Tucker Carlson inaugurated the return of his popular show on Tuesday, dropping the first episode of “Tucker on Twitter” after being taken off the air at Fox News in April.
Carlson is still reportedly negotiating his exit with Fox News, where he led ratings with his primetime show “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” The network took him off the air suddenly after his last show on April 21, but he promised to bring it back in some form on Twitter.
Carlson opened the first episode of his new show talking about the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine, calling it an “act of terrorism.”
Part of the dam fell on Tuesday, as well as a nearby hydropower plant, draining the Kakhovka reservoir and causing severe flooding in areas downriver. Ukrainian and Russian emergency crews evacuated thousands of people. Russia and Ukraine have flung accusations at each other over the dam’s failure.
The dam, located in Russian-controlled territory, and reservoir provided fresh water for parts of southern Ukraine and almost all of Crimea, which has been in Russian hands since its annexation by Moscow in 2014. The reservoir also provided water for the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. While the plant maintains an artificial lake to provide water for its reactors, officials are worried what could happen when the lake runs dry in several months.
“Blowing up the dam may be bad for Ukraine, but it hurts Russia more. And for that reason, the Ukrainian government has considered destroying it,” Carlson said before referencing a December story in The Washington Post that described tests the Ukrainian military ran while considering knocking out the dam.
“When the facts start coming in, 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,” Carlson said.
He then launched into a critique of the “American media” who “wasted no time this morning in accusing the Russians of sabotaging their own infrastructure.” He also took shots at Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is running in the GOP primary for president, over their staunch support for Ukraine.
Carlson went after the media and high-profile figures for accepting certain narratives as true without due scrutiny. “Not only are the media not interested in any of this, they are actively hostile to anybody who is. In journalism, curiosity is the gravest crime,” Carlson said.
Carlson’s new show will challenge the orthodoxies in the media, he said, and he plans to keep the show on Twitter as long as it remains a platform committed to free speech.
“As of today, we’ve come to Twitter, which we hope will be the short-wave radio under the blankets. We’re told there are no gatekeepers here. If that turns out to be false, we’ll leave. But in the meantime, we are grateful to be here,” Carlson said.
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