The former Fox News chief political correspondent has joined a chorus of voices calling for serious action against one of the network’s most prominent voices: Tucker Carlson.
During an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta on Saturday, former Fox reporter Carl Cameron was asked, “Do you think the Murdoch Tucker family running Fox will ever pull the plug?”
Cameron, 60, went on to liken Carlson’s broadcasts to a fake fire scream in a crowded movie theater.
Cameron said: “The fact is, if you disturb the peace by starting a riot in a movie theater, the cops will arrest you and you could end up in jail or worse.”
One of Fox News’ most popular anchors, Carlson has grappled for years with allegations that he encouraged white nationalist talking points
Cameron urged President Joe Biden to take serious action against Carlson and social media.
He said, “The President needs to take stronger action and sooner or later law enforcement and the US government need to stop lying because it causes people to die.”
Cameron added: “It’s not just Fox, it’s social media in general. It’s on the internet. And we have to remember that a lot of what we read comes from people who aren’t Americans, pretending to be Americans to make it worse.”
Carlson, host of a nightly self-titled show on Fox, has come under renewed scrutiny after the May 14 Buffalo convenience store shooting that killed 10 African Americans.
It has emerged that the shooting suspect, Payton S. Gendron, was a subscriber to the white nationalist The Great Replacement Theory.
Carlson has been repeatedly accused of promoting this theory on his show.
It states that non-white immigration is a liberal plot to change the cultural landscape of the United States.
Carl Cameron did not directly accuse Cameron of preaching on his show The Great Replacement Theory
Cameron, who left Fox News in 2017, has hit out at the network’s sponsorship of opinion shows
Cameron, who left Fox in 2017, suggested Carlson be censored and removed from the platform for “spreading untruths that cause harm and violent, violent hatred.”
While at Fox News, Cameron earned the nickname “Campaign Carl” while following various political campaigns across the country.
After leaving the network, Cameron launched his own news website, Front Page Live.
Cameron did not directly accuse Cameron of preaching on his show The Great Replacement Theory.
Saturday’s comments were that Cameron doubled down on comments he made in a May 17 interview with MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace.
In that interview, Cameron said that President Biden should “take some names and put people in jail” after last week’s massacre of white supremacists in Buffalo.
Cameron first began criticizing his former employer in 2019 after Shepherd Smith left Fox.
Cameron has come out in the past to criticize Carlson’s coverage of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and the Covid-19 vaccine
The network responded with a statement claiming Cameron had been unable to show up for work regularly, adding that they had shown him “compassion, patience and kindness” during his “numerous personal struggles,” so Mediaite.
During last month’s MSNBC interview, Wallace asked Cameron how Fox executives might deal with the fact that so many of Payton Gendron’s beliefs reflect issues raised on Carlson’s show.
He responded by saying, “I can’t even imagine it. That’s partly why I got out of there.’
This isn’t the first time Cameron has criticized Carlson by name, either. In July 2021, he appeared on CNN’s “New Day” to accuse the host of spreading misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine.
He said of Carlson’s coverage, “This is not news. It’s gas lighting. It’s propaganda.”
Cameron also criticized Fox News for producing Carlson’s documentary about the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, titled “Patriot Purge.” He called the documentary “really scary” and a “betrayal of the audience,” reports the Huffington Post.
In 2019, Cameron told CNN in an interview that Fox News’ prime time opinion was too much for him, which led to his departure from the network.