Tucker Carlson is called out for fake news over claims spies are tracking him to take show off air

Tucker Carlson has been called out for fake news after he claimed federal spies are tracking him in a bid to get his show off the air.

Posting on Twitter, the National Security Agency (the subject of Carlson’s spying accusations) posted a statement saying Carlson’s allegations were “untrue” and that he had “never been an intelligence target”. They said:

Why were they compelled to do so? Well on Monday, Carlson said the agency was “monitoring” his “electronic communications”. He said he had been contacted by a whistleblower who had “warned” him and that the whistleblower had details about a story he was working on that could “only have come” from Carlson’s texts and emails.

“There is no other possible source for that information,” Carlson alleged. “The Biden administration is spying on us, we have confirmed that.”

At the time, people were sceptical:

And now the NSA has comprehensively shut him down. Their statement added: “NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States.

“NSA may not target a foreign citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting.”

It is by far not the first time that Carlson has used his show to make odd claims. He has called former US President Barack Obama a “hater”, because... why not? And he attracted criticism after he appeared to defend Derek Chauvin, after the George Floyd verdict.

At the end of his rant on Monday, Carlson said he had submitted questions to the agency to get to the bottom of the story.

It seems like the NSA will continue to rebuff him.