Stephen Colbert trolls Tucker Carlson by buying up platform domain name

Stephen Colbert has trolled former Fox News host Tucker Carlson over his new streaming platform – by buying up a similar website domain name.

The Late Show host brought up the newly launched Tucker Carlson Network on his show on Tuesday night, saying that Mr Carlson’s new venture had come about after he was forced to leave Fox News for “somehow being too racist”.

Mr Carlson had worked at Fox News since 2009 but was abruptly ousted in April this year.

The right-wing figure claimed his firing was a condition of the settlement Fox News reached with Dominion Voting Systems after the network aired false claims about its ballot counting systems.

After a brief stint hosting a show on X, conspiracy theorist Mr Carlson has now set his sights on a new venture, creating his own self-titled network.

In a video announcing the move, he describes the network as “relentlessly honest that the corporate gatekeepers can’t touch”.

A subscription to the network costs $9 a month, but Mr Colbert quipped that “there is a free version, for zero dollars a month, you can never watch Tucker Carlson again”.

On Tuesday night’s show, Mr Colbert flashed up a screenshot of the Tucker Carlson Network website, showing the platform’s previous and upcoming guests.

“People like Kid Rock, Martin Shkreli, Alex Jones and RFK JR, collectively known as Mount Douchemore,” he said.

But something else wasn’t sitting right with the late-night show host, as he said the network’s name “kind of feels incomplete”.

“Doesn’t it feel like he should have called it The Tucker Carlson Network? And he really should have gotten the website thetuckercarlsonnetwork.com,” Mr Colbert said.

“But he didn’t… but I did,” the host announced – a revelation that was met with cheers from the studio audience.

Mr Colbert’s own website includes a large animation of Mr Carlson doing a Russian folk dance with links to donate to the World Central Kitchen, the Human Rights Campaign, and Donors Choose.

The late-night show host even created a fake commercial for the new network, which he named “Tuckflix”.

The website also promotes spoof shows starring Mr Carlson including “Skewed Claims” (a play on Squid Games), “Orange is the New Sack” (a show about the importance of testicle tanning) and “Is He Cake?”, Mr Colbert revealed.