Democrats Accuse Tucker Carlson of Treason

BUCK: These are very complicated and very serious issues and questions, and we’ll continue to try to be as fair-minded, honest, and — where necessary — nuanced about this as we can. One place you’re not seeing any nuance, though or you’re not seeing any of the intellectual honesty — a better way, I think, to put it — is in the Democrat-aligned media there are enemies that they have chosen, domestic enemies suddenly.

Oh, and the Democrat Party as a whole. Democrat officials, people who are and elected are supposed to be — in this moment in time — beyond petty partisanship. We’d like to think so. Here is Claire McCaskill, for example, really echoing, Clay, in a sense, some of the insane comments made on The View television show yesterday.

Which people could say, “Buck, why do you and Clay talk about that stuff?” Because they have millions of people who watch them, and if they’re allowed to say these things without us pointing out how idiotic and unfair and ridiculous it is, more people are likely to believe it. So at least we have to give the other point of view, or the reality point of view. Here is Claire McCaskill, though, saying that Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, our friend, is really, really close to treason.

SEN. MCCASKILL: I think he also needs to warn America about allowing Putin to use them for his propaganda, and I particularly hope he mentions the false flag about biological weapons in Ukraine so that all the Republicans hear that Tucker Carlson and others are really — uh, really close to treason in terms of what they’re saying and parroting, uh, what is Putin’s dream, that he could have American media spreading his propaganda in the middle of his murderous assault on innocent children and civilians in Ukraine.

CLAY: It’s crazy, Buck. Like, let’s be honest. In the marketplace of ideas, sometimes there are gonna be people that say things that you disagree with. And I don’t even know that you need to focus right now on what’s going on between Ukraine and Russia or what Tucker Carlson says — and, by the way, this is something that seems to bubble up, Buck, every, what, few months, it feels like?

Joe Rogan was in the crosshairs. “Oh, we’ve gotta cancel Joe Rogan! This is unacceptable what he’s saying on his podcast.” There’s a big difference between “I disagree with you, but,” which is what the marketplace of ideas is based on which what we try to do on this show. We call out people who make what we believe to be bad arguments.

But we’re not saying, “Hey, the government should investigate them. The government should arrest them. They shouldn’t be allowed to have that opinion,” and that, to me, is the difference between the marketplace of ideas and cancel culture. And what regularly happens with Tucker Carlson is he finds himself in the crosshairs of an organized campaign that is designed to disallow him to say the things that he’s saying on his show.

It’s part of the larger attack on Fox News because, frankly, if Fox News didn’t exist, there would be — I mean this honestly — no viable counterarguments against CNN and MSNBC. And they are trying to shut down Fox News on a regular basis. The irony here is — and this is what I talk about with our show, too, ’cause I think we’re speaking to a lot of these people.

Buck, more Democrats watch Tucker Carlson’s show oftentimes — 25 to 54, according to recent data — than watch MSNBC or CNN. So this idea that Tucker — and also I think, frankly, this show — represent some far right-wing, fringe element of the country, when the reality is much of the audience that is listening to us right now is not necessarily traditionally Republican voters alone. There’s lots of independents. There’s lots of Democrats, which reflects how far left wing the loony bin version of Democrat Party has been. And they’re the ones that are saying Tucker needs to be shut down.

BUCK: And it’s all over the place. It’s in the media. It’s from members of Congress. It’s U.S. senators. Here’s Dick Durbin, again, calling out Tucker Carlson for, well, you know what.

SEN. DURBIN: I had to hesitate for a moment and say, “When I hear apologists for Putin in America, I wonder who they are and what they’re made of.” Tucker Carlson is one (sputters) that even the Russians are recommending that their friends in the media listen to, making excuses on Fox for Vladimir Putin. There are no excuses. None acceptable on the subject. Mr. Carlson should be ashamed of himself.

BUCK: Let me just say, first off, it’s always a tell when people make claims about what you said without saying what you said, right? What apologies has Tucker made. People know. Tucker’s a friend of yours, a friend of mine. What apologies has Tucker made for Putin? None. But they’ll just say things like he’s an apologist. Close to treason how?

