Carl Cameron and Tucker Carlson are not exactly the Woody and Buzz Lightyear of Fox News. Over the weekend, Cameron—a former Fox New political reporter—chatted with Jim Acosta on CNN and had some pretty harsh things to say about his former colleagues, and Carlson in particular. And, as Mediaite reports, Carlson is none too happy about it.
“Tucker has been screaming ‘fire’ in a crowded movie house for years,” Cameron told Acosta. “And that cliché really comes to the matter of what is free speech. And the fact of the matter is, if you disturb the peace by starting a riot in a movie theater, cops are going to arrest you and you might end up in jail or you might end up in something worse. And that kind of stuff absolutely has to stop.”
Cameron suggested that it might be time to enact laws that would prohibit people like Carlson from using their massive media platforms to spread lies and other dangerous rhetoric without real consequences. Carlson grabbed onto the line about ending “up in jail or… something worse,” which he took as a veiled threat, before turning it around and blaming it all on Democrats:
“What’s ‘something worse’? We are not sure what ‘something worse’ is, but it certainly feels like we’re moving toward it at very high speed at this point. That’s the end point to talk like that, ‘something worse,’ because rhetoric has its own internal logic. You’ve experienced it, you can talk yourself into things. We’ve all done that. Democrats are doing it right now, and what they are talking themselves into right now is ‘something worse.’”
“It’s scary,” Carlson concluded of Cameron’s words, taking no responsibility for the many, many, many lies he has spewed and fearmongering he has engaged in. “It is time to pull back,” Carlson continued, in an attempt to be the voice of reason. “It is time to de-escalate. Otherwise, this is going to get really ugly, really soon.”
(Via Mediaite)