The morning after Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg took aim at stars Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham during a Fox News town hall event, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade blasted the South Bend mayor as cowardly, suggesting Democrats shouldn’t come on Fox if they’re going to attack the network’s primetime hosts.
During Sunday night’s forum with anchor Chris Wallace, Mayor Pete acknowledged the controversy over his participation, considering fellow Democratic contenders Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris have refused network invitations and the DNC has barred Fox from hosting any 2020 primary debates. Buttigieg conceded that his fellow candidates do have a point, ripping into Carlson and Ingraham for their inflammatory rhetoric.
“I get where that’s coming from especially when you see what goes on with some opinion hosts on this network,” Buttigieg declared. “I mean when you’ve got Tucker Carlson saying that immigrants make America dirty. When you’ve got Laura Ingraham comparing detention centers with children in cages to summer camps.”
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With fellow host Steve Doocy noting Monday morning that Buttigieg received loud applause from the New Hampshire audience for wanting to get rid of the Electoral College, Kilmeade claimed the mayor had stacked the crowd.
“Because they are all his friends,” the pro-Trump Fox host replied. “I think he is related to the whole audience.”
After that little conspiratorial bit, Kilmeade then tore into the Indiana mayor for his criticism of Fox’s hard-right opinion side.
“Don’t hop on our channel and continue to put down the other hosts on the channel, or the channel,” Kilmeade exclaimed. “If you feel that negative about it, don’t come.”
He added: “Because for him to go out there and take shots at our primetime lineup without going on our primetime lineup shows, to me, absolutely no courage.”
Buttigieg, meanwhile, also told Wallace that there are reasons “why anybody has to swallow hard and think twice before participating in this media ecosystem,” noting that Fox News opinion hosts don’t operate in “good faith.”
