This morning, Fox & Friends hosted “renowned Christian minister and author” John Hagee to promote his latest book and discuss, in host Gretchen Carlson's words, if America “is heading to a disaster it cannot survive.”
Carlson interviewed Hagee for several minutes about Israel and the national debt, while chyrons like “On The Path To Disaster: Geopolitical & Economical [sic] Storms Brewing” appeared on-screen.
At the end of the segment, Carlson plugged Hagee's book, Can America Survive?, as “great” and said to him that “you also touch on the religion in your book.”
“Touch on the religion” doesn't quite cover it.
As we detailed last year when Glenn Beck plugged Hagee's book (note: Hagee was appearing today to promote the “updated” version), Can America Survive? is about how the world is fast-approaching Biblical Armageddon. Hagee buttresses his hypothesis with flimsy interpretations of “Bible prophecy,” and writes that the global economic crisis will be hastened by the sudden Rapture of billions of Christians, which will pave the road for the arrival of the Antichrist.
Here's a brief list of other lowlights from Hagee's “great,” Fox-endorsed and promoted book:
- Early in the book, Hagee informs readers that the current “terminal generation” is fulfilling “Bible prophecy for the first time in world history,” and recites the “fact” that one-third of humanity will soon die in an ecological disaster. Mixing his Biblical soothsaying with some Mayan mythology, Hagee asks, “Could this specific day be 12/12/12?”
- Hagee enumerates the various bits of “evidence” that the Antichrist will soon return. In a section headlined “Adolf Hitler and the SS were absolutely committed to and controlled by the powers of the occult,” Hagee invokes the popularity of the Harry Potter series.
- Hagee explains that the Bible is a “literal book from cover to cover” and uses this to support his idea that the “rapture could happen before you finish reading this page!” (We're still waiting.)
- Hagee spends much of the book war-mongering against Iran. He writes that he has it on good authority from a “confidential source” that Al-Qaeda, working with Iran, is going to detonate nuclear weapons in seven American cities.
- Hagee's interest in taking military action against Iran extends far beyond just preventing an attack on U.S. soil. He believes Iran's aggression against Israel is actually a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and states as fact that “World War III is about to begin.”
- Hagee explains near the end of the book in a section called “The Jewish People Turn to God” that after God crushes Russia and their “Islamic coalition,” the Jewish people will eventually come to “recognize Jesus as the Messiah.”
While Carlson introduced him as a “renowned” minister, “controversial” probably would have been a better description. Hagee has a long history of incendiary remarks, including reportedly arguing “in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine.”
In 2006, Hagee blamed Hurricane Katrina on gays, claiming that “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades.”
Hagee's controversial history actually led John McCain to publicly reject his endorsement during the 2008 election.