Alex Jones—the bloated, misanthropic mannequin that spews hate and conspiracies with robotic efficiency—found himself at the mercy of a prank call earlier this week by a man claiming to be ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The jig was up, according to Jones, when the fake Carlson started saying “lewd, sexual things.”
Chris James, the YouTuber behind the NotEvenAShow channel, tweeted Wednesday that he used a spoofed version of Carlson’s phone number and an AI-generated version of the ex-Fox host’s voice to call Jones’ cell “and have a full conversation with him.” In other tweets, James said the call lasted about one minute.
It’s unclear what program the YouTuber used to deepfake Carlson, but there’s plenty of easy-to-use AI-based programs out there like ElevenLabs. James’ episode on the prank is supposed to appear Monday, but Jones himself confirmed he was spoofed on recent episodes of his right wing conspiracy spectacular show InfoWars. While we don’t know the full scope of the conversation, Jones rambled for several minutes about what was said.
“It was Tucker Carlson’s voice, and it starts saying horrible, lewd sexual things for me,” Jones said on his Thursday show. “He stole Tucker Carlson’s identity. He faked his number. He faked his voice. He called me and made sexual threats, basically. And he just thinks that’s funny. Because in his sociopathic world, I don’t exist. Alex Jones is fair game for any attacks. So is Tucker Carlson.”
The YouTuber said that since Jones aired that he had been spoofed, Jones fans were sending him “threatening messages.” He added that Jones talked to him on the phone and suggested that Carlson “is getting his lawyers involved” while at the same time asking the YouTuber to come on his show, which he “politely declined.”
Jones isn’t a very credible person on any topic, including his or other people’s intent. The InfoWars host is reportedly trying to hide millions of his dollars to avoid paying over $1 billion in damages for two separate lawsuits regarding the lies he told about the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting. On his Thursday show, he said he “doesn’t think” Carlson wants to press charges, but said James needs to come on the air to “explain that he’s not part of a government group or agency.”
According to James, Jones kept on the phone for a while believing it was his good friend and fellow right wing conspiracy magnet Carlson. Earlier this year, The Huffington Post revealed texts between Carlson and Jones showing just how close the two were. The pair texted and traded jokes and complained about the way the media apparatus talked about famous conspiracies like former President Donald Trump’s infamous 2020 quote saying the U.S. could potentially use a “a very powerful light” to kill the coronavirus inside patients.
After Fox News paid out $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems over the company’s $1.5 billion defamation lawsuit, Carlson and Jones briefly had even more in common beyond their shared sense of white male grievance. Still, Carlson showed he was very able to speak out both sides of his mouth, as texts and emails from the lawsuit revealed Carlson could give credence to misinformation from the 2020 election deniers while calling them “fuckers” and “liars.” In that way, we may never truly know what Carlson really thinks of Jones.