 John Stuart has been one of the few, and one of the first, I believe, in mainstream media to actually call out Tucker Carlson and the threat that he poses to America. In fact, back in 2004, we've played the clip on this show, I'll play it again in this segment. He actually confronted Tucker Carlson to his face and called him a dishonest hack. But time has passed, and Tucker Carlson's influence has grown exponentially. And now the threat that Tucker Carlson poses to America is far greater than the threat that he posed while he was working at CNN, and it was just the standard Republican party talking head. So now, Tucker Carlson, he doesn't just feed conservative, standard right-wing talking points about trickle-down economics. He has gotten them to accept white supremacist propaganda, the great replacement theory, this idea that immigrants are making America dirty. And what he's doing is incredibly dangerous, because he is contributing, perhaps, more so than anyone else to the far-right radicalization of conservatives in the United States. So John Stuart kind of knew the danger that Tucker Carlson posed, and he was asked again in an interview with Cara Swisher, who hosts the New York Times podcast, what are your thoughts on Tucker Carlson today? Now he was asked specifically about Tucker Carlson's flip-flop on Vladimir Putin over the course of the last couple of weeks, and I don't really care about that. What I want to get to is the broader critique of Tucker Carlson, because what John Stuart says here is absolutely 100% accurate. As Dominic Mestrangelo of The Hill writes, Comedian John Stuart torrent of 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's what he is, there's nothing you can take out of context, because none of it is real, Stuart said, of Carlson during an appearance this week on New York Times reporter Cara 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 fuck that guy believes, truly. On Swisher's podcast, Stuart accused Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of the Fox News 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 shithead like that on television every night to say those types of things, that's where the responsibility lies. In my mind, Stuart said. So first and foremost, he refers to what Tucker Carlson does as theater and that's accurate. And we'll look at the clip from Crossfire and he says the same thing that what Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala was doing at that time was nothing more than political theater and it was hurting the country. But what John Stuart is saying here is, you know, Tucker Carlson, he's going to say what gets him the ratings. Who knows if he truly believes the white supremacist propaganda that he disseminates. But really, what you have to blame are the people who put him on the air, the people who employ him. I mean, at some point, you have to look at Rupert Murdoch and this media company and ask what is their goal for the country? What's the long term goal to just disrupt the country? I mean, I feel like to me as a leftist, at least perhaps my perspective skews my opinion on this, but it feels like the right has unquestionably won. You defeated the left. You defeated Democrats. You got what you wanted. We live in a late stage capitalist hellscape. Neoliberalism has overtaken the country. We've commodified everything, including elections. So what more do you want? You've won politically and economically. So what now? Why are you still doing this? Do you just want the country to fall apart? Do you want to see division? Are you just trying to make more money and hence profits? What's the end game here for these far right outlets? And that's that's really hard to discern. But regardless, unquestionably, what's happening is absolutely damaging. Now, I do want to go to that clip from Crossfire from 2004. This is relatively lengthy. And again, I've played this on the program before, so feel free to tune out. It's worth watching again, though. The premise of the show is you have a Republican and a Democrat and they debate various topics. But as you're going to see, John Stuart points out that this isn't actually debated as political theater. You have Paul Begala, a Democratic Party hack versus Tucker Carlson, a Republican Party talking head and hack. And this isn't really them actually debating ideas in a substantive way. They're just representing their respective party's donors. So John Stuart, you know, he he called that out. He called them hacks. He called Tucker Carlson a hack to his face. And one thing that I want you to keep in mind as you watch this clip from 2004 is that a lot of the criticism that John Stuart had of Tucker Carlson back then is still applicable now. Take a look. You're partisan. What do you call it? Hacks. Wait, John, wait, let me tell you something valuable that I think we do that I'd like to see something valuable. Yeah, no, it's it's I would like I would like to hear it when I'll tell you when politicians come on. Yeah, it's nice to get them to try and answer the question. And in order to do that, we try and ask them pointed questions. I want to contrast our questions with some questions you asked John Kerry, if you want to if you want to compare your show to a comedy show, you're more than welcome to show. No, no, here's here's the point. If that's your goal, it's not. I would name for us. I'd aim for the problem. That's a very good show. Kerry will come on this show. He will come on your show. Let me suggest why he wants to. Well, we have civilized discourse. Well, here's here's an example of civilized discourse. Here are three of the questions you asked, John. Yeah, you have a chance to interview the Democratic nominee. You asked him questions such as, quote, How are you holding up? Is it hard not to take the attacks personally? Have you ever flip flopped, et cetera, et cetera? Yeah. Didn't you feel like you got the chance to interview the guy? Why don't you ask him a real question instead of just suck up to him? Yeah, how you're holding up is a real suck up. And I actually was giving him a hot stone massage. You guys sounded that way. As we were doing it. You know, it's it's interesting to hear you talk about my responsibility to the, you know, I didn't realize that. And maybe this explains quite a bit of the opportunity is