If you thought Tucker Carlson couldn’t push the envelope any further, I have some news for you.
The Fox News primetime star opened up his program on Thursday night by taking aim at House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) for giving a parody account of President Donald Trump’s July 25 call with the Ukrainian president, explicitly calling the California lawmaker “mentally ill” in the process.
Insisting that it’s “hard to see” how Trump’s actions are an impeachable offense, the Fox News host turned to Thursday’s testimony of acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, which was chaired by Schiff. Claiming that it is the media’s fault for setting up “terrible incentives” for people to make “extreme and mindless statements” to get on TV, Carlson then held up Schiff as a “prime example.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“He recently went into a kind of trance and delivered his own prophetic version of what he believed must have happened between President Trump and the president of Ukraine,” Carlson stated, playing a clip of Schiff delivering a parody version of the call at Thursday’s hearing.
“Keep in mind, that isn’t some guy babbling in the men’s room at Starbucks, that is the man who chairs the mighty House Intelligence Committee,” he said.
“We trust him with the most sensitive information and yet he is clearly, demonstrably mentally ill,” Carlson added.
The Fox News host didn’t qualify his diagnosis of the Democratic congressman other than to suggest that it was insane to want the president impeached for pushing the Ukrainian president to look into his political rival.
Carlson’s latest inflammatory remarks are just the latest controversy for the conservative Fox News star. This week has seen him get into an on-air spat with his fellow colleagues Shep Smith and Judge Andrew Napolitano after one of his guests called Napolitano a “fool,” an insult that went unchallenged by Carlson. It also has been less than two months since the primetime host sparked outrage for saying white supremacy is a “hoax” just three days after the El Paso shooting.
The Fox host’s comments also come on the heels of the backlash caused by Fox News guest Michael Knowles calling 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg a “mentally ill Swedish child,” prompting the network to issue a quick apology and state that they have no plans to book Knowles in the future.
