Tucker Carlson was apparently duped into interviewing a YouTube prankster who was posing as a UK royal family whistleblower.
Amid the current online speculation about the Princess of Wales’s health and whereabouts after undergoing abdominal surgery in January, YouTuber Archie Manners ended up on the show claiming to be a ‘producer of digital content’ who had been fired for doing a poor job photoshopping Middleton’s infamous Mother’s Day photo last week.
Manners had given Carlson and his staff a forged proof of employment document that included a clause stating that Kensington Palace had the right to amputate one of his limbs should he fail his probation period, which went unnoticed by both Carlson nor his staff. It also specified the need for a re-edit of the “previously edited image of Kate to make it look like it was unedited.”
Manners said he was able to get onto the show because he “stroked” his ego with the “bullshit” claim that he would get the exclusive because “mainstream media in the UK wouldn’t touch it.”
We Pranked Tucker Carlson… pic.twitter.com/pGceMRn26t
— Josh Pieters (@joshua_pieters) March 14, 2024
In a clip of Carlson’s interview with Manners, he introduces him by saying: “We’ve done our best to verify that your identity is what you say it is. You’re not a fake [Alexei] Navalny or doing a prank.” At the end of the interview, he said: “That was great, and it was really interesting, too. I did not expect to be as interested in it as I was and that’s because you told such a great story.”
In other news, last month Jon Stewart laid into Carlson for going to Russia to interview Vladimir Putin, the first Putin has given to a Western journalist since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Stewart savaged Carlson for failing to challenge some of Putin’s assertions, and for disingenuously arguing that Russian citizens have an advantage over Americans because groceries are cheaper, something that Carlson claimed made him feel “radicalised”.
“You’re such a dick,” Stewart retorted.
“It will radicalise you, unless you understand basic economics,” he continued. “See, $104 for groceries sounds like a great bargain, unless you realise that Russians earn less than $200 dollars a week.”
“But that’s the kind of context that a – what did you call yourself earlier – a journalist would’ve provided. But here’s the reality: you fucking know all this, because you aren’t as dumb as your face would have us believe. Perhaps if your handlers had allowed, you would’ve seen there is a hidden fee to your cheap groceries and orderly streets. Ask Alexei Navalny or any of his supporters.”
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