(The Hill) — Comedian Jon Stewart tore into Fox News host Tucker Carlson when asked about recent comments the host made about Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
“When you deal with such a dishonest propagandist — and that is what he is — there’s nothing you can take out of context, because none of it is real,” Stewart said of Carlson during an appearance this week on New York Times reporter Kara Swisher’s podcast. “He’s admitted when he’s cornered, he lies. It’s all a game and a performance. I mean, honestly, I have no idea what the f— that guy believes, truly.”
Carlson has earned widespread criticism for his comments on Putin and suggestions that the United States has little to gain from involving itself in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years?” Carlson asked during a recent episode of his popular prime-time show.
“Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination?” Carlson continued. “Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs? These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is no.”
Stewart joked that “checklist that he ran down is actually — used to be on my dating profile. So it would always be when I was looking for a prospective mate, it was always, do they … Do they manufacture fentanyl? Do they eat dog? Are they calling me a racist? If they could pass that test, we were ready to go share a meal or anything else that we might be able to come up with.”
The former host of “The Daily Show” has clashed with Carlson, a longtime political pundit and TV personality, in the past.
In 2006 he made a fiery appearance on the now-defunct CNN show “Crossfire,” of which Carlson was then a host, and mocked the debate show for being “bad” for America.
On Swisher’s podcast, Stewart accused Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of the Fox Corporation, which owns Fox News and employs Carlson, of “trying to destroy the fabric of this country.”
“I don’t know if it’s ideological or he just thinks, this is where the money is. But how somebody can in good conscience put a s—head like that on television every night to say those types of things, that’s where the responsibility lies in my mind,” Stewart said.