Fox News host Tucker Carlson kept it classy as usual on Monday night, describing CNN reporter Shimon Prokupecz as a “midget with the microphone.”
Continuing his relentless campaign against COVID-19 vaccine mandates, despite the fact his own employer has implemented a strict vaccine policy of its own, Carlson groused about New York’s requirement that the state’s health-care workers all be vaccinated by Monday. At the same time, he praised the refusers who would rather get fired than meet the state’s vaccine requirement.
“Thousands of protesters gathered in New York to oppose this grotesque mandate,” he declared. “Unfortunately, it was not millions, but it was thousands. CNN accused them of being conspiracy theorists!”
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After airing a clip of Prokupecz reporting from the site of Monday’s demonstration in which the reporter said many of the protesters feel the “government is trying to control them by using vaccines,” Carlson casually tossed out a pejorative.
“They are crazy because those nurses know less about health care than the politicians and the midget with the microphone on CNN,” Carlson spat.
While it should be noted that Prokupecz does not suffer from dwarfism and Carlson was just making a snide swipe at Prokupecz’s height, “midget” is now largely considered an offensive term. Little People of America, the world’s largest dwarfism support organization, has long advocated for the abolition of the word’s use.
“The word ‘midget’ is considered by Little People of America to be an antiquated slang term and is most often used in a derogatory manner toward a shorter than average person, or specifically, a person with a diagnosable skeletal dysplasia or medical condition,” the organization says on its website.
Taking ad hominem potshots at CNN personalities over their height or appearance has become something of a habit for Carlson.
He has taken to labeling CNN president Jeff Zucker the “dwarf king” and claiming CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter is Zucker’s “house eunuch.” Along with fellow primetime host Sean Hannity, who regularly calls Stelter “Humpty Dumpty,” Carlson has also mocked Stelter’s looks and fat-shamed the Reliable Sources host.
