Fox News host Tucker Carlson went after GOP donor Paul Singer and Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse in a fiery report Tuesday.
“Tonight, we want to tell you a little more about how Paul Singer does business. Pick of the story begins in a small town called Sidney, Nebraska, two hours outside Denver,” Carlson said. He was introducing a story about the sporting goods company Cabela’s, and how Singer’s hedge fund reportedly made $90 million by pushing the board to sell the company to Bass Pro Shops.
“The residents of Sidney did not get rich. Oh no, just the opposite. Their community was devastated, destroyed,” Carlson said. “The town lost nearly 2,000 Jobs. A heart-breakingly familiar cascade began.”
“People left, property values collapsed, and then people couldn’t leave, they were trapped there. One of the last thriving small towns in this country went under. We recently sent two producers to Sidney, Nebraska, to survey the wreckage there and to consider what happened,” Carlson continued. “Our producers talked to more than a dozen former Cabela’s employees, almost all of them refused to speak to us on camera, fearful of legal retribution from the famously vicious Paul Singer. But off camera, they told us their story. Here it is.”
During the report, one resident called Singer a “pretty sick human being.”
The Daily Caller co-founder ended the segment, saying, “As we were doing that story, we were warned by people around Washington: Don’t criticize Paul Singer. That’s not a good idea.”
“As that package played, I got a text from a well-known person in Washington. ‘Holy smokes, I can’t believe you’re doing this. I’m afraid of Paul Singer,'” said Carlson. “We’ll see what happens.”
In the end, Carlson criticized Sasse for not caring about the apparent destruction of the company.
“Ben Sasse is a U.S. senator who represents the state of Nebraska. Sidney, of course, is not large, but you might think about the death of a town in his state would be of concern to Ben Sasse, again, a U.S. Senator from Nebraska,” Carlson said. “But so far, it doesn’t seem like he has commented on what happened to Sidney.”
“We looked hard, then we called his office to see if they could point to a time when he commented on the destruction of Sidney, or supply a statement to us about what happened there. But Ben Sasse’s office didn’t even respond to our producers. Huh, that’s odd. But then here is one possible explanation for that. During his Senate run, Ben Sasse received the largest possible donation from Paul Singer.” (RELATED: Tucker And Former Clinton Adviser Clash Over Whether Russia Or China Is The Greatest Threat)
Carlson has been a longtime conservative commentator, but has recently taken a critical turn on some long-time conservative issues, such as the worship of free-market capitalism.