Tucker Carlson's viewers call him a 'traitor' for slamming Trump's election fraud lawyer Sidney Powell after he demanded she produce a 'single piece of evidence' that 8M votes were stolen from the president
Viewers of Tucker Carlson are angered with the Fox News host after he criticized Trump attorney Sidney Powell and called out the lack of evidence to back up her claims of widespread voter fraud.
Carlson was harshly criticized on social media and branded as ‘fake news’ and a ‘traitor’ after segments on his Thursday and Friday night show slammed Powell for not providing the network with evidence to prove her claims.
He appeared to doubt her allegations that voting software was used by Democrats to steal eight million votes from Trump on election day, despite his own show previously having staunchly backed the president in his vendetta against the election result.
Carlson was accused by viewers of abandoning the cause as right-wing fans continue to abandon Fox, claiming that it is also showing bias against Trump.
Viewers of Tucker Carlson are angered with the Fox News host after he criticized Trump attorney Sidney Powell and called out the lack of evidence for her claims of voter fraud
Trump's election fraud Sidney Powell has refused to offer Fox News any evidence to support the claims she made during a press conference Thursday, pictured above
Carlson was criticized as being 'fake news' and a 'traitor' for his segments on Powell
An update on our reporting on Sidney Powell’s voter fraud investigation. Watch. pic.twitter.com/ho6Dkv0IXf
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 21, 2020
An update on our reporting on Sidney Powell’s voter fraud investigation. Watch. pic.twitter.com/ho6Dkv0IXf
Powell herself hit out at Carlson on Friday in response to his first segment and she continued to feud with him online on Saturday, retweeting criticism of the host and pushing further claims of fraud with no proof.
‘@TuckerCarlson IS FAKE NEWS SQUAD!’ tweeted businessman Malik Obama on the segment on Powell. ‘Master of Bait and Switch.’
Some viewers accused Carlson of letting his ‘ego’ get in the way and criticized him for believing that he was entitled to have the evidence shown to him.
They also appeared to insinuate that Carlson was attempting to ruin Trump’s chances of overturning the election.
‘Tonight, Tucker threw one of his Fox Globalist directed temper tantrums .... what's new? FACT: @SidneyPowell1 & @RudyGiuliani first priority is to accumulate evidence with the sole objective of presenting that documentation to The Court & not some guy who is owned by The Syndicate,’ accused health care policy analyst Dr Dave Janda.
‘As far as evidence, Tucker isn't dumb... he is in fact owned. His goal was to get @SidneyPowell1 to show her sources & methods. In the process it would have put them in harm's way & possibly inadmissible in court. Besides the last evidence Tucker had he lost it in the mail: Busted!’
Tucker Carlson received a stream of criticism from the right for his Powell segments
‘Tucker @TuckerCarlson thinks he deserves evidence before the court of law. This is ego. Sorry Tucker, you don’t dictate where and when evidence is shown despite your bullying @SidneyPowell1,’ added Bryan Eure.
‘This show is no different than the rest of @foxnews.’
‘Tucker knew exactly what he was doing,’ accused another.
General Mike Flynn, who Powell represents, added: ‘@TuckerCarlson you are not being genuine in how you represented yourself to @SidneyPowell1 Why are you acting like a “Bell Ringer” and not a real journalist.’
Some social media users on Saturday claimed to present Carlson with evidence as both Trump and Powell tweeted that they would have more information on alleged fraud in Georgia coming soon.
‘#Georgia is squarely in our crosshairs for massive election fraud & corruption. Take note @GovKemp @GaSecofState,’ Powell claimed.
‘@TuckerCarlson hate to interrupt your, uh, counting, of house shopping or whatever it is you’re doing, but have you seen the multiple videos of ballots being shredded en masse today and yesterday in Georgia??? #EVIDENCE’ wrote Twitter user Jon Robberson.
Some accused Carlson of letting his 'ego' believe he deserved to see the evidence
He was also accused of attempting to ruin Trump's chances of changing the result
Powell continued with her claims of voter fraud in Georgia on Saturday
Some Twitter user claimed that they were presenting him with the evidence he needed
Others accused him and the media of only caring about evidence when it suited them.
‘The Media and Dominion have provided Zero evidence of a free and fair election,’ wrote conservative lawyer Ivan E Raiklin.
‘I wish the media had cared about evidence when Brett Kavanaugh was being smeared as a sex fiend or when Trump was being smeared as a Russian asset,’ added podcast host Eddie Zipperer.
In some corners of the internet, the backlash against Tucker was intense with Right Wing Watch reporting that he was being ‘pizza gated’ by radical right-wing conspiracy theorist Rick Wiles.
They were referencing to the debunked conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 presidential election cycle.
It claimed that the hacked emails of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, contained coded messages that connected several high-ranking Democratic Party officials and U.S. restaurants with an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring.
One of the establishments allegedly involved was the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C.
Others accused the media of failing to provide evidence that the election was fair
The backlash against Tucker was intense with Right Wing Watch reporting that he was being ‘pizza gated’ by radical right-wing conspiracy theorist Rick Wiles
The back-and-forth between the highly rated cable news host and Powell began on Thursday night, when Carlson called out Powell on his show after she once again raised startling allegations of a massive nationwide voter fraud but refused to provide any evidence.
