Newsmax Blasts Tucker Carlson For ‘Supporting Putin and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine’
Newsmax released a statement on Friday calling out Fox News and Tucker Carlson for “supporting Putin and Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.”
The right-wing, pro-Trump Newsmax taking a swing at Fox News is nothing new for the network, but the new statement comes in the wake of Carlson’s controversial comments that critics have decried as being pro-Putin.
The Friday statement, issued by Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy to media blog The Righting for a report on how the network is covering the invasion of Ukraine, explicitly condemned Carlson:
Newsmax believes Russia has made a major transgression and this should be condemned strongly by all people. I think we are seeing for conservatives a clarity moment where Fox News’ main host is stating categorically he is siding with Putin and Russia in support of the invasion. Newsmax supports President Biden’s efforts to stop this invasion, if anything we think he is not being strong enough. We believe there is a bipartisan consensus in opposition to this dangerous aggression.
Ruddy’s statement raised eyebrows across the media world, however, as Newsmax’s content in the past week and even 24 hours has been both highly critical of Biden and dismissive of the severity of Putin’s invasion.
The conservative news network released the statement some twelve hours after Michael Savage appeared on Newsmax and condemned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “puppet of George Soros” who “provoked” Putin. Earlier on Thursday night, host Greg Kelly excused Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by comparing it to the U.S. invasion of Iraq under George W. Bush and went on to claim the U.S. should get rid of term limits, arguing Putin’s lengthy reign has benefitted Russia.
In all fairness, Newsmax also has run several recent segments of Dick Morris attacking Tucker Carlson on air.
On Grant Stinchfield’s show Thursday evening Morris said, “Well I’m shocked that with all of this going on and with this blatant exercise of tyranny that one of the apostles of the right-wing, one of the people who are normally would strongly support, Tucker Carlson over at Fox is still making apologies for Vladimir Putin.”
Stinchfield praised Morris’ recent column on the subject and directed viewers to it online. In the column titled, “Tucker Carlson Went Off Rails Backing Putin, Shame on Him,” Morris writes, “Carlson is making claims which are patently false.”
“I don’t know what his motive is, but I do know it’s a problem that he’s seeking to win over normally sane rational Fox News viewers, and by osmosis, some Newsmax viewers,” Morris writes, bringing us back to Newsmax’s statement hitting Fox News.
It’s no secret in the cable news business that when networks attack each other it is often driven by commercial motives. Newsmax has continued to struggle in the ratings and receives a fraction of Fox News’ audience on a daily basis. For example, on Wednesday night Carlson had 3.66 million viewers while Stinchfield only had 255,000 total viewers.
Whether or not Newsmax using Carlson’s stance on Russia and opening a new front in its battle against Fox News will be successful only time will tell. In the meantime, it is worth noting that on Thursday night Carlson began hedging his rhetoric on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an indication that Newsmax just may have found a soft spot that even Fox is aware of.
