Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter Blast Tucker Carlson for Upcoming 1/6 Special: Might Be Fox Host’s ‘Most Dangerous Moment Yet’

CNN’s Jim Acosta on Saturday suggested Tucker Carlson‘s upcoming January 6 series could be his “most dangerous” to date and asked CNN’s Brian Stelter how the media can deal with “these lies.”

“It might be Tucker Carlson’s most dangerous moment yet. Fox News’s right-wing host is taking his assault on democracy to terrifying new heights in a brand new series promising to tell the truth, he says, about January 6th,” said Acosta to open the segment. “It actually appears to be nothing but a war on the truth.”

Acosta played the full preview of the Carlson special, then a clip of Carlson reacting to people attacking the preview. Turning to his guest, Acosta said even covering the topic hurts.

“It’s almost painful to get the words out, talking through this segment,” Acosta said to Stelter, “because it is just so painful to watch what he’s doing.”

Stelter talked about some of the reactions and mentioned that Fox News has been carefully clarifying that it will be streaming only.

“Some people thought, ‘Oh, I guess Fox is trying to distance itself from Tucker. They’re trying to say, Hey, we’re not airing this crazy stuff. It’s only on the internet,'” said Stelter. “But actually, Jim, I think they’re doing something else. They’re trying to get people to sign up. They’re trying to get people to pay. They’re trying to recruit new subscribers to the streaming service by promoting Tucker’s images.”

“Decades ago, Richard Hofstadter wrote about the paranoid style in American politics,” said Stelter. “Those images imagining that an entire group of Americans, half the country, is is being attacked by the government, that there’s a new war on terror? That’s the paranoid style in American politics today.”

“One of the chief questions, I think in all of this is, you know, how does the media deal with these lies?” Acosta asked Stelter. “Are those streaming viewers going to hear the fact-checking, going to hear folks like us saying, you know, this is not what it’s cracked up to be?”

“Well, not firsthand. We know we’re one America in two very different media realities. But at some point you have to hope, whether you’re a CNN fan, or a Fox fan, or a whatever fan, you have to ask yourself: Are the images you’re seeing on screen — Do they reflect your actual reality when you step outside your living room?”

Stelter said that reality itself may be the best fact-check against what he’s already described as “fear-mongering.”

“When you go outside, Fox Fan, do you feel like there’s a war on terror? Do you feel like you’re about to get hauled away to GITMO? DO you feel like the black helicopters are coming for you?” Stelter continued. “At some point, you have to hope the average viewer, no matter ideology, just looks out at reality and asks if what they’re seeing on the TV actually comports that reality. Hopefully that’s the ultimate fact check, Jim.”

Acosta then explained his discussion to his audience, saying that it would be even worse to not fact-check. “If we don’t fact check it, I think we’re doing even more of a disservice,” he said, anticipating objections to their discussion.

Not that there was even a remote chance any Tucker Carlson remark would go unmentioned on CNN. Another CNN host blasted Fox News for wanting to “destroy America,” and an MSNBC star called Fox the “greatest threat” to American democracy in the wake of Carlson airing the trailer.

Watch the clip above, via CNN.