Tucker Carlson didn’t let a little thing like working for years at a network that covered up the sexual abuse of its CEO, its star host and several other Carlson colleagues stop him from attacking NBC for killing Ronan Farrow’s story exposing Harvey Weinstein’s abuse. Oh, and while he was at it, Carlson baselessly accused Chuck Todd of being in on it all.
Let me say that I am not in any way condoning NBC’s behavior. Nor do I know the facts of what happened. But I do know that Weinstein did not work at NBC. But Ailes, O’Reilly, former host Eric Bolling, former vice president of Fox News Latino Francisco Cortes, former correspondent James Rosen and possibly even Kimberly Guilfoyle were ousted from Fox for sexual misconduct during Carlson’s employment there. Former co-president Bill Shine was booted for his role in covering up the sexual abuse scandals. Shine is now deputy chief of staff in charge of communications for Donald Trump. Yet I have never seen Carlson complain about that hire.
Think Carlson didn't know? Former Red Eye host Bill Schulz has tweeted, “WE ALL KNEW” about Ailes’ abuse.
Yet despite all that went on under his own nose, Carlson announced sanctimoniously, “NBC News actively covered up Harvey Weinstein’s abuse of women … the remarkable thing is that NBC is still lying about it but more elaborately. … They had the whole thing nailed and they suppressed it and it protected Weinstein.”
Carlson somehow tied the Weinstein story to NBC “lying” about the infamous Access Hollywood video “which they leaked to the Washington Post on the eve of a presidential debate in order to influence the outcome of that debate and the election.”
Carlson seemed more disturbed by the timing of the leak than the fact that the video showed Donald Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women in it. In fact, I don’t recall a single time Carlson ever showed any concern about any of the many other allegations of sexual abuse by Trump.
“We decided to investigate” NBC, Carlson declared. He must have the worst investigative team in cable news. The only actual facts that the “TCT Investigates” team seem to have uncovered was that Weinstein had a history of using private investigators to “unearth damaging information about people who threatened him.” So did Fox, by the way.
“Did [Weinstein] do that to the leadership of NBC? People close to the story believe that he did,” Carlson said suggestively.
What does that mean? Carlson did not say that anyone who believes so had any knowledge. For a guy who also complained about NBC’s lack of transparency (which Carlson did in this segment), that’s awfully opaque.
“Some within the company believe that Weinstein threatened to reveal damaging information about NBC’s then-biggest star, Matt Lauer,” Carlson continued. Again, what does “some within the company mean?” An old pal of Tucker? Some random intern? Carlson added that NBC had answered some questions put to them by his “investigative team” but “ignored our question about Matt Lauer completely.”
“That’s interesting,” Carlson added, suggesting it indicated some kind of guilt that I’m sure he’d never tolerate from someone saying the same about Trump's refusal to release his tax returns or Melania Trump's refusal to answer questions about her immigration history.
Carlson next went after NBC News host Chuck Todd with more fact-free supposition: "How many people within the hierarchy of NBC knew about all of this? One obvious person to ask is Chuck Todd," Carlson said accusingly. "How could he not know what was happening inside his own company? … Of course Chuck Todd knew."
"Is squelching first person accounts of sexual assault by powerful men consistent with Chuck Todd’s view of journalism?" Carlson continued. "Why didn’t he quit over it? Or is it better to shut up and pretend that sexual assault didn’t happen in the hopes of keeping the highest-paying job he’ll ever have? Maybe that’s the answer. We don’t know for sure because Chuck Todd didn’t respond to our questions when we reached out today but we’ll call again."
Well, when Carlson does call again, I hope Todd or someone at NBC reminds Carlson of the video below, in which he and Sean Hannity fondly reminisced about a sanitized version of sexual predator Ailes after he died.
Watch Carlson’s hypocrisy below, from the September 4, 2018 Tucker Carlson Tonight. Underneath, watch him squelch the truth about Ailes, from the May 18, 2017 Tucker Carlson Tonight.