Tucker Carlson swapped out his American-made pickup truck for a shocking reason, he revealed in a recent interview as pressure mounts, especially among conservatives, to shop American amid Donald Trump's tariffs.
Carlson, a conservative pundit, said he was filling up the tank on his Chevrolet pickup truck when a strange message flashed across the infotainment screen.
"All of a sudden, at a gas station, it says, 'Stop, we're downloading information from the internet,'" Carlson claimed during the interview with gearhead Casey Putsch.
"I sold the car immediately. I brought it back and sold it," Carlson said. The claim comes amid other claims that auto manufacturers have been sharing data with brokers and insurance companies about their drivers.
An investigation by The New York Times investigation revealed several major brands, including General Motors, which is Chevrolet's parent company, were tracking driver habits that were deemed to be unsafe.
The data included braking performance, sharp turn frequency, speed and vehicle location, it was reported, and possibly led to several vehicle insurance companies facing business headwinds.
Cars are now more expensive to insure because they're selling at record prices, and drivers are getting into a record number of accidents. Natural disasters have also wrecked vehicles at an increasing rate — all factors that have made the insurance industry among the most prone to inflation.
It also, according to the Daily Mail, inspired troves of anger at the providers. "They want all your data to provide to insurance companies to wreck your life," Putsch could be heard saying in the interview with Carlson. "Insurance companies will be the downfall of cars and driving. I can guarantee it."
Carlson, however, has a well-documented history of peddling falsehoods about private companies. Unsurprisingly, Carlson and Putsch went on in the interview about conspiracy theories and alleged nefarious actions by entities that are attempting to implement dashcams to monitor drivers.
"What happens when [dashcams] are required in every single car?" Putsch said. "What happens when you're completely mandated control? Car shuts off at exactly 55 mph speed limit, no matter what."
The Biden administration endorsed, as did the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the concept of Intelligent Speed Assistance. The technology would reportedly "provide visual or audible alerts when [the] speed limit is exceeded, but the driver can decide how to react."
Carlson's sale of his Chevy came after President Donald Trump encouraged Americans to buy American vehicles amid his plans for sweeping economic reform, which began with the tariffs he slapped on foreign automobiles worth 25% on Wednesday, which he dubbed "Liberation Day."