The extended monologue came after Powell joined a bizarre press conference with Rudy Giuliani and other Trump lawyers, where the group claimed a 'massive' fraud but said it couldn't provide evidence out of concern for witnesses who have provided sworn affidavits.
Powell made some of the day's most extraordinary claims – including alleging without evidence that Republicans and Democrats 'paid money to have election results fixed.'
In addition to claiming 'massive influence of communist money' in election interference, she raised debunked claims about the smart-matic technology software in Dominion Voting Systems machines.
She also claimed Hugo Chavez (who died in 2013) was part of a group of communists from China and Venezuela helping to rig the election in Joe Biden's favor.
'What we are really dealing with here and uncovering more by the day is the massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba and likely China in the interference with our elections here in the United States,' she said.
Carlson reacted on Thursday to Powell's claims, which she made during a Washington, DC, news conference alongside Rudy Giuliani , President Trump's personal attorney who is spearheading legal efforts to contest the election results
The president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, also made wild allegations of voter fraud while suffering a hair-dye malfunction at Thursday's press conference
And she claimed that operators of Dominion voting machines went in and injected votes for Biden while deleting votes for Trump. She has shown no proof of her claims.
She said she will 'release the Kraken' when it comes to proving voter fraud - a phrase that trended on Twitter.
Carlson stopped short of calling Powell's claims outlandish – but he did note that she refused repeated invitations to defend them.
'We invited Sidney Powell on the show. We would have given her the whole hour,' Carlson told his prime-time audience on Thursday night.
'But she never sent us any evidence, despite a lot of requests, polite requests. Not a page. When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her.'
He said his show approached the subject with an open mind.
'We did not dismiss any of it. We don't dismiss anything anymore,' Carlson said.
'This may be the single most open-minded show on television. We literally do UFO segments.'
Carlson said on Thursday that Powell wouldn't share evidence. According to the Fox News host, Powell then asked his staff to stop contacting her and she hit out at him on Friday
He noted Powell's comments that 'I think we'll find he had at least 80 million votes,' then played a long quote where she tried to describe the massive vote-stealing operation aided by left-wing enablers overseas.
Carlson noted that the plot 'would amount to the single greatest crime in American history.'
But Powell never provided the evidence, then shut down communications.
'She never demonstrated that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another. Not one,' he said.
Powell hit back at Carlson during a phone-in segment with Maria Bartiromo on her Fox Business Network show on Friday morning.
‘How do you respond to Tucker Carlson?’ Bartiromo asked Powell.
‘Did you get angry with the show because they texted you and asked you to please provide evidence of what you’re alleging?’
‘No, I didn’t get angry with the request to provide evidence,’ Powell said in response.
‘In fact, I sent an affidavit to Tucker that I had not even attached to a pleading yet to help him understand the situation, and I offered him another witness who could explain the math and the statistical evidence far better than I can.
‘I’m not really a numbers person.’
Powell then added: ‘He was insulting, demanding and rude, and I told him not to contact me again, in those terms.’
'I fully expect we will be able to prove all of it in court within the next two weeks ... We have more evidence right now than half the prison population is imprisoned on, of this egregious fraud,' she claimed.
'The evidence is really stunning, Maria,' she told host Bartiromo.
However, Carlson hit out at her again on Friday night, challenging her to supply a single piece of evidence regarding the claims.
'We've heard from a lot of people about that segment, including people in the White House and people close to the president,' Carlson said on Friday, referencing his remarks on Thursday about Powell.
'Like us, they have concluded this election was not fair. Like us, they are willing to believe any explanation for what happened,' Carlson said.
He then added: 'Like us, they have not seen a single piece of evidence showing that software changed votes.'
Powell also represents former U.S. national security adviser, Michael Flynn
Trump also continued to claim fraud on Saturday while offering no evidence
Carlson said that while it 'might have happened,' no evidence has been produced to prove it happened.
'And by "they," we are including other members of Donald Trump’s own legal team.
'They have not seen Powell's evidence either - no testimony from employees inside the software companies, no damning internal documents, no copies of the software itself, so that’s where we are.'
Carlson then noted that Powell has said she can prove her claims.
'As far as we are concerned, that is great news,' he said.
'If Sidney Powell can prove that technology companies switched millions of votes and stole the presidential election, she will have almost single-handedly uncovered the greatest crime in the history of this country and no one will be more grateful for that than us.'
Powell and Giuliani have since canceled scheduled appearances on Jeanine Pirro's Saturday show.
Trump's allegations of massive voting fraud have been dismissed by a succession of judges and refuted by state election officials and an arm of his own administration's Homeland Security Department.
Many of his campaign's lawsuits have been thrown out of court.
A coalition of state election officials and the Trump administration's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have declared that the election was the most secure in history.
Trump responded by firing the head of his agency, Chris Krebs.
Yet he and his campaign continued with the claims Saturday as they tweeted that they had information on fraud in Georgia coming soon.
Biden was declared the winner of the state this week after a hand recount.
The result in Georgia gave Biden 306 electoral votes, a total that Trump called a 'landslide' when states delivered him that number in 2016.
Biden also achieved victory in key states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona, topping the threshold of 270 electoral votes to clinch the presidency with room to spare.