Fox News host Tucker Carlson let his viewers know what he thought of the women who have come forward to accuse Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, suggesting on set that Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination had turned into a witch hunt.
On Tuesday evening, Carlson mocked Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez by comparing their accusations to those from Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” — and played footage from the 1996 film on air.
“Tonight there are more allegations, consistent in many ways with the allegations we have already heard,” he said.
“Leading Democrats are calling these claims powerful, compelling and highly credible,” Carlson continued, setting up the moment. “They are all but daring Republicans to question the new accusers. The victims, they say, must be believed.”
Carlson then played footage from the famous Miller-penned drama, showing the furious accusations of various characters against each other, claiming they had seen one another with the “the devil.”
“Oh, just kidding,” said Carlson after the brief clip. “That’s a scene from ‘The Crucible,’ which you’ll remember is the Arthur Miller play about the Salem witch trials.”
While Fox News was broadly deferential to Ford after she cane forward to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in the Washington Post two weeks ago, things turned sharply negative after the emergence of Ramirez, a second accuser who told the New Yorker on Sunday that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her while they were both freshman at Yale.
On Tuesday, Carlson’s colleague Laura Ingraham also railed against the charges — particularly the Ramirez accusation, saying that reporter Ronan Farrow, who co-bylined the story of her claim for the New Yorker, should have his Pulitzer Prize revoked.
“So this is Ronan Farrow, they should take his Pulitzer back for this. Go find Ronan and take his Pulitzer back, OK?” she said on her radio show.
“He actually did great reporting when it came to the [Harvey] Weinstein stuff — because that was someone who was a dirtbag his whole life, his entire life. Now you’re taking a good man and going back to college and high school to try to destroy him. That’s what it’s about.”
Kavanaugh has broadly denied all the allegations against him and even took to Fox News this week to publicly proclaim his innocence.