In a time where US politics is just as messy and damaged as UK politics, we can trust in CNN’s Jim Acosta to tell it how it is and reassure us that we’re not losing our collective minds.
Speaking on his show on Saturday, the news anchor turned his attention to controversial Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, who is set to release a three-part documentary Patriot Purge on 1 November.
According to Insider, the special – to be released on the Fox Nation streaming service – will suggest that the Capitol riot was a “false flag” to persecute conservatives.
In a clip shared to Twitter, Acosta responded to news of the Tucker Carlson Original show by saying that Americans have “already seen” what the presenter’s “brand of hate-filled rhetoric can do to America” – citing examples such as the demonstrations by white nationalists in Charlottesville in 2017 and the 2019 Walmart shooting in El Paso, Texas.
Tucker’s “Patriot Purge” is nothing but Proud Boys Porn. My thoughts on why the Murdoch family is more “Secession” than “Succession…” #HoldOn pic.twitter.com/8xQMd3XFDi
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 30, 2021
“The reason why federal investigators and millions of Americans are terrified by right-wing violence in this country, is because it keeps happening, and Tucker Carlson is inciting more of it,” he said.
He added: “Tucker is calling his propaganda flick the Patriot Purge? It’s nothing more than Proud Boy porn, and the worst part, is that a major corporation in America – Fox – is bankrolling it.
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“Fox is insisting Tucker’s manifesto will only be seen on its streaming service, Fox Nation. Please, no matter how you slice it, the Murdoch family which controls Fox is cashing in as American democracy is being set ablaze.”
The broadcaster went on to add that people compare the Murdochs to the HBO drama Succession, but said it was actually “more like secession”.
“The Murdochs and Tucker Carlson – their primetime pyromaniac – appear to be hell-bent on driving this country into a civil war,” he continued.
Twitter users have since praised Acosta for his remarks and “always [telling] it like it is”:
Accurate. https://t.co/P9jgtmcAJG
— Maximillian Potter (@maxapotter) October 31, 2021
THIS. @Acosta actually has conviction about how wrong FOX and Carlson are. When he says, “Tucker Carlson is calling it ‘Patriot Purge’; it’s nothing but Proud Boy Porn,” that’s not just good alliteration. It’s true. https://t.co/jB9iFlInbb
— Mike Wise (@MikeWiseguy) October 31, 2021
I saw this today! Love Jim Acosta! He always tells it like it is!
— Kat-tastrophy (@tastrophy_kat) October 31, 2021
It’s time for the leading consumer companies in America to cease all ad spending on the FOX television network until Tucker Carlson is removed from their airwaves. #boycottFOX
— Scott Kauffman (@slk1) October 30, 2021
Thank you @Acosta. More people need to stand up and speak the truth!
— Mike (@JamesAlanCC) October 30, 2021
.@Acosta is right
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) October 31, 2021
pic.twitter.com/10h15q1jen
This, by @Acosta, is spot on.
— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) October 31, 2021
But if @cnn cares so much about stopping the racism and undermining of democracy on Fox, they’d start demanding that cable companies drop Fox itself or threaten to leave themselves. They have leverage that no one else does.
But they won’t. https://t.co/AeyuKOZkGa
Carlson wasn’t the only person the CNN anchor chose to criticise on his Saturday night show, as Acosta also ridiculed Texas senator Ted Cruz.
“I’m starting to think the problem with [him] is not that he went to Cancun, it’s that he came back,” he said.
