Fox News television show host Tucker Carlson is telling Canada to “calm down” after an NDP MP sought a unanimous motion in the House of Commons to condemn previous comments by Carlson in which he said the U.S. should “liberate Canada.”
Carlson said on a Feb. 1 segment of his show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that Canada has “become effectively a dictatorship” under the Trudeau government.
“We don’t like dictatorships. We’re America. We liberate dictatorships. That’s what we do,” Carlson said.
Carlson was referring to a Jan. 26 segment on his other show “Tucker Carlson Today” in which he spoke with Montreal-born academic David Azerrad and questioned why the U.S. “should stand back” and let Canada “become Cuba.”
“Why don’t we liberate?” he said. “We’re spending all this money to liberate Ukraine from the Russians. Why are we not sending an armed force north to liberate Canada from Trudeau? And I mean it.”
His guest responded, “I don’t know if I’m there yet with you,” to which Carlson laughed out and said, “I’m just talking myself into a frenzy here.”
In response, NDP MP Matthew Green rose in the House on Jan. 31 to seek unanimous consent for a motion condemning Carlson’s comments, which he said could be harmful due to “the rise of far-right and associated violent extremism [that] led to the attempted insurrection in the United States.”
Some MPs voted against the motion and it failed.
A day later, Carlson wrote, “Calm down, Canada” in a Twitter post and doubled down on his previous comments about liberating Canada.
“It’s a fair question,” he said on Feb. 1. “Honestly, we thought the Canadians would be flattered because they’re always flattered when you talk about them. They’re like stalkers. You don’t know they exist, but they’ve got pictures of you in their dorm room.”
“If you do a Canada joke on TV, they go absolutely crazy. They don’t really know how to handle it or what it means, but it doesn’t matter. They’re excited.”
Green said in his motion that Carlson had suggested the American government send the U.S. Armed Forces to Canada, but Carlson said he never advocated for that.
“You’re flattering yourself, Canadian Member of Parliament,” Carlson said. “We wouldn’t need the Armed Forces.”
Carlson concluded his remarks by saying “we’re not actually going to do it [invade Canada] just yet.”
“It’s something to think about. Settle down.”