Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney was forced to apologize Thursday following an on-air chat with Republican Texas Representative Louie Gohmert, who very casually floated a conspiracy theory involving Democratic donor George Soros into a conversation about new Google technology developed for China. The tech giant has recently come under fire for its so-called “Project Dragonfly” search engine, which reportedly would assist Chinese government in essentially censoring and spying on its citizens.
In a Fox Business op-ed also published Thursday, Varney compared the project to a “modern-day version of George Orwell’s Big Brother.” While agreeing with that take, it was at that point that Gohmert went right the heck off the rails.
“You mentioned Orwell. It reminds me of another George, George Soros, because Google is born in a free country and then the go over and oppress others in other countries. George Soros is supposed to be Jewish but you wouldn’t know it from the damage he inflicted on Israel and the fact that he turned on fellow Jews and helped take the property that they owned.”
Soros, of course, is a popular target of far-right conspiracy theories, as well as alleged “MAGA bomber” Cesar Sayoc Jr. The billionaire philanthropist has been falsely accused of being a Nazi collaborator during World War II and confiscating property from Jews.
Best part of Stuart Varney's apology is the "for some reason" https://t.co/Pj3wGFAVUn pic.twitter.com/4kKiDU7du2
— Matt Wilstein (@mattwilstein) December 6, 2018
At the time, Varney attempted to steer his guest away from the dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric, but later offered the following on-air apology.
“In the last hour, one our guests, Congressman Louie Gohmert, for some reason went out of his way to bring up George Soros, and made unsubstantiated and false allegations against him. I want to make clear those views are not shared by me, this program or anyone at Fox Business.”
It seems as if Fox News having to apologize for its guests is becoming more and more of a regular occurrence. Just last week, while being interviewed by Steve Doocy on live TV, Kid Rock triumphantly announced, “Screw that Joy Behar bitch,” seemingly out of the absolute blue.
The moral of the story is that sometimes, a broadcast delay can be your best friend. Or maybe being a bit more diligent about screening live, on-air guests.
(Via Daily Beast)