Anderson Cooper Hits Back at Tucker Carlson, Hannity: ‘I Was Dissing Criminality’ Not Olive Garden
CNN host Anderson Cooper responded to both Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson taking shots at him on their primetime shows Thursday night over Cooper poking fun at Olive Garden, the Italian restaurant franchise, on Wednesday night when speaking about where the pro-Trump vigilantes might go to eat after storming the Capitol.
“I know they [Carlson and Hannity] are in a jam, those guys have backed the president more than anyone,” Cooper began. “So I get they need to play down of what we all witnessed at the Capitol. I get it. They need to change the subject. They need to divert attention.”
Cooper further claimed that Carlson and Hannity twisted his words.
“And I guess I gave them an easy opening to twist my words. I should have been more clear with something I said in the immediate moments after the attack as people who had broken into the Capitol were simply being allowed to leave, it seemed, just walk away. Celebrating the criminal act they had taken part in. I was trying to remark about the seemingly casualness of the behavior that we were all witnessing at that moment after the attack. The high-fiving, the laughing, the celebratory atmosphere, as if they had actually accomplished something,” Cooper stated.
The CNN host went on to state he made his original remarks while attempting to think of places the pro-Trump vigilantes might stay and eat as if it were a “normal day” in the Capitol Hill area.
“Normal places, as if this was just a normal day,” Cooper stated, before noting that after a bit of research, the nearest Olive Garden is in Maryland.
“Anyway, now Hannity and Carlson are trying to rile up their viewers and distract them by pretending I was somehow dissing Olive Garden or those hotels, implying that I’m too fancy for those establishments,” Cooper continued. “And it genuinely makes me sad to think people would believe that. And I have been kind of sad about it all day. That is not what I was doing. I was not dissing a restaurant. I was dissing criminality.”
Perhaps when this whole coronavirus pandemic is over, Carlson, Hannity, and Cooper can squash the beef with an Olive Garden meal featuring unlimited breadsticks. (But remember, everyone is family there!)
Watch above, via CNN.
