Tucker Carlson “open” to flat Earth theory

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he is “open” to the flat Earth theory.

Carlson, once among the network’s biggest stars and ratings draws, was abruptly let go from Fox News in late April for reasons that still remain unclear. The company itself declined to give specific reasons for the decision, with reports later suggesting that racially charged text messages uncovered during Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the network may have spooked the board into parting ways. However, Carlson has since taken to X, formerly Twitter, to continue his political commentary, often speaking on major political issues.

In an interview with Blaze TV personality Alex Stein on Thursday, Carlson was asked about his thoughts on the flat Earth theory. The debunked theory claims that the world is a flat disc, instead of a spherical globe.

“What do you think of flat Earth theory, Tucker?” Stein asked. Carlson responded by stating he is “open to anything.”

“How could I not be open to anything at this point? I mean, there’s been so much deception that you can’t trust your preconceptions.”

Newsweek has reached out to Carlson via email for comment.

Carlson continued by claiming that the idea that history ascends towards “enlightenment and technological progress” is “a complete lie.”

“The most basic stories we’ve been told about history, about the Earth, the physical Earth itself, which has been completely changed by climate change for millions of years, once you realize all of that, then it’s like, I don’t know, what is true,” Carlson added.

“As far as the curvature of the Earth, that’s a thing in shooting. I like rifle shooting and past a certain distance you have to take that in account. That suggests it’s real. Because one thing I know that is guns. Guns are real,” the conservative commentator said.

The flat earth conspiracy theory gained greater traction in 2017 when rapper B.o.B (Bobby Ray Simmons Jr) started a crowdfunding campaign to launch a satellite to seek evidence that the earth is a disc, not a globe.

However, scientists have continued to dispel theories of the Earth being flat with scientific based evidence, including photos, atmospheric processes, lunar eclipses and the movement of stars, demonstrating Earth’s curve and motion.

Despite scientists’ efforts, the conspiracy has still remained somewhat popular among a subset of the population.

Carlson previously noted the controversy over the flat earth theory in an interview in March with Clayton Morris’s Redacted podcast. He compared questioning the flat Earth theory with questions related to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, saying that people “don’t care if you think the Earth is flat.”

“They’re not offended by conspiracy theories. If you go on TV tonight and say, ‘I think the Earth is flat,’ people just laugh at you. They don’t care if you think the Earth is flat. It’s not a threat to anyone. But if you say, like, ‘What actually happened with Building 7? Like, that is weird, right? It doesn’t—like, what is that? If you were to say something like that on television, they’d flip out. They would flip out. So you’d, like, lose your job over that. Why? Why? It’s my country,” Carlson said.

Carlson’s comments on Thursday follow speculation he could be selected as Donald Trump‘s vice presidential candidate in the 2024 race. After Trump said in November, he’d consider making the former Fox News host his vice presidential running mate, a growing group of Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters have given their approval on social media.

More recently, Carlson played down the speculation in an interview with his former Fox News colleague Megyn Kelly on SiriusXM on Monday.

“I haven’t led a life that prepares a person for politics. I don’t think I have any like horrible skeletons or anything,” he said. “It’s not that, it’s just that that’s not how my brain works. I’ve never done anything like that. I can’t imagine spending time with politicians.”