Last year, Tucker Carlson warned that the United States is “speeding towards” the assassination of former President Donald Trump, prompting the liberal media to pounce and dismiss his concerns as a conspiracy theory.
Trump was nearly assassinated late Saturday afternoon in Butler, Pennsylvania, during a campaign rally.
“If you begin with criticism, then you go to protest, then you go to impeachment, now you go to indictment and none of them work. What’s next? Graph it out, man. We’re speeding towards assassination, obviously," he said in an interview with comedian and podcaster Adam Carolla. "They have decided — permanent Washington, both parties have decided — that there’s something about Trump that’s so threatening to them, they just can’t have him."
WATCH: Video Shows Sniper Taking Out Would-Be Trump Assassin
NBC News accused Carlson of stoking conspiracies.
"The comments have been picked up by other media personalities on the far right, including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and former Fox News host Dan Bongino, who now posts content on Rumble, an online video platform known for hosting far-right personalities," the network reported.
The most recent episode of Bongino’s podcast is titled “Speeding Towards Assassination?” In the episode description published on the Apple Podcasts platform, he asserts without evidence that the “plot to take out Trump is metastasizing.” Bongino’s show is among the most popular on podcasts in Apple’s rankings, according to Chartable, a podcast analytics company.
In far-right and conspiratorial circles, Trump has long been presented as the target of a vast plot orchestrated in part by Washington’s “deep state” as well as the Democratic establishment and the news media. The former president has embraced this worldview, referring to himself as a “victim” and the center of a “witch hunt.”
The article went on to claim that Carlson's warning would incite violence from Trump supporters.
Daniel Jones, the president of the nonpartisan research organization Advance Democracy, said Carlson’s comments are an example of the kind of rhetoric that can incite real-world violence.
“Those of us who follow and track extremism have seen that the rhetoric around the indictments of Trump is very similar to the rhetoric we saw prior to the Capitol insurrection,” Jones said. “I think everyone in this space is concerned about what the next 12 to 18 months look like.”
Forbes similarly dismissed Carlson's claims as a "conspiracy theory."
Former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson has repeatedly pedaled a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump will be the target of an assassination plot, most recently saying in an interview the U.S. is “speeding toward” the former president’s assassination—an unfounded claim amplified by other right-wing media personalities.
As did HuffPost:
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson launched a wild conspiracy theory during a podcast appearance where he claimed that “they” will try to kill Donald Trump.
Business Insider also joined in:
Tucker Carlson baselessly claimed that the political establishment is plotting to assassinate former President Donald Trump because they "just can't have" him as president again.
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