I'm not aware Tucker Carlson ever made that defense.

Interesting. I guess it's the Rachel Maddow / Tucker Carlson / Alex Jones defense, then:

> Media lawyers note this is not the first time this sort of defense has been offered. A $10 million libel lawsuit filed by the owners of One America News Network against MSNBC's top star, Rachel Maddow, was dismissed in May when the judge ruled she had stretched the established facts allowably: "The context of Maddow's statement shows reasonable viewers would consider the contested statement to be opinion."

+ Rachel Maddow

Has she used that as a legal defense?

> Maddow lawyer Theodore J. “Ted” Boutrous Jr. argued that the liberal host was clearly offering up her “own unique expression” of her views to capture what she saw as the “ridiculous” nature of the undisputed facts.

> “Her comment, therefore, is a quintessential statement ‘of rhetorical hyperbole, incapable of being proved true or false,’” he said.

https://timesofsandiego.com/business/2019/12/02/rachel-maddo...

Judge ruled in her favor:

> “The context of Maddow’s statement shows reasonable viewers would consider the contested statement to be her opinion. A reasonable viewer would not actually think OAN is paid Russian propaganda, instead, he or she would follow the facts of the Daily Beast article; that OAN and Sputnik share a reporter and both pay this reporter to write articles. Anything beyond this is Maddow’s opinion or her exaggeration of the facts,” the judge decided.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/23/judge-tosse...