A Tucker Carlson Trailer Angers Geraldo Rivera

Trailers are meant to generate attention, and Tucker Carlson has clearly succeeded on that front. But the newly released teaser for Carlson's upcoming series for the Fox Nation streaming service also is taking flak from Fox colleague Geraldo Rivera as well as some Republican lawmakers, reports the Hill. The trailer is for the series Patriot Purge, about the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The most controversial moment in the clip comes when a woman being interviewed suggests the violence of that day might have been organized by the government. "False flags have happened in this country," says the unidentified speaker, "one of which may have been January 6." In a tweet, an incredulous Rivera fired back. "False flags?!" he wrote. "Bull----." Geraldo also elaborated to the New York Times.

"Tucker’s wonderful, he’s provocative, he’s original, but—man oh man," Rivera tells the newspaper. "There are some things that you say that are more inflammatory and outrageous and uncorroborated. And I worry that—and I’m probably going to get in trouble for this—but I’m wondering how much is done to provoke, rather than illuminate." GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom bucked their party to serve on a House panel investigating the riot, also weighed in. "It appears that @FoxNews is giving @TuckerCarlson a platform to spread the same type of lies that provoked violence on January 6," wrote Cheney. Kinzinger called for Fox to pull the series before it debuts next week.

The clip suggests that prosecutors and liberals in government are unfairly going after their political enemies on the right, including pro-Trump supporters in DC on Jan. 6. "The helicopters have left Afghanistan and now they've landed here at home," Carlson says in the trailer. "They've begun to fight a new enemy in a new war on terror." The series will not air on the Fox TV network but on its subscription-only streaming service. Carlson has a deal to produce multiple such series, notes the Washington Post, which points out that because the streaming service relies on subscribers rather than advertisers, there's no fear of a boycott. (Carlson is no stranger to those.)