Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday alleged that the Biden administration was “spying” on him in an effort to “take this show off the air.”
The television personality said that the “war on terror is now being waged against American citizens.”
The host went on to say that his show had heard from a “whistleblower from within the U.S. government” who informed Carlson and producers that the National Security Agency (NSA) is “monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.”
“Now, that’s a shocking claim, and ordinarily we’d be skeptical of it,” Carlson told viewers.
“The whistleblower, who is in a position to know, repeated back to us information about a story that we are working on that could have only come directly from my texts and emails,” he added. “There’s no other possible source for that information, period.”
The host then argued that “the NSA captured that information without our knowledge and did it for political reasons.”
Carlson said his show had sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request related to any alleged information gathered by the NSA and other agencies on his show.
The television personality offered no additional evidence to support his claim, which drew scrutiny from several users on social media.
The Hill has reached out to the NSA for comment.
Carlson’s comments came in a segment that began by discussing remarks from President Biden that top law enforcement officials have identified white supremacy as one of the greatest threats in the U.S.
Carlson said he spoke to FBI agents who reportedly told him there are very “few crimes committed by avowed white supremacists.”
“Americans are, in fact, much more likely to die from a lightning strike than at the hands of a white supremacist,” Carlson argued. “White supremacy may be ugly, many opinions are, but it is not a meaningful threat to the nation.”