CNN host Brian Stelter ramped up his efforts to discredit his network’s biggest competitor, Fox News, on Sunday, attacking Fox host Tucker Carlson along with the network’s leadership.
Stelter compared Carlson to former President Donald Trump in an effort to brand the conservative host as a right-wing radical. Stelter said that Carlson’s product is a creation of and pushed by Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch and CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
“Tucker Carlson is the new Donald Trump. Tucker has taken Trump’s place as a right-wing leader, as an outrage generator, as a fire starter, and it’s all happening on Fox just like Trump’s campaign did, which means Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch are ultimately responsible,” Stelter said. “Every day, Carlson is throwing bombs, making online memes, offending millions of people, also delighting millions of others, tapping into white male rage and resentment, stoking distrust of Big Tech [and] the media, generally coarsening the discourse, never apologizing for anything, and setting the GOP’s agenda.”
Stelter said that rumors of a 2024 run at the White House by Carlson should be taken seriously. He also said that Carlson plays “paranoid politics,” suggesting that conservative fears of issues such as social media censorship and cancel culture are made up or, at least, overstated.
“Tucker tells the same conspiratorial us-versus-them story that Trump told, the same ‘they’re out to get you’ story that Trump told for years. It’s the paranoid style in Americans politics all over again. And Tucker now soaks up some of the same social media fury that Trump did. He stokes the same debates that Trump did,” Stelter said.
“What Tucker wants is attention. What Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch want for him is attention,” he continued, later adding: “Fox News is increasingly the Tucker Carlson channel, and the Murdochs recently cut a deal with Tucker to expand his profile on Fox’s streaming service, too. It’s ultimately all about the Murdochs and what they want, how they’re going to keep the profits flowing by giving the viewers more and more radicalized content led by Tucker Carlson.”
Tucker Carlson is the new Donald Trump. Tucker has taken Trump's place as a right-wing leader, an outrage generator, a fire-starter… pic.twitter.com/y8OzdAlSlN
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) March 14, 2021
Fox News, CNN’s largest competitor, is a constant target from hosts and journalists at CNN. Some of CNN’s biggest names have ramped up attacks on Fox News in recent years, even pushing for cable providers to ban the right-leaning network from being aired. Stelter’s Sunday segment on Carlson comes after the conservative host was targeted by the Pentagon.
The Pentagon traded barbs with Carlson last week after the television host criticized the Department of Defense for spending energy and resources creating flight suits for pregnant women in the current international environment. Carlson said that top military officials should be devoting more time toward preparing for a confrontation with China. The Pentagon hit back at Carlson, as The Daily Wire reported:
John Kirby, the press secretary for the Department of Defense, accused Carlson of “[using] his show to denigrate the contributions of women in the military and to say the Chinese military is catching up to the U.S. military because it does not allow women to serve in the percentage the United States does,” according to a story from DoD News, titled “Press Secretary Smites Fox Host That Dissed Diversity in U.S. Military.”
Carlson warned earlier this week that while U.S. citizens stay in their homes on the advice of Dr. Anthony Fauci, China is working to make their society more masculine on the recommendation of a top adviser who warned that Chinese boys are being “spoiled by housewives and female teachers.”
Carlson went on to contrast the Chinese military, which has recently assembled the largest naval force in the world, with the military of the U.S., which is preoccupied with “new hairstyles and maternity flight suits.”
“Pregnant women are going to fight our wars,” Carlson said. “It’s a mockery of the U.S. military.”