‘Do You Want Tucker to Be Canceled?’: The View Clashes Over Carlson in Heated Debate
The View held a rousing debate on Tuesday about Fox News host Tucker Carlson and whether he should face any consequences in connection with his former top writer’s racist comments.
The conversation kicked off by reviewing Carlson’s Monday night segment where he addressed Blake Neff’s offensive statements, took shots at “the ghouls now beating their chests in triumph,” and then announced he’s going on a vacation that was planned in advance. Joy Behar kicked off the conversation by slamming Carlson’s racially-incendiary comments before noting that Neff previously bragged about how he and Carlson are ideologically aligned.
“No wonder he’s taking an extended vacation,” Behar said “He knows he’s just as guilty as the writer.”
After taking her own shots at Carlson’s commentary, Sunny Hostin reacted to Neff’s firing by calling it calling it a matter of accountability and personal responsibility. She also questioned whether Carlson’s vacation was pre-planned, and she slammed the Fox host for his attempt to “change the narrative” with his address.
“The fact that [Neff’s] career was destroyed is of his own doing. The fact that he is now being held accountable for it, again, is his own doing,” Hostin said. “For Tucker Carlson somehow to try and blame shift here I think is really despicable. I wonder about this long-planned vacation. He seems to take a lot of long-planned vacations when it gets hot in the kitchen.”
Meghan McCain launched into a condemnation of “cancel culture” before defending Carlson for the sake of “diversity of opinion.” While she agreed that Neff “should have been fired,” McCain lamented that “When we’re thinking about cancel culture, it just makes me sad that we’re in a moment in time where there’s not a place for people to come together and have civil — and sometimes a little uncivil — debates.”
After Whoopi Goldberg angled the discussion back toward Carlson’s racially-charged comments, McCain said she doesn’t hold him accountable for Neff’s comments, and she told her colleagues “your criticism of his writer has turned on to a criticism of him.” Goldberg’s continuation of her point eventually prompted McCain to ask “Do you want Tucker to be canceled as well?”
“It’s not about cancellation. It’s about accountability,” Hostin retorted. “It’s not about what his writer has done, Meghan. It’s about what he has done.”
The conversation continued to escalate until Goldberg eventually threw to commercials. When the show resumed, the panel continued with a broader discussion about cancel culture, freedom of speech and how people should be held accountable for what they say.
When Carlson addressed Neff’s comments on his show last night, he offered this statement on the matter:
What Blake wrote anonymously was wrong. We don’t endorse those words. They have no connection to this show. It is wrong to attack people for qualities they cannot control. In this country, we judge people for what they do, not for how they were born. We often say that, because we mean it. We will continue to defend that principle, often alone among national news programs, because it is essential. Nothing is more important.
Carlson’s comments came after Fox News circulated an internal memo saying Neff’s conduct was “abhorrent” and “will not be tolerated.”
Watch above, via ABC.
