Fox News host Greg Gutfeld proclaimed on Wednesday night that it was “now acceptable” to use the word “retarded” after former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) used the pejorative to describe the ideas expressed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
During his primetime right-wing “comedy” show, Gutfeld took aim at Ocasio-Cortez for mocking MAGA supporters by claiming Donald Trump “affirms insecure men’s idea of masculinity.” According to the conservative cable giant’s resident comic, the congresswoman “can happily psychoanalyze and sexualize groups of people, but if you do it to her, she becomes a victim.”
Agreeing with Gutfeld, Zeldin added that Ocasio-Cortez would likely use her ethnicity or gender to claim victimhood before bringing up his own past experience with the progressive lawmaker on Capitol Hill.
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Recalling a House committee hearing they both attended, Zeldin complained that Ocasio-Cortez grilled an executive over his bank’s involvement in financing the Keystone XL pipeline while pressing him to admit the company should be held liable for environmental damage. Saying he nearly confronted Ocasio-Cortez during the proceedings, the ex-congressman then described what he wished he had said to her at the time.
“Should the company that manufactured the microphone she’s speaking into be liable for the crap that’s coming out of her mouth right now? I was this close to going live,” he boasted.
“And she probably would be like, ‘I’m the victim. You go after me because of—’ whatever demographic or biographical information she wants to throw out,” Zeldin continued. “No, it’s because the argument you are making every day, all the time, is just too often retarded.”
With the studio audience reacting to the former New York gubernatorial candidate’s use of the slur, Gutfeld quickly chimed in to tell viewers that it was no longer a verboten word on the network.
“Yeah. You can say that now. It’s okay. You can say that now,” the Fox star declared.
“Wait, what? Don’t play with me! It’s one of my favorite words,” Gutfeld’s co-star Tyrus interjected, prompting Gutfeld to chuckle.
“It’s now acceptable,” Gutfeld concluded. “It’s now acceptable. I met with the associations, and they said yes.”
Gutfeld’s pronouncement that the r-word can be used freely on Fox comes just a day after he delivered a weird rant about Ocasio-Cortez’s sex life, claiming the congresswoman is pro-immigration because she’s “projecting her secret desires for young, virile men who are coming here in droves” and can’t get “horny” for her “pajama boy” fiance. The Fox News “comedian” doubled down on his bizarre sexualization of the lawmaker on Wednesday night.
“Maybe she has insecurities about her boyfriend’s masculinity and she’s doing her own projecting,” he snarked. “It has to suck to be dating a guy with smaller balls than you. Or maybe she’s insecure about her own femininity, meaning it must suck to have bigger balls than your boyfriend.”
