Dave Portnoy slams Tucker Carlson’s interview with fraudster Sinclair

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy has slammed Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with a convicted con-artist who claimed to have had drug-fueled sex with Barack Obama, saying the wild tale cannot be believed.

Carlson on Wednesday aired his interview with Larry Sinclair, who has for years claimed without any proof that he used cocaine and had sex with Obama twice in 1999. 

In a post on X, Portnoy revealed that he actually met Sinclair at Carlson’s studio while taping his own recent interview with the fired Fox News host, who now produces his own show on the Elon Musk-owned social media site. 

‘I would trust Anna Delvey before I trusted anything Larry Sinclair said,’ said Portnoy, referring to the notorious ‘fake heiress’ who was convicted of scamming and defrauding New York’s upper crust social scene.

Portnoy added of Sinclair: ‘Top to bottom maybe the least trustworthy human I’ve ever laid eyes on. I’d say his story has 0.0% [chance] of being true and that’s generous.’

Sinclair has a lengthy criminal history, including convictions on forgery, fraud and larceny charges, and has served prison time in Arizona, Florida and Colorado. 

Portnoy, who appeared with Carlson in an interview that aired just last week, is not the only one questioning the pundit’s decision to revive Sinclair’s longstanding unproven claims.

Musk, who has publicly cheered Carlson for airing his segments on X after he was fired by Fox News in April, also expressed skepticism about his interview with Sinclair.

In a post on X, Musk called Sinclair’s background ‘dubious’, and pointed out there was no evidence.

‘Of course, the probability that his claims are true would have to rest on objective evidence, rather than claims made by someone with a dubious history,’ Musk tweeted.

Writing for The Telegraph, conservative columnist Tim Stanley questioned whether Carlson had become ‘the Right’s Hugh Hefner, a purveyor of Playboy-esque trash under the guise of objective inquiry’.

‘Mainstream media has largely ignored the interview, which will fuel the idea that they elevate liberals and silence conservatives,’ he noted. ‘But the simple reason why Sinclair has never been given serious hearing is that his claims are baseless and tasteless.’ 

Sinclair first aired his claims during the 2008 election, including at a press conference that ended in his arrest on an outstanding larceny warrant, but has never offered proof of his allegations.

In the Carlson interview, he shared the same essential allegations that he did 15 years ago.

Sinclair claims that he met Obama, then a state senator, through a limousine driver in Chicago in 1999, and the two used cocaine and had a sexual encounter in the back of the vehicle.

Sinclair also claims that Obama, unannounced, visited the Comfort Inn motel where he was staying in Gurnee, Illinois the following day, and they repeated the routine.

A spokesperson for Obama’s personal office has not responded to repeated requests for comment from DailyMail.com this week.

In 2008, when Sinclair first aired his claims, Politico reported on the saga, noting that the ‘story has generally been ignored by the mainstream media, because he’s been unable to substantiate his allegations.’ 

In June 2008, Sinclair rented a room at the National Press Club in Washington DC, and spoke for an hour, going into great detail about two sexual liaisons he claimed to have had with Obama in 1999. 

The press conference ended in Sinclair’s arrest on an open warrant from Delaware, after liberal bloggers who supported Obama apparently tipped off DC police to his scheduled appearance.

For more than a decade, Sinclair’s claims were taken seriously only by the furthest fringe of conspiracy theorists, and had largely receded from public discourse.

Sinclair notoriously failed a lie detector test in 2008, and then publicly accused Obama adviser David Axelrod of bribing the examiners to rig the results, according to Courthouse News Service.

Sinclair’s history of sworn statements is also dubious. In 2004, he signed an affidavit claiming to be ‘terminally ill’ as he sought to have a warrant dismissed, although nearly two decades later he appears to still be alive. 

Carlson was fired by Fox News in April, and has since been producing his own show on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.

The pundit has claimed he was fired as a condition of Fox News’ $787 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems to end a lawsuit concerning the spread of lies about the 2020 presidential election.

Other media reports have claimed Carlson was fired over incendiary communications uncovered during the lawsuit. 

Private messages sent by Carlson with ‘highly offensive and crude remarks’ were a ‘catalyst’ in Fox’s decision to cut him loose, according to the New York Times.

One redacted message included a slur against a senior Fox executive, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post both reported. Each of the reports relied on sources that were not named.