Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed on Monday night that MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace is “now suggesting drone strikes against American citizens who have the wrong politics,” further wondering if she thinks Trump supporters “deserve Hellfire missiles raining down on their homes.”
Late last month, in a segment discussing the upcoming Senate impeachment trial, Wallace wondered aloud how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell could potentially be leaning against convicting former President Donald Trump for inciting the insurrectionist Capitol riot.
After noting that the Department of Homeland Security has issued a bulletin warning that there’s a persistent threat that “ideologically motivated violent extremists” may carry out domestic terror attacks “around this belief that the election was fraudulent,” Wallace brought up the tactics used in the war on terror.
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“But my question for you is around incitement,” she said to her panel. “We had a policy, and it was very controversial, it was carried out under the Bush years, and under the Obama years, of attacking terrorism at its root. Of going after and killing, and in the case of Anwar Awlaki, an American, a Yemeni-American, with a drone strike for the crime of inciting violence, inciting terrorism.”
Circling back to McConnell, Wallace—who was President George W. Bush’s communications director—added: “Mitch McConnell was in the Senate then. He was in the Senate after 9/11, too. How does Mitch McConnell—who understands that the way you root out terrorism, is to take on, in the case of Islamic terrorism, kill those who incite it—how does he not vote to convict someone that he said, on the floor of the Senate, incited an insurrection?”
On Monday night, Carlson joined a slew of right-wing blogs in seemingly accusing Wallace of wanting to blow up Trump supporters. Teasing the upcoming segment before a commercial break, the conservative Fox star wondered aloud “how crazy are things getting” before answering his own question.
“A prominent news anchor is now suggesting drone strikes against American citizens who have the wrong politics,” he declared.
Returning from break and prior to playing the clip of Wallace, Carlson said that “there was a time” when “most sane people in this country” would have thought it was a “little over the top” to believe in “bombing American citizens with military drone strikes in this country just because you don’t like their politics.”
“Maybe not the unity we were looking for,” he snarked, adding: “But things have changed. Supporters of Donald Trump, it turns out, were so dangerous that maybe they do deserve Hellfire missiles raining down on their homes.”
After playing the clip, Carlson concluded: “We play a lot of over-the-top video of that news channel and that news anchor. Save that tape. That will live on forever as one of the craziest things said on cable television. It’s the sign of the moment we’re in.”
