Appearing on Lex Fridman's podcast, former cable news king Tucker Carlson hammered former President George W. Bush in a profanity-laced commentary.
At the heart of Carlson's ire was Bush's immediate response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when his approval rating peaked.
Carlson began by claiming “George W. Bush fled Washington on 9/11.” The then-president famously started that morning in a classroom located in Sarasota, Florida.
“I lived there with three kids, and he ran away to some Air Force base in South Dakota. And I thought that was cowardly,” Carlson continued, which, again, wasn't quite right.
Mediaite's Alex Griffing set the record straight:
Bush spent the eight hours following the beginning of the terror attacks that day aboard Air Force One traversing the eastern United States. Air Force One eventually landed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, where Bush and his senior staff were secured in a bunker.
Carlson explained how he criticized Bush's decision at the time in a column for New York Magazine.
“I think the prerequisites of leadership are really basic. The first is caring about the people you lead. That's number one,” Carlson began. “You know, deep in the way a father cares for his children or an officer cares for his troops. A president should care for his people. And that leads inexorably to the next requirement, which is bravery, physical courage,” he continued, adding:
“And I believe in that. And I'm not like some tough guy, but I think it's obvious if you're in charge. You know, I'm at my house and I feel like someone broke in, I'm not going to say to my wife, ‘Hey, baby, go, go deal with the home invasion.' I'm gonna deal with it because I'm dad. Okay?”
“So if you're the president of a country and your capital city is attacked as ours was at the Pentagon, and you run away, ‘Oh the Secret Service told me to.'”
Reflecting on Bush's performance that day, Carlson called the former president a “bitch,” before exclaiming, “Like, who's daddy here? The Secret Service? Do you know what I mean? I found that totally contemptible.”
Griffing continued:
Much has been written in the years following 9/11 about the events of that day. Politico noted in September 2016 that while on Air Force One for those eight hours, “President Bush and his aides argued about two competing interests—the need to return to Washington and reassure a nation and the competing need to protect the commander in chief.”
“All the while, he and his staff grappled with the aftermath of the worst attack on American soil in their lifetimes, making crucial decisions with only flickering information about the attacks unfolding below. Bush struggled even to contact his family and to reach Vice President Dick Cheney in the White House bunker,” Politico added.
Bush has historically been hailed for his response to 9/11, having hit the highest approval rating in the history of the Gallup Poll in the weeks after.
Watch the complete interview below:
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