Has he ever said anything about rooting against America in the situation? A lot of people would make the case that keeping us out of a war with the nuclear-armed Russia is actually dramatically in favor of America and American national security interests. So that’s a part of it, but I think there’s also — at a deeper level here, Clay — the apparatus.

There’s the Fauci covid apparatus, there’s the national security apparatus. They have failed catastrophically, obviously, to contain Russian aggression. For all the talk… Think of all the summits, think of all the meetings, all the sat downs with NATO and sitting around in Brussels and sitting around in parts of Europe, European capitals figuring out how to “contain” Vladimir Putin.

People are going on CNN, writing op-eds in the New York Times, “Here’s how we contain Putin.” They failed. Their talks about possibly bringing Ukraine into NATO? That clearly was involved in Putin’s… You know, it’s not a moral question; it’s a reality question. Clearly that was involved in Putin’s calculation here at some level. That’s just a statement of fact.

That’s why Zelensky has already said we probably have to accept we will not be able to join NATO. Today, he’s saying this. So we can either have big boy and big girl discussions about the realities of what has happened here, or we can allow the people who are supposed to be so smart, Clay — the so-called experts in national security, sitting on the Senate Intelligence Committee, going on CNN. They failed miserably here. We’re in the midst of a war. It’s quite obvious.

CLAY: Think about how expansive this definition of treason is, too. You’re charging someone with treason that wouldn’t say publicly to the entire country on a nightly show or a on a radio show or whatever it might be. We’re not talking about some sort of subterfuge which would be scary in and of itself when the government is investigating a media figure and ends up charging them with treason.

This is such an expansionist and terrifying idea, it should be, to anyone who believes in the marketplace of ideas, in the very essence of debate in this country. The idea that you would charge someone with treason for what they are publicly saying to the American audience on a nightly basis, or a daily basis represents a radical expansionist idea of what treason is.

Think about it, Buck. You worked in intelligence. It’s one thing if, “Hey, we’re catching somebody who is working behind the scenes to provide classified information to the Russians,” right? That’s kind of the essence, I believe, of what many people would believe is treason: Spying, something of that essence. Treason being something that you say on a radio show or a television show, where everybody can hear your arguments and dissect them?

And, by the way, ridicule them, agree with them, disagree with them. That’s the essence of whether a democracy is. So for all these Democrats out there who are arguing, “Oh, our democracy is under siege,” trying to arrest and charge someone with a crime who has a different opinion than you do about a major international incident that is going on right now, is a fundamental threat to the entirety of our ability to make rational decisions in this country — which, by the way, we failed on the last two years as it pertains to covid partly because they didn’t want people to be able to argue against lockdowns.

BUCK: That’s absolutely true, and the elites right now are creating a narrative of anyone who wants to really push back against further U.S. involvement — in a conflict that even a few weeks ago I think a lot of people would have said, “We definitely don’t want to get into that” —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — is betraying America? You know, I’ve had to go to visit friends in Walter Reed hospital. I’ve seen what happens when we get involved in conflicts abroad that often, in that case, didn’t even have a clear strategy as to why we were there. And you sit there and you say, “It’s treason to try to prevent the United States from getting involved in a hot war with the third largest military in the world with thousands of nuclear missiles? That’s treason?”

It’s not like there… If they were attacking America, if they were dropping bombs in Los Angeles, yeah, maybe you could argue it’s treason to say, “Well, let’s just let the Russians have their way.” I thought we all knew this is not our war. But somehow trying to make sure it doesn’t become our war, the elites — who couldn’t stop this from happening — are saying, “You are betraying the country.” It’s very dangerous stuff.

CLAY: Not only you’re betraying the country, some people regarding he could be arrested for it. Think about how wild of a precedent that is. Someone who is a clear person who is in the opinion business working at a news outlet is going to be, what, arrested for what they’re saying on broadcast television that everyone can see? It’s madness, absolute madness to even argue that.