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   Tucker Carlson stokes conspiracies, claims U.S. is 'speeding towards'   
   assassination of Trump   
      
   The comments, presented without evidence, have been picked up by other   
   media personalities on the far-right, including conspiracy theorist Alex   
   Jones and former Fox News host Dan Bongino.   
      
   Sept. 1, 2023, 1:13 PM EDT   
   By Daniel Arkin   
      
   Tucker Carlson, the far-right media personality who was fired by Fox News   
   earlier this year, claimed without evidence this week that the United   
   States is “speeding towards” the assassination of former President Donald   
   Trump — a comment that has started to gain traction with prominent voices   
   on the conservative fringe.   
      
   In an interview with the comedian and podcaster Adam Carolla, Carlson was   
   asked to comment on what “the future holds” for Trump, who is leading the   
   field for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Carlson   
   proceeded to rail against the fact that the former president was twice   
   impeached and faces four indictments.   
      
   “If you begin with criticism, then you go to protest, then you go to   
   impeachment, now you go to indictment and none of them work. What’s next?   
   Graph it out, man. We’re speeding towards assassination, obviously. … They   
   have decided — permanent Washington, both parties have decided — that   
   there’s something about Trump that’s so threatening to them, they just   
   can’t have him,” Carlson said in the interview, which was posted online   
   Wednesday.   
      
   Carlson's lawyer did not provide comment for this article.   
      
   The comments have been picked up by other media personalities on the far   
   right, including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and former Fox News host   
   Dan Bongino, who now posts content on Rumble, an online video platform   
   known for hosting far-right personalities. The comments also circulated on   
   the pro-Trump internet forum Patriots.win, also known as TheDonald.   
      
   Jones, who made similar comments about a hypothetical assassination   
   earlier this year, discussed Carlson’s remarks on his show, Infowars.   
      
   The most recent episode of Bongino’s podcast is titled “Speeding Towards   
   Assassination?” In the episode description published on the Apple Podcasts   
   platform, he asserts without evidence that the “plot to take out Trump is   
   metastasizing.” Bongino’s show is among the most popular on podcasts in   
   Apple’s rankings, according to Chartable, a podcast analytics company.   
      
   In far-right and conspiratorial circles, Trump has long been presented as   
   the target of a vast plot orchestrated in part by Washington’s “deep   
   state” as well as the Democratic establishment and the news media. The   
   former president has embraced this worldview, referring to himself as a   
   “victim” and the center of a “witch hunt.”   
      
   Daniel Jones, the president of the nonpartisan research organization   
   Advance Democracy, said Carlson’s comments are an example of the kind of   
   rhetoric that can incite real-world violence.   
      
   “Those of us who follow and track extremism have seen that the rhetoric   
   around the indictments of Trump is very similar to the rhetoric we saw   
   prior to the Capitol insurrection,” Jones said. “I think everyone in this   
   space is concerned about what the next 12 to 18 months look like.”   
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   Carlson’s remarks came a week after he hosted an interview with Trump that   
   was uploaded to X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter. In   
   that interview, which was posted during the first debate of the Republican   
   presidential primary, Carlson asked Trump whether he was “worried that   
   they’re going to try and kill you.”   
      
   “Why wouldn’t they try and kill you? Honestly,” Carlson asked. In   
   response, Trump said: “They’re savage animals. They’re people that are   
   sick.”   
      
   Carlson was fired by Fox News in April days after the network and its   
   parent company agreed to pay almost $800 million to Dominion Voting   
   Systems to avert a high-stakes defamation trial. The network did not   
   provide a public explanation for why he was ousted. He was one of the   
   network’s biggest stars and widely seen as one of the leading figures in a   
   conservative movement reshaped by the rise of Trump. In the wake of his   
   departure, Carlson started posting episodes of a new political commentary   
   show on X.   
      
   Trump faced an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Las Vegas   
   in June 2016, a month before he formally secured the GOP presidential   
   nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Michael   
   Sandford, a 20-year-old British man, tried to grab a police officer’s gun   
   at the campaign event and told authorities he wanted to kill Trump.   
      
   Four presidents have been assassinated while in office, and two were   
   wounded in assassination attempts. Trump's immediate predecessors faced   
   various violent threats on their lives.   
      
   Carlson faced intense scrutiny last year when extremism experts drew a   
   link between his on-air statements and the "great replacement" white   
   nationalist views espoused by a gunman who killed 10 people in Buffalo,   
   New York.   
      
   He also attracted fierce criticism for spreading political misinformation,   
   supporting conspiracy theories about the outcome of the 2020 presidential   
   election, minimizing the severity of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol   
   and attacking journalists at other outlets.   
      
      
      
   https://www.nbcnews.com/news/tucker-carlson-says-us-speeding-   
   assassination-   
   trump-stoking-conspiraci-rcna102976   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)