballs than he used to draw while on Fox News. This is the future of information, in my opinion, and I think Carlson got on the train at the perfect time.