Tucker Triumphs on Twitter While Fox Flounders – The American Spectator

Tucker Carlson just released the first episode of Tucker on Twitter, and he had already attained over 80 million views 24 hours after the episode’s release.

Less than two months after Fox News fired Carlson, he announced in a tweet that he would seek refuge on Twitter. Carlson explained that he decided to make the switch because Twitter allows free speech. (READ MORE: Tucker Carlson Can’t Be Shut Up)

We’re back. pic.twitter.com/sG5t9gr60O

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 9, 2023

“Amazingly, as of tonight, there aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one remaining … is Twitter, where we are now,” Carlson said.

Tucker Succeeds, Fox Fails

After Fox fired Carlson, he received job offers from Valuetainment CEO Patrick Bet-David and former Fox host Glenn Beck. And right after his departure was announced, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made it clear that there would “always” be a job waiting for Carlson at Heritage.

Tucker Carlson Tonight was a Fox mainstay — maintaining an average of 3.06 million views — and Carlson’s departure wasn’t taken lightly by the channel’s audience. Forbes reported last week that Fox viewership plummeted 32 percent the month following the show’s last episode.

In contrast, Tucker on Twitter’s success is, according to Twitter CEO Elon Musk, likely even larger than currently understood, as the view count that appears on the platform is not representative of total viewership.

“View count is actually understated, as it does not include anything from our API, for example tweets you see in Google search results or on Bloomberg terminals,” Musk tweeted.

First Episode of Tucker on Twitter Decries Government Corruption

In his first episode, Carlson called the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine “an act of terrorism,” claiming that the Ukrainian military was likely responsible for the explosion — in the same way, Carlson said, that Ukraine blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.

Ep. 1 pic.twitter.com/O7CdPjF830

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 6, 2023

Carlson also blasted the U.S. government and corporate media.

“Nobody knows what’s happening. A small group of people control access to all relevant information, and the rest of us don’t know,” Carlson said.

He also claimed that most news outlets will only cover a small subset of state-sanctioned topics.

“We’re allowed to yap about racism, but go ahead and talk about something that really matters, and see what happens. If you keep it up, they’ll make you be quiet,” Carlson said. “That’s how they maintain control.”

Carlson compared the ignorance of the American people under the American regime to that of the people living in the Eastern Bloc under Soviet Russia.

“The few Russians who understood what was really going on in the rest of the world had learned about it from listening to shortwave radio broadcasts,” Carlson said. “We’re the ones who live in ignorance now.”

“The U.S. government has managed to classify more than a billion so-called public documents,” Carlson continued. This is how, he believes, the government prevents Americans from knowing what it is doing.

Tucker’s Free-Speech Win

Twitter, Carlson hopes, will offer him a platform to report the truth amid the confusion caused by government corruption and media lies.

“We are grateful to be here,” Carlson finished. “We will be back with much more very soon.”

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh described Tucker’s transition to Twitter as a “huge win for free speech.”

“Tucker’s first episode has 20 million views in just four hours. We’re watching as Twitter becomes a legitimate platform to watch not just short clips but full monologues, shows and even films,” Walsh tweeted. “Absolute game changer.”

Emma Verrigni is a rising sophomore at Hillsdale College studying history and journalism. A member of The American Spectator’s 2023 intern class, Emma enjoys reading philosophy and the news.