Tucker Carlson Appears to Attack Fox News Reporter Jen Griffin in Wild Rant Denying Assad Gas Attacks On Civilians

Fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson joined comedian Adam Carolla on his podcast this week and discussed a range of topics, including Carlson’s take on the media. At one point in the hour-long interview, Carlson appeared to take aim at his former Fox News colleague Jennifer Griffin and the U.S. military – claiming that the Pentagon “lied” about Syrian strongman Bashar Al-Assad gassing his own people during the civil war in the country that has left over half a million people dead and millions more displaced.

“What’s your take on a Wolf Blitzer type?” Carolla asked Carlson to begin the exchange.

As Carlson laughed hysterically, Carolla added, “I’m always like why would he do this? Why would he say a bunch of stuff he doesn’t believe or he must know is untrue?”

“You know, I worked with Wolf for years, never had a problem with him. He’s always nice. You know, no one wants to hear it. And I’m sure most people won’t believe it. But I can tell you, having lived it for many years, it’s true. The intel agencies have a big effect on what is broadcast on television and what you see on Facebook and Google,” Carlson replied.

“And, you know, there are a lot of anchors, who, including people I know well and have worked with at different networks. I’m thinking of one in particular, a national security reporter who was just a mouthpiece for the Pentagon in the CIA and is knowingly telling lies on their behalf,” Carlson continued, adding:

It’s very, very common. Very common. And I can think of a number of people at CNN who I know for a fact are doing that exact thing. And so, I mean, they’re reading government propaganda from the intel agencies knowingly, and I’m sure they’ve got some internal rationale that allows them to get up in the morning and face themselves despite having done something that dishonest.

But I’m just telling you, bottom line, I know that is that is true. I’m not speculating at all. And in particular on the national security stuff. There are very well-known national security reporters, and I’m thinking of one female national security reporter in particular who just reads lies from the national security state.

Carlson appeared to be talking about Griffin, a veteran national security correspondent at Fox, whose reporting often debunked Carlson’s outlandish claims on his highly-rated opinion show.

In late February of 2022, Griffin did an on-air fact check of Colonel Doug Macgregor, a favorite guest of Carlson’s who has wrongly claimed for many months that Russia was on the cusp of victory in its invasion of Ukraine. A few days later on his show in early March, Carlson brought on Macgregor and introduced him by noting he was being denounced by “so-called reporters you see on television” who act “secretly as a flack for Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon.”

“There is an awful lot of lying going on, an unprecedented amount of lying,” Carlson concluded. In the days that followed, Carlson appeared to take another swipe at Griffin after she cited Pentagon sources to debunk a Russian-backed conspiracy theory that the U.S. was running secret bioweapons labs in Ukraine – a claim Carlson promoted that has since been widely debunked.

“And it’s wildly frustrating and it would just make me mad. I mean, even if I don’t agree with the lies. Okay. But even if I did agree with the lies, I would be offended because they’re lies. They’re lies. Like when, you know, with CIA and the Pentagon were claiming that Bashar al-Assad used poison gas against his own people,” Carlson continued in his lengthy answer to Carolla.

“There was no evidence that was true. I mean, maybe it was true. There was no evidence it was true. None. Zero. And I called them out and they could not provide any evidence,” Carlson said, adding, “it was a big deal, and we killed a lot of people in response. We sent in missiles and killed a lot of people. We took human life in response to that claim.”

Notably, Carlson flubs two key facts in this claim.

First of all, Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis made clear in February of 2018 that the U.S. had yet to verify recent accusations of Syrian government gas attacks, even though the UN and other countries had confirmed Assad gassed hundreds of his own people back in 2013. So, the idea that the Pentagon “lied” doesn’t carry much water as it was the Pentagon’s leadership offering initial skepticism and insisting on investigating before jumping to conclusions, despite reports and images of dead civilians in Syria.

Secondly, Mattis did publicly confirm the attacks months later and in the years since reports from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the UN, and governments such as France, the UK, and the U.S. have all confirmed Assad launched multiple gas attacks.

“And it was, as far as I can tell, a lie. And every national security reporter, every channel repeated it uncritically,” concluded Carlson, parroting claims he made in a controversial 2018 monologue. He then ended the rant by accusing the Biden administration of blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline and claiming national security journalists all “knew Russia didn’t do it.”

Watch the full clip above.