Tucker Carlson Hammers NBC for Hypocrisy Over Their Coverage of Trump's 'Crimes'
In an Op-Ed adapted from a monologue on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Carlson argued that the media is exposing its own hypocrisy by overblowing President Donald Trump’s payments to former girlfriends.
He wrote that because Trump was a presidential candidate at the time the payments were made, “federal prosecutors and their lackeys on TV are telling us … his payments constitute a campaign finance violation, even though the money apparently didn’t come from his campaign.”
Carlson’s monologue described how “the professional hysterics on cable news” had “finally uncovered the president’s crimes,” and they have nothing to do with Russian collusion or Vladimir Putin.
“Here’s how The New York Times describes it: ‘President Trump directed illegal payments to ward off a potential sex scandal that threatened his chances of winning the White House,’” he said. “In other words, Trump paid off former girlfriends.”
The school of thought seems to be that since he was running for president at the time that the alleged payouts happened, it must constitute campaign finance violation, despite the fact that the payments didn’t come from campaign funds.
“There’s no precedent for that argument, to put it mildly,” Carlson said.
Carlson pointed out that while there has been no proof that the president paid off former girlfriends, even if he did, it’s not necessarily a crime at all.
“The good people of NBC News are disgusted by what Donald Trump did. Paying off female accusers? That’s just wrong. As Nancy Pelosi might say, it’s ‘immoral.’ It’s not something NBC would engage in or tolerate or countenance. Ever,” Carlson said.
“Except possibly under extreme circumstances, like on those occasions when hiding the sexual misbehavior of its high-paid anchors seemed important to quarterly earnings. Or when accused rapist Harvey Weinstein called in for a favor. Or other times, too.
“But those were entirely different circumstances because Donald Trump was not involved. And Trump is a very bad man, even though he once worked at NBC and made tens of millions of dollars for the company. But, again, that was different.”
Carlson said that NBC had forgotten to recently mention the confirmed campaign finance violations that have been committed and the repercussions when the violations were discovered.
The Fox anchor noted Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, to whom he secretly gave a government salary, but the campaign finance violation wasn’t even mentioned, neither were felony charges.
Former President Barack Obama was found guilty of almost $2 million in campaign finance violations and was only given with a $375,000 fine by the Federal Election Commission.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was found to have taken $1 million in “excessive contributions” in 1998, according to Carlson, and was subject to a $138,000 fine but is still in the Senate 20 years later.
Sen. John Edwards “funneled up to a million dollars in donor money to his mistress in the middle of a presidential campaign,” Carlson said, and “never spent a day in jail.”
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