Fox News said it would not bring a bully guest back, then it did
Written by Jason Campbell
Published
On the July 7 edition of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Tucker Carlson interviewed The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles, who had called environmental activist Greta Thunberg a “mentally ill Swedish child” in 2019. At the time, the network had said it would not bring Knowles back on its air.
Knowles had made his comments during the September 23, 2019, edition of The Story with Martha MacCallum, repeatedly referring to environmental activist Greta Thunberg as a “mentally ill child.” Thunberg, who was 16 years old at the time, has been very open about her Asperger’s diagnosis.
Knowles’ comment sparked immediate outrage, including condemnation from the United Kingdom’s National Autistic Society, which tweeted:
It’s unbelievable & shameful that at such a significant moment, some people are still ready to verbally attack a 16 year old girl. Without wanting to give him more publicity – one particular comment was really nasty.
A spokesperson for Fox News called the comment “disgraceful” and apologized to Thunberg and Fox viewers. The network said it had “no plans” to bring Knowles back as a guest.
For his part, Carlson’s show has featured guests with bigoted pasts. Just last month, he hosted a former Trump official who had left the White House after reports surfaced that he attended a white supremacist conference. Last year, there was reporting that a former top writer of Carlson’s show, Blake Neff, had been posting racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and other offensive comments to an online forum for five years.
Carlson’s show is a hotbed of misinformation, white supremacy, and fearmongering over a supposed white genocide.