Why Did Tucker Carlson Echo Russian Bioweapons Propaganda On His Top-Rated Show?

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

News, Daily News, Politics

4.4 • 25.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2022

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Russia pushed a conspiracy theory that the United States is helping Ukraine develop biological weapons. There's no evidence for that, but the idea did end up on Tucker Carlson Tonight — a Fox News show that reaches, on average, more than 3.5 million viewers with each episode. How did the conspiracy theory find its way from the Kremlin to American conservative media?

This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, voting reporting Miles Parks, and domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Julia and I just dropped my 17-month-old baby
0:03.9	off-it-day care for the first time.
0:05.8	And then I went on my first jog in 17 months.
0:09.3	You're listening to the NPR Politics Podcast, which was recorded at
0:13.7	206 PM Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 29th.
0:18.1	Things may have changed by the time you hear this,
0:20.1	but I will definitely still be working on improving my lung capacity.
0:23.8	All right, here's the show.
0:24.8	I love it.
0:28.3	Those first few moments of liberation when you drop the kid off a daycare.
0:32.6	As much as you love them, they are bliss.
0:34.9	Yeah, that's what springs all about to me too.
0:36.8	It's just getting that cardio back, man.
0:38.8	Winter, a lot of sitting around in winter.
0:41.8	Hey there, this is the NPR Politics Podcast.
0:44.5	I'm Asma Kaleh, I cover the White House.
0:46.7	I'm Miles Parks, I cover voting and misinformation.
0:49.4	And today on the show, how a Russian conspiracy theory
0:52.7	about an alleged Ukrainian bio-weapons lab found
0:56.1	fresh life on Fox News.
0:58.7	It turns out that our government has for some time funded
1:01.1	biolabs in Ukraine that do, among other things,
	...

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