Fox News host Tucker Carlson took on Democratic strategist Jim Devine on Monday over the latter’s insensitive tweet that advocated for the hunting of Republicans just hours after the terrible shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice.
“So, Jim Devine,” Carlson asked, “under what circumstances is it morally acceptable to use violence for political ends?”
“It’s never moral, it’s never acceptable to use violence for political ends, except perhaps in the most extreme cases, I refer you to George Washington and those guys,” Devine responded. “The fact of the matter is we do with ballots in this country what they do with bullets elsewhere. And it is not uncommon in politics that we use the language of war.”
“We talk about fierce rhetoric,” he continued, “we talk about campus crusades, and so on. You were on a television program, and I don’t know what your body count was, when you were on “Crossfire,” I assume that there were no real casualties there.”
“Oh stop, oh stop, you know what,” Carlson interrupted, “I want to have a reasonable conversation. I don’t want to demagogue this, but in the hours after five people were shot, including the House majority whip, you sent out a tweet that said, ‘hunt Republicans,’ I mean it was clearly a reference to the assassination attempt against congressman [Steve] Scalise. It’s hard to imagine how you could justify writing something like that.”