White House condemns Tucker Carlson’s ‘Nazi propaganda’ interview as ‘disgusting and sadistic insult’

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/05/media/white-house-condemns-tucker-carlson-nazi-propaganda-interview/index.html

The Biden administration is denouncing Tucker Carlson after the far-right personality hosted a guest on his show this week who suggested the Holocaust happened by accident, calling the interview “a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans.”

During Carlson’s two-hour sit-down with Darryl Cooper, a podcaster whom he said “may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States,” Cooper claimed that Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Jews was an unintended consequence – something akin to poor planning instead of the methodical extermination that it actually was.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Cooper claimed, was the “chief villain of the Second World War” and “primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did, becoming something other than an invasion of Poland.”

Carlson’s platforming of Cooper has been widely criticized in recent days, including by some right-wing figures who have defended Carlson in the past. Elon Musk, who promoted the interview on his social media platform, X, calling it “Very interesting. Worth watching,” later deleted his post.

In a statement first shared with CNN, senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said “giving a microphone to a Holocaust denier who spreads Nazi propaganda is a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans, to the memory of the over 6 million Jews who were genocidally murdered by Adolf Hitler, to the service of the millions of Americans who fought to defeat Nazism, and to every subsequent victim of Antisemitism.”

The administration’s statement specifically refuted Cooper’s claim to Carlson that Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II.

Reached for comment on Thursday, Carlson sharply criticized the White House.

“The fact that these lunatics have used the Churchill myth to bring our country closer to nuclear war than at any moment in history disgusts me, and should terrify every American,” he said in a text message to CNN. “They’re warmonger freaks. They don’t get the moral high ground.”

Carlson is also undertaking a live speaking tour this fall with events across the country. Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee, JD Vance, is scheduled to appear with Carlson at a Sept. 21 event in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a person familiar with the plans told CNN.

Several conservative columnists have raised questions about whether Vance will move forward with the appearance in light of the Cooper controversy. In a statement, the Vance campaign sought to distance the candidate from the interview.