The Daily Show host Trevor Noah checked in on Tuesday with Tucker Carlson, “Fox News primetime star and mom haircut model.”
The previous night, Carlson finally addressed the controversy surrounding his show’s top writer, Blake Neff, who was fired by Fox for a history of racist, misogynistic and homophobic online posts. “So Fox News got rid of the guy,” Noah said, “but it appears Tucker Carlson might have some mixed feelings about how it all went down.”
After telling viewers that he does not “endorse” Neff’s comments, Carlson said, “we should also point out to the ghouls now beating their chests in triumph of the destruction of a young man.” He then announced that he would be spending the rest of the week on a “long-planned” fishing trip.
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“OK, first off, I love how every time Tucker Carlson gets in trouble he takes a ‘planned vacation’ in the middle of the week,” Noah said, joking that he must think “the trout never expect you to show up on Tuesday.”
Not only has Carlson announced sudden vacation breaks amidst controversy in the past, but the man who held his Fox News time slot before him, Bill O’Reilly, famously told viewers that he was going on a two-week trip he had booked “last fall” amidst his own sexual-misconduct scandal—and then never returned.
“Look, man, if you feel the need to say your trip was ‘long-planned,’ then you know it definitely wasn’t,” the host added. “Because that’s never a detail someone shares when they talk about a vacation.”
Beyond that, Noah wanted to know why Carlson is “blaming the public” for his head writer’s firing. “Fox News chose to fire this person, not the public,” he said. “And if Fox News fires you for being racist, then you’re racist racist.”
But the “most confusing” part of the whole story for Noah was why Neff was posting racist comments on online forums in the first place. “I mean, you already write for Tucker Carlson,” he said. “Imagine writing racist shit for Tucker Carlson’s show all day and they go home and write more racist shit in your time off. That would be like me relaxing before bed by doing a second Daily Show.”
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