CNN’s Jim Acosta blasted Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the Murdoch family for a new miniseries focusing on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, a project which Acosta referred to as “Proud Boy porn.”
A trailer for the series, which debuts in three parts this week and will be streamed exclusively on Fox Nation, the company’s streaming service, showed interviewees suggesting the attack on the U.S. Capitol was a “false flag operation.” The trailer also shows Carlson warning viewers that the government may be waging “a war” on “patriots.”
“The worst part of what Tucker is doing is that we’ve already seen what his hate-filled rhetoric can do to America,” Acosta said during his weekend program on CNN.
Acosta, formerly the network’s chief White House correspondent, mentioned the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2018 and the mass shooting at The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh as examples of incidents where attackers with far-right political ideology have carried out acts of violence.
“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,” Acosta said. “Tucker is calling his propaganda flick The Patriot Purge … it’s nothing more than Proud Boy porn.”
Carlson, the highest-rated cable news host in the country, was hit with widespread criticism last week, including by at least one high-profile Fox personality, after the trailer for his new series was published on his Twitter account.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who emerged as a leading critic of former President Trump in the days following the incident at the Capitol, ripped Fox News Media for “giving [Carlson] a platform to spread the same type of lies that provoked violence on January 6.”
Acosta also took a shot at Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and his family for “bankrolling” Carlson’s series.
“No matter how you slice it, the Murdoch family, which controls Fox, is cashing in while American democracy is being set ablaze,” he said.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill, but Carlson hit back at Cheney over her comments on his series during his nightly show Thursday.
“Until yesterday she and Nancy Pelosi had a monopoly on how Americans were allowed to understand Jan. 6. Unfortunately for them, that’s not how a free society works. Politicians don’t get to put parameters around your thoughts or conversations. Free people are allowed to ask any question they want,” Carlson said.
“They can follow the facts to their own logical conclusions and that’s exactly what we set out to do months ago when we began reporting out this story,” he added.