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Tucker Carlson Regurgitates Trump’s Claims That Indictment Is ‘Election Interference’

Politicon 2018 - Day 2 - Credit: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Politicon
Politicon 2018 - Day 2 - Credit: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Politicon

On January 4, 2021, Tucker Carlson texted an unknown source that they were “very, very close” to being able to ignore Trump. “I hate him passionately,” the Fox News host added, referring to the mounting pressure of covering the former president’s election lies. Two years later, In the aftermath of a grand jury indictment against Trump, despite his documented hatred for him, Carlson finds himself still doing cleanup for the former President.

On Friday night, the Fox host dedicated a majority of his broadcast to repeating Trump’s own talking points regarding the indictment — including claims that the charges against him were nothing more than attempted election interference.

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“The prosecution of Donald Trump is election interference. He’s the Republican frontrunner,” Carlson told viewers.

The Fox News host repeated the assertion when discussing speculation of a potential gag order against Trump that would prevent him from publicly discussing the case. Such an order is not unthinkable, given how the former president has spent recent weeks attacking prosecutors, calling for protests on his behalf, and threatening “death and destruction” should he be indicted.

“It’s impossible to imagine greater election interference… than gagging a presidential candidate in a presidential year,” Carlson said. He added that “Vladimir Putin has never dreamed of any attack on the United States more damaging than that.”

Later in the broadcast, Carlson accused “the people in charge” of “using the legal system to stop a political rival in a presidential race.” He characterized the indictment as election interference for a third time, adding that the charges against Trump were a “threat to democracy.”

Carlson is taking his talking points straight from Trump’s Truth Social ranting. On Friday the former president wrote (in all caps) that the “THE RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRAT” had gone too far in “INDICATING A TOTALLY INNOCENT MAN IN AN ACT OF OBSTRUCTION AND BLATANT ELECTION INTERFERENCE.”

And while Carlson may privately loathe Trump, the former president is the Republican party’s best hope to retake the White House. Carlson and his colleagues remain loyal foot soldiers to the GOP’s best interest and have remained the vanguard of Trump media defense, even when it comes at a hefty cost.

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