Tucker Carlson is facing heat from GLAAD after the Fox News host dedicated a segment of his show Monday evening to attacking Pulse nightclub survivor, Brandon Wolf.
The gay rights organization said the Fox News host’s segment on Wolf led to “death threats” against the survivor.
“Last night Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson laughed and smiled during a discussion about the Pulse nightclub shooter and in doing so, unleashed a fury of online hate against Brandon Wolf,” the organization said in a blog post Tuesday. “Within minutes of Carlson’s on-air attack, Brandon’s social feeds were populated with Carlson viewers who wished violence and harm on Brandon.”
“Now he is receiving death threats from Fox News Channel viewers and others on social media,” they added.
Wolf earned Carlson’s ire for an appearance he made on the Saturday morning episode of the MSNBC program “AM Joy.” The segment focused on old blog posts in which host Joy Reid made the number of disparaging comments towards LGBT individuals.
In the segment — designed ostensibly around the premise of exonerating Reid of responsibility for her past statements — Wolf used a bit of Mike Pence “whataboutism” to put Reid’s comments in context. On set, Wolf said “homophobic psychopaths” were running the country and suggested that if Mike Pence ever became president of the United States he would put gay people in “concentration camps.”
The harsh critique — which raised eyebrows in conservative media — went uncorrected and unchallenged by Reid on set.
On his program, Carlson, and noted LGBT troll Chadwick Moore, gleefully filled that void.
‘It’s almost become a kind of a depraved fantasy on their part. They actually believe this could happen, that Mike Pence wants to do this,” said Moore. “I feel very bad for Mike Pence. He handles these attacks with such grace and such decorum. I really don’t think that there’s anything homophobic about Mike Pence.”
“Pulse nightclub was not attacked by the radical Amish,” Moore continued, as Carlson grinned. “The person who attacked Pulse nightclub did not pledge his allegiance to the Episcopalian caliphate.”
In statement provided to us after publication, Carlson defended the segment and offered a swipe at TheWrap.
“Brandon Wolf told MSNBC viewers that if Mike Pence became president, he would put gay people in concentration camps. That is false, and I said so,” he said. “TheWrap’s headline is dishonest. I didn’t ‘attack a survivor of the Pulse nightclub massacre.’ I fact-checked a talking head on Joy Reid’s show who was lying. That’s still allowed, I think.”
Watch above.