2021, where anything is possible, including the apparent need for the federal government to weigh in on Tucker Carlson’s latest conspiracy. After the Fox News host alleged this week that he is being secretly spied on by President Joe Biden’s administration in an effort to take him off the air, the National Security Agency dismissed the claim and essentially said the intelligence community has better things to do.
The agency tweeted its statement just as Carlson’s show aired on Tuesday—the second night in a row that Fox’s highest-rated host informed viewers of the “entirely real” targeting that had come to his attention. Reiterating Monday’s supposed bombshell report of the “Biden administration’s efforts to monitor and intimidate this show,” Carlson on Tuesday stood by his “confirmed” claim but offered no evidence other than alleging that his source, a government whistleblower, “had details from my emails that no one outside the recipient could have known.” Naturally, former President Donald Trump had by then chimed in to call Carlson’s claim “totally believable.”
Asked about the claim aboard Air Force One earlier that day, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that she presumed “everyone on this plane is aware” that the NSA “focuses on foreign threats and individuals who are trying, attempting to do us harm on foreign soil, so that is their purview.” National security attorney Bradley Moss, who has represented multiple whistleblowers, raised further questions about Carlson’s allegations in a Twitter thread:
Carlson on Tuesday claimed Psaki was dodging the question by pointing out the agency’s primary focus and said his team had contacted the NSA and FBI press offices. Stoking fears about the Orwellian notion that he and others at the network latched onto months earlier, Carlson warned viewers: “Some faceless hack in a powerful government spy agency decides he doesn’t like what you think so he’s going to hurt you and there’s nothing you can do about it? That could happen to you.”
The far-fetched story comes as the federal government is under real scrutiny for aggressive leak-hunting practices deployed under Trump. The Trump Justice Department was recently revealed to have covertly obtained phone and email data of reporters from the Washington Post, the New York Times, and CNN—efforts that in some cases continued briefly under Biden. The Biden administration has since committed to ending such practices, disclosures of which sparked First Amendment fears that Carlson now appears to have seized on. “Spying on opposition journalists is incompatible with democracy,” Carlson said Monday.
Monday’s report would have ostensibly prompted network executives to condemn the NSA’s actions—just as newsroom leaders did following the recent DOJ revelations—and been picked up by the network’s news side. Yet CNN’s Oliver Darcy notes that Fox News has stayed silent on the topic; “a search of Fox’s transcripts did not reveal any coverage on Tuesday morning,” and the Fox News website had, by day’s end, added only a transcript of Carlson’s remarks. Fox leadership has not released a statement about the NSA’s supposed behavior. Asked whether Fox News stands by Carlson’s reporting, a spokesperson pointed Vanity Fair back to Tuesday’s segment and declined to comment further.
The surveillance narrative also comes as Carlson’s clout is at an all-time high, with CNN’s Brian Stelter reporting that the prime-time host “generates the single biggest rocket-like spike in ratings across cable news, pretty reliably, practically every weekday” with “more than a million people” tuning in just for him. That reach makes his penchant for pushing conspiracy theories and misinformation all the more consequential, particularly on the heels of a president whose own distrust of government agencies and the media has continued to set the right-wing conversation. “The NSA rarely, if ever, comments publicly on things like this,” CNN national security reporter Zachary Cohen noted. “So you can take that for what it’s worth.”
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