After CNN’s Jim Acosta spent the week knocking Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host has returned the favor, dedicating a segment of Friday’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to a takedown of Acosta’s new show, “Democracy in Peril,”He described it as boring, melodramatic and ineffective at attracting viewers.
“Jim Acosta learned a new word this week,”Carlson said. “That doesn’t happen very often, but when it does happen, Acosta likes to show off his new vocabulary like a dog prancing around your living room with a mouthful of roadkill.”
He continued, “Now the word he’s learned is called ‘democracy.’ Jim Acosta has no idea what that word means, but he does like the sound of it. It’s got a weighty ring to it. So, he’s showed off the new word on his new show on CNN, which pretty much no one else in America saw, but we did. Here it is.”
Carlson began to play several clips from “Democracy in Peril,”In which Acosta spoke “democracy”Many times, including during a discussion about the far-right media figures such as Carlson “aiding in dismantling U.S. democracy.”
Carlson said that you “really gotta watch that show with a pen and paper” to get down Acosta’s wordy explanations.
“Do you follow that?”Carlson said it, and then sarcastically recited what Acosta had stated. “It is Democracy’s winter of discontent, ladies and gentlemen! Democracy’s on a collision course with peril, which is both dire and urgent in highly threatening a very troubling way. We’ve got to act now, or Democracy could die on the table, terrified and alone, only to be carted off to the city morgue and get dumped in a pauper’s grave.”
Carlson ended with a sneer and caustically recommended the show. “Honestly, you really should watch Jim Acosta’s show.”He added with a smile. “It’s amazing.”
His comments come as CNN struggles to recover its ratings since Chris Cuomo’s departure. Over the last two weeks, Brianna Keilar and Acosta have taken turns filling the former anchor’s 9 p.m. ET weekday spot. Both interim hosts trailed significantly behind Cuomo’s November viewership numbers, which were the lowest ratings “Cuomo Prime Time”he’d ever received.
(Editor’s note: A previous headline erroneously said Jim Acosta’s show, “Democracy in Peril”It was not CNN, but MSNBC. We regret the error and apologize.
