D’Souza Goes to Twitter War with ‘Abusive’ Tucker Carlson, Shares Fiery Exchange with Producer

Screenshot via YouTube

Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza has accused Tucker Carlson Tonight of trying to “steal” his content, taking to Twitter on Friday to share a fiery exchange with the show’s producer over his movie 2000 Mules, which is still trying to claim 2020 was “stolen” from Donald Trump.

And he actually kind of has a point. About Tucker Carlson, that is. He tagged the Fox host in his tweets.

“If you want to see how abusively @TuckerCarlson and his @FoxNews team deal with people, read this thread. It’s an exchange between me and Tucker’s executive producer @justinbwells,” Dinesh tweeted, sharing the exchange and his own thoughts on the state of Fox News — on which he’s been a guest numerous times — and Carlson.

What’s interesting here is that D’Souza is right: Fox laundered his claims onto the air without crediting him. https://t.co/C2fuZbzkw6

— Ben Smith (@semaforben) May 13, 2022

D’Souza took issue with Catherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote recently being on Carlson’s show. She alleged there was election fraud and fraudulent ballots in the 2020 presidential election, but the filmmaker claims she was instructed not to mention D’Souza’s new film, 2000 Mules. The documentary’s material has been disputed by a number of outlets, but has also been celebrated by conservatives as it deep dives into the presidential election and purports to show the sort of mass fraud former President Donald Trump has alleged, but for which there has been no official proof. Trump even held a screening of the movie at Mar-a-Lago.

According to D’Souza, Engelbrecht was invited on the show in February when a teaser trailer was released for the film. She recommended showing the teaser and producers agreed, but only wanted to show snippets from the 90 second spot and not include the name of the film or its filmmaker, according to D’Souza.

“One of Tucker’s producers — a guy named Alex — told me they couldn’t run the 90 second trailer. They wanted to use just 45 seconds. Turned out they wanted to cut out my name, Salem Media, and any reference to the movie,” D’Souza wrote. “So basically they wanted to steal our content and pretend like they had produced it. I politely said no.”

D’Souza then shared messages he said were from Justin Wells in which the producer accused D’Souza of trying to pull a “stunt” and said he “f-ed” over an “ally.”

“You f-ed over an important show and ally that was trying to do you a solid. Don’t ever bother working on anything with us in the future. And never try to bully my team again. Today’s move was short-sighted and dumb. Good luck with everything in the future,” one message from Wells read, according to D’Souza’s tweets.

The disagreement appears to come down to the length of the trailer shown. Wells accuses D’Souza of making demands at the last minute, while D’Souza insists he does not want material simply lifted from the teaser. Wells does say at one point that they would have referenced the movie on air, though D’Souza has claimed the movie is being suppressed at the network.

“I suspect The Today Show cut the Titanic trailer when they had Leo [DiCaprio] and Kate [Winslet] on back in 1996. Who are you to create bogus terms on length of promotional content when we’re trying to help you out?” one of the alleged messages from Wells reads.

Wrapping up his thread, D’Souza said he’s owed an apology and called on Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to tackle the disagreement.

“Suzanne Scott the CEO of Fox needs to address this issue, not because of the exchange itself, but because it seems to be the explanation, or a big part of the explanation, for Tucker suppressing any mention of 2000 Mules on the air,” he wrote.

The filmmaker also targeted Carlson and his team on his podcast this week after the disagreement, accusing producers of trying to “strong-arm” him.

“The important point to realize here is with Fox News, with a lot of things, things aren’t the way it seems. I look on social media and there’s Tucker … he’s wearing his fisherman’s jacket. He’s got the aw shucks attitude. He’s one the guys,” D’Souza said. “But behind the scenes, this is how these people operate. They’re nasty, they’re vicious, they threaten you, they try to strong-arm you.”

Dinesh D’Souza escalates his feud with Tucker Carlson and Fox, demanding a public apology: “With Fox, things aren’t the way it seems .. There’s Tucker .. behind the scenes .. these people are .. nasty, they’re vicious, they try to strong-arm you.” pic.twitter.com/lSbgA1ixRo

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 13, 2022