Last night, Tucker Carlson released his first episode since being unceremoniously booted by Fox News.
He kicked off his show with a story about the Kakhovka dam collapse in Ukraine.
Carlson’s new show continued with his usual tropes, criticizing the mainstream media’s coverage of the collapse, which he said tried to pin the blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Carlson called the dam attack a “terrorist attack” and joked there was no way Ukraine could have done it—despite the dam being in Russian-controlled territory. In the media’s eyes, Carlson said, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a “living saint” and “without sin.”
The pundit then quickly pivoted to recent news about potential aliens on Earth and used it to, again, criticize the media for not covering it.
“Nobody knows what’s happening. A small group of people control access to all relevant information, and the rest of us don’t know.”
The 10-minute segment got over 61 million views, according to Twitter’s new metric, which hasn’t been the most accurate since it launched.
Tucker’s biggest fans, including Elon Musk, were enthused about the premiere.
One congressman even posted a photo of himself watching.
“Great Ep. 1. Looking forward to Ep. 2!” write Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).
Outside the shine of Fox, though, some people thought Carlson looked like something between a YouTube streamer and a low-budget Alex Jones.
“Without all the fox news writing and jumpcuts and graphics he is just a painfully uncharismatic twitch streamer,” wrote one person.
Carlson’s next episode will drop today.
