Fox News host Tucker Carlson and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio faced off in another epic verbal slugfest, occasionally agreeing but mostly arguing over everything from immigration to banning assault weapons, from New York City’s homeless crisis to how “the city smells like urine.”
Kicking off their massively long segment, Carlson actually praised de Blasio for talking about the threat of automation on jobs for American workers. But that comity quickly dissipated when the Fox News host, who has previously said America “must strike back against the “hostile foreign power” Mexico, slammed the New York City mayor for “supporting mass immigration.”
Carlson then zeroed in on the homelessness problem in de Blasio’s hometown. “Have you noticed, the city smells like urine!” he added. “That city is not getting better under your mayorship.” Carlson also asked the mayor why the leaders of his city’s biggest employers, like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, have not been supporting his 2020 presidential run.
De Blasio noted that, in fact, the city has more working people than ever and that violent crime sits at historic lows. And he added: “It doesn’t surprise me that [Dimon] would not support someone who wants to tax the wealthy a lot more and wants to challenge Wall Street.”
Finally, Carlson sparred with de Blasio over guns, accusing the mayor of hypocrisy for wanting to remove assault weapons from America’s homes and street as well as ban high-capacity magazines, even though he would still allow law enforcement and private bodyguards to use them.
“Would you subject your bodyguards to the same limitations as other American citizens?” Carlson asked.
“I respect you, but that’s a question that makes no sense whatsoever,” de Blasio said, before distinguishing between police and public service protection versus mass murderers like the Odessa gunman who was able to avoid a background check to buy an AR-15 and then kill seven people and wound 22 more last weekend.
“It’s horrible. The guns didn’t do it. They are lunatics,” Carlson claimed, about the mass shootings that, by definition, always involve guns. The Fox News host then ominously laid out the threat of a hypothetical insurgency that could be spurred by a mandatory assault weapon buyback program like the one de Blasio is advocating.
“The cops would show up and say give us your gun and they would say no and you would have, unfortunately, tragically you would have cases of violence. Are you OK with that?” Carlson asked.
“We have seen the devastating impact” of inaction, de Blasio pointed out.
Later, after blasting de Blasio as an absentee mayor and saying “public urination is at an all-time high,” it was time for pleasant good-byes.
“I’ll tell you what puts you in good graces with me, anyway, is having the stones to come on this show. Good for you,” Carlson said. “Come back anytime.
*story by Mediaite