During the Thursday broadcast of FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson mocked the media’s handling of freshman Rep. George Santos (R-NY), who was less than truthful during his 2022 congressional campaign about his resume and background.
Carlson said the media portrayal of Santos was “like 9/11 in human form.”
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: So we haven’t watched a ton of cable news recently, but we assumed with mass layoffs underway across the U.S. economy, an egg shortage, crumbling cities, the prospect of a Third World War looming on the horizon, we assumed we knew what the other channels would be covering because there are an awful lot of threats out there.
What we didn’t know until we tuned into MSNBC and CNN the other day was that all of those threats go by a single name, and that name is Mr. George Santos. George Santos.
Weeks into his new job as a freshman Member of Congress and just months from his previous life of near total anonymity, George Santos has somehow transformed in the single most dangerous and historically significant figure on the global stage today.
George Santos is like 9/11 in human form, nothing will ever be the same now that George Santos is here. You will never forget the moment you first saw George Santos. Where were you when George Santos was elected? A story you will tell your grandchildren. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): On Capitol Hill, this is George Santos’ reality. It seems almost every day there are new questions about the freshman Congressman’s past, some stretching back more than a decade.
MEHDI HASAN, MSNBC HOST: Can you keep up with all the Santos lies and controversies? He is now out trumping Trump in terms of flooding the zone with excrement.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Not just saying that he played volleyball, but he had a scholarship, that he slayed teams from Harvard and Yale.
MSNBC GUEST: A perfect portrayal of self-loathing, that he clearly is so disgusted with himself and so disgusted with the life that he’s led a life of wise, a life of fables.
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: People didn’t decide because they thought he was somebody totally, totally different. It was a lie and a fraudulent election. He has the resign.
ALI VELSHI, MSNBC HOST: Not a volleyball champion, and he doesn’t appear to be a champion of the people either. The voters did not elect you, Mr. Santos. They elected a version of you, invented by your imagination. Sadly, George Santos represents so much that his run today — lies, denial, and the death of shame.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: It was a stolen election. It was a stolen election. You heard Adam Kinzinger say it, and CNN filled in the blanks.
It’s not just the George Santos claimed that he wants played volleyball in college, played volleyball in college. It’s worse than that. Indescribably worse.
George Santos told other people out there, and CNN can exclusively confirm this, that he had a volleyball scholarship, perhaps the most coveted credential in collegiate sports. But he didn’t, it was all a facade.
It was a tissue of lies constructed to deceive the American people. There was no volleyball scholarship. There was not a single dollar of volleyball scholarship.
George Santos made it all up out of whole cloth, out of thin air. George Santos is ersatz volleyball player, a fraud, a ghoul. People voted for this man believing he had played collegiate volleyball on a scholarship and he hadn’t.
And yet tonight, ladies and gentlemen, this thief of volleyball glory, strides the Halls of the United States Congress, unimpeded by law enforcement. It’s like another insurrection.
And by the way we’re hearing tonight, we can’t confirm this, but we are going to continue our investigation on George Santos. There are reports tonight, that he did not actually work at Citibank. He did not work at Citibank.
No volleyball scholarship, never worked at Citibank.
What percentage of the people who voted for George Santos under false pretenses would have done so had they known? He never played volleyball and never worked at Citibank, we can only guess. Obviously, a very small percentage.
So ignore the Chinese spy balloon, ladies and gentlemen. George Santos.
There is by the way, a Chinese spy balloon flying over the United States, The Pentagon does not want to shoot it down. Why would you want to shoot a Chinese spy balloon down? That seems mean and racist. Why aren’t they shooting it down? George Santos. George Santos.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor