On MSNBC's The Sunday Show, host Jonathan Capehart invited Howard Dean to comment on the news that Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given thousands of hours of January 6 video footage to Tucker Carlson.
When Capehart asked Dean for his thoughts on "Fox News having access to all that footage," the ever-exasperated Dean replied:
The fact we're even talking about this right now is a problem . . . You do it because you think it's outrageous and it's going to bump your ratings and make people angry. The problem is, you're also spreading it. Tucker Carlson is a bomb-throwing whack job. Why are we even talking about Tucker Carlson on a respectable news organization? Yes, he has reach. Yes, he's outrageous. I just think that part of this problem is us! We spend too much time with bomb-throwing nut jobs.
And then it seemed Dean might have suffered a problem of mistaken identity:
When Tucker Carlson says something, it's Rupert Murdoch being provocative and undoing a country he never liked in the first place. And why the hell he wanted to be a citizen other than to make money, I have no idea."
For a second there, you might have thought Dean was talking about Ilhan Omar!
And then there was Dean's unintentional humor in calling MSNBC "a respectable news organization." MSNBC—with its assortment of wild and wacky hosts like Joy Reid, Joe Scarborough, et. al, and which constantly offers airtime to a parade of far-left wackos—a "respectable news organization?" To quote an excitable former presidential candidate: yea-h-h-h-h!!!
It should be noted that Capehart clearly has a certain grudging respect for Carlson. Pushing back against Dean's suggestion that the liberal media shouldn't cover Carlson, Capehart said that in many ways, Carlson "has more power" than Speaker McCarthy. Capehart also warned that you have to take Carlson seriously because—like Donald Trump in 2016—whom the liberal media literally laughed off, Carlson "could get elected president."
On Jonathan Capehart's MSNBC show, Howard Dean calling Tucker Carlson a "bomb-throwing whack job" that "respectable news organizations" like MSNBC shouldn't cover, was sponsored in part by Verizon, Samsung, USPS, and Abbott, maker of FreeStyle Libre.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC's The Sunday Show With Jonathan Capehart
2/26/23
9:45 am ETJONATHAN CAPEHART: Chairman Dean, since you brought up Fox News, Eugene, I got to have you listen to what Tucker Carlson had to say on Monday about having access to January 6 material from Speaker McCarthy. Watch this.
TUCKER CARLSON: Our producers, some of our smartest producers, have been there, looking at this stuff, and trying to figure out what it means, and how it contradicts, or not, the story that we've been told for more than two years. We think. already, that in some ways, it does contradict that story.
CAPEHART: He sounds so grave in his tone. But your view on Fox News having access to all that footage?
HOWARD DEAN: So here's the problem, Jonathan. And I'm not sure how to fix this, because you know we're, there are news outlets on the center-left are just as problematic. In fact--
The fact that we're even talking about this right now is a problem. Can you imagine ten years ago, people covering Rush Limbaugh like this, and repeating and repeating and repeating? And on the left, repeating Rush Limbaugh? You do it because you think it's outrageous and it's going to bump your ratings and make people angry. The problem, is you're also spreading it.
Tucker Carlson is a bomb-throwing whack job. Why are we even talking about Tucker Carlson on a respectable news organization? Yes, he has reach, yes he's outrageous. I just think that part of this problem is us! We spend too much time with bomb throwing nut jobs.
When McCarthy says something, it matters. He's the Speaker. When Tucker Carlson says something, it's Rupert Murdoch being provocative, and undoing a country he never liked in the first place. And why the hell he wanted to be a citizen other than to make money, I have no idea.
CAPEHART: Okay, well Chairman Dean, I hear you on all those points. But, in a lot of ways, Tucker Carlson has more power than the Speaker, since his audience, since the folks in that building over there live in great fear of the people who watch Fox News.
And also, one thing I learned during Trump's run for the presidency, when everyone wasn't taking him seriously, I took him seriously. Because when people talk like that, you have to take them seriously. Because you never know, they could get elected President.
