Tucker Carlson, the ousted Fox News host who has trafficked in conspiracy theories ranging from the idea that Jan. 6 was perpetrated by Donald Trump’s federal government to the claim that the Clinton family murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, claimed during a cordial interview with Donald Trump that aired Wednesday that he’s “not a conspiracy person at all.” In the lengthy discussion, which was put out on Twitter just before Fox News’ GOP primary debate, one topic that came up was the Aug. 2019 death of disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which was ruled a suicide by the New York City medical examiner. While Trump said Epstein “probably” killed himself, Carlson stated emphatically that Epstein “was killed.” “I think the closer you look—I’m not a conspiracy person at all; I believe everything I hear—but, yeah, the closer you look into it, I mean, the attorney general of the United States—your attorney general—clearly lied about the Epstein death. Why?” Then-Attorney General Bill Barr called it an “apparent suicide.” The circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death in his Manhattan jail cell—that watch procedures by guards were not followed, and that cell cameras malfunctioned, for instance—have spawned plenty of conspiracies.
