Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed on Monday night that the U.S. 2020 presidential election was not fair. He also accused big tech companies like Google and Facebook of muffling the conservative voices.
Carlson said the election was "rigged" against President Donald Trump in plain sight. His comments came a week after conservatives labelled him a "traitor" for questioning attorney Sidney Powell — now disavowed by Trump's legal team — over lack of proof to support claims that Dominion Voting Systems manipulated the election results in President-elect Joe Biden's favor.
Lack of proof
"The 2020 election was not fair. No honest person would claim that it was fair," Carlson said. "On many levels the system was rigged against one candidate and in favor of another. And it was rigged in ways that were not hidden from view. ... They rigged the election in front of all of us, and nobody did anything about it."
On Friday, Carlson criticized Powell for refusing to provide evidence of voter fraud against Dominion. Among various other claims, Powell said that operators of Dominion voting machines went in and manipulated votes in Biden's favor and deleted votes for Trump, but failed to provide proof for the claim.
"We invited Sidney Powell on the show. We would have given her the whole hour. 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," Carlson said at the time. "Powell did say that electronic voting is dangerous, and she's right, but she never demonstrated that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another. Not one."
However, what followed was a strong backlash from the conservatives and Trump supporters who called Carlson a "traitor" and labelled Fox News "fake news." The network has been slammed by Trump for declaring Biden as the president-elect. He even encouraged his followers to quit watching the news channel and instead turn to the U.S. One America News, a far-right and pro-Trump news cable, and Newsmax.
