Tucker Carlson Repeats the Same Old Script on Twitter—Only ...

On Tuesday evening, Tucker Carlson aired the first episode of his new show on Twitter, which he used to launch a salvo at the “gatekeepers” in mainstream media and “Mr. and Mrs. Cable News Consumer.” The 10-minute installment included numerous remarks that read as veiled jabs against Fox News, where he remains under contract until early 2025 despite the network’s abrupt cancellation of his prime-time show in April. The mere existence of Tucker on Twitter—as his new venture is titled—serves as a middle finger to Rupert Murdoch’s empire, given the host’s ongoing contractual dispute over a noncompete provision he signed with Fox.

As for the show itself, it appears to be a hit—just like Carlson’s old program. As of Wednesday afternoon, his premiere has amassed nearly 79 million views. However, that metric is likely heavily inflated, as Twitter owner Elon Musk personally explained while remarking on the success of the debut. “It simply counts if you saw the post on the X/Twitter app or via web browser, not how long you watched,” he wrote. In other words, users who merely scroll past a clip—but don’t watch it—are still added to the viewer tally. (YouTube, by contrast, only counts viewers who watch for at least 30 seconds.) Still, Carlson’s wide reach on Twitter can be seen in the episode’s other engagement indicators, with its combined likes, retweets, and bookmarks reaching more than 880,000 less than 24 hours after release.

Perhaps more important than the metrics, Twitter offers Carlson the ability to engage with his millions of loyal fans and potentially maintain his perch atop the right-wing media hierarchy. Seated in front of wooden shelves and a rack of pool cues—a rustic cabin set similar to the one used on his Fox Nation talk show—Carlson laid out his issues du jour: UFOs and extraterrestrial life “are actually real”; Senator Lindsey Graham is aroused by the “aroma of death”; and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Washington’s “shifty, dead-eyed Ukrainian friend in the tracksuit,” is a “persecutor of Christians.” He spent much of the video attacking pro-Ukraine elements within the legacy media and the GOP, singling out Graham in particular. The South Carolina Republican, said Carlson, is “so attracted” to Zelenskyy because of their shared appreciation for “the killing of a population.” 

All told, the segment seemed indistinguishable from the hundreds of cold opens he performed for Fox News. But there was something undeniably off about the king of cable news stooping to an underproduced quick-hit internet show: He had no guests to cackle with or at. The lack of outrageous chyrons was noticeable. And it all came to an abrupt end immediately following his monologue. Still, Carlson appeared grateful to have a show at all. “As of today, we’ve come to Twitter,” he said in the closing moments of the video. “We’re told there are no gatekeepers here. If that turns out to be false, we’ll leave. But in the meantime…we’ll be back with much more very soon.”