On the July 14, 2022 edition of his then-primetime broadcast, Tucker Carlson launched a tirade against the New York Times for debunking his conspiracy about a man named Ray Epps. Carlson accused Epps, who attended the pro-Trump rallies in Washington on January 6 but was not found to have breached the Capitol, of being an undercover federal agent in an attempt to demonstrate the Capitol riot was an intentional setup to justify the persecution of conservatives as domestic terrorists.
Exactly a year later, Carlson – now having been shown the door at Fox News and facing a defamation lawsuit from Epps – doubled down on his conspiracy theory and praised Fox News executives for their unwavering support of his show despite both internal and external criticism of his conspiracy theories. (This is not the first time Carlson or his team bragged about the free reign they experienced at the network.)