that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity. So what I would suggest is when you talk about you're holding politicians feet to the fire, I think that's disingenuous. I think you're how are you holding up? I mean, come on. No, no, no, no, I don't. But my my role isn't. I don't ask him a real question. Don't you think instead of saying, you know, I don't think I have to, by the way, I also asked him, you know, where you in Cambodia. But I didn't really care because I don't care. Because I think it's stupid. Well, but my point is this, if your idea of confronting me is that I don't ask hard hitting enough news questions, we're in bad shape, fellas. We're here to love you, not confront you. No, no, no, but what I'm saying is this, I'm not, I'm here to confront you because we need help from the media and they're hurting us. And it's, the idea is. If the indictment is, let me get this straight, if the indictment is, if the indictment is, and I have seen you say this, that Crossfire reduces everything, as I said in the intro, to left, right, black, white, yes. Well, it's because, see, we're a debate show. It's like saying to one channel. No, no, no, that'd be great. That'd be great. To a store. I would love to see a debate show. In a 24 hour day where we have each side on, as best we can get them. No, no, no, no, that would be great. And have them fight it out. To do a debate would be great. But that's like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition. I think you're a good comedian. I think your lectures are boring. Let me ask you a question on the news. No, this is theater. I mean, it's obvious. How old are you? 35. And you wear a bow tie. Yeah, I do. I do. So this is. I know, I know. So this is theater. Let me just go. Now come on. And listen, I'm not suggesting that you're not, you're not a smart guy because those are not easy to tie. But the thing is that this, you're doing theater when you should be doing debate, which would be great. No, so it's not pro. It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I'll tell you why I know it. You sign hackery on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery? Absolutely. You're. You've got to be kidding me. You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you? I'm just saying there's no reason for you when you have this marvelous opportunity not to be the guy's butt boy to go ahead and be his butt boy. It's not as embarrassing. I was absolutely his butt boy. I was so far. You would not believe what he ate two weeks ago. You know, the interesting thing that I have is you'll have a responsibility to the public discourse. And you fail miserably. I think. You need to go to one. The thing that I want to say is when you have people on for just knee jerk, reactionary talk. Well, I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. No, I'm not going to be your monkey. What? I watch your show every day and it kills me. I can tell you love it. Oh, it's so painful to watch. You know, because we need what you do. This is such a great opportunity you have here to actually get politicians off of their marketing and strategy. It's someone who watches your show and cannot take it anymore. I just can't. What's it like to have dinner with you? It must be excruciating. I've seen this clip countless times and it still is entertaining and important. So what's interesting is that shortly after John Stuart made that appearance, guess what happened? CNN decided to cancel Crossfire. Now you can't necessarily say with certainty that they canceled Crossfire because of John Stuart there and that appearance was just so devastating. But I've got to say, then CNN president Jonathan Klein said that he actually agreed with Stuart's criticisms of the media at that time. And I mean, the media I feel like has only gotten worse since then. So, you know, you see, no actual structural changes made at CNN because they're still doing the same exact thing, the same political and partisan hackery. But everything that John Stuart said, there was absolutely on the money. And that media landscape, it's gotten worse since then, don't you think? Now we've seen more radical outlets pop up. OAN, Newsmax. And I don't know what specifically is driving hyperpolarization, but I know for a fact, this type of media, it's responsible for the lion's share, I think, of hyperpolarization in the United States, you know, not taken into consideration the lack of policies that are needed to address crises in this country. But Tucker Carlson is a dangerous propagandist because he's so effective. I mean, he's priming Americans. He's been priming Americans for years to subconsciously and sometimes explicitly accept white supremacist talking points. And he's radicalizing the right. And as the right becomes more and more radicalized because of media figures like him, the country becomes further destabilized. You pave the way for extremists like Donald Trump to pop up. Now I do believe that we can minimize the level of extremism, perhaps make people less susceptible to radicalization if we address some economic needs. But you know, you're not just gonna get racism to go away if we have Medicare for all our socialism. So I'm not trying to make a class reductionist point. But what I am saying is that the damage that Tucker Carlson is doing is long-term. It's irreparable. I think that the way that he gets people to think about issues as it's them against us, they're against us. It's whites versus everyone else. And he may not say that explicitly all the time, but it's, he's priming you to think in this way. Like what he's doing there, irreparable harm, irreparable harm, brainwashing an entire generation. And he knows the way to market himself as this populist. He knows how to sell it. And that's so dangerous. So it's nice to see John Stuart call him out. John Stuart canceled Tucker Carlson before. Maybe he'll be able to do it again, but I doubt that because he brings in the ratings. And because he's so successful, Fox News is not going to let him go. But the damage that he is doing is just truly immeasurable. Do yourself a favor and click the join button on YouTube to become a member. Cause Mike's doing a great job getting to watch his videos before everyone else is tremendous. Many people are saying this. Join today, folks. You won't regret it.