ATTENTION! If you see this man, call the Tucker Carlson Show

Tucker wants his eight and a half minute segment back

Poor Tucker Carlson paid the price of being a right-wing hand puppet last night by having Matt Gaetz on his show immediately after the New York Times published a story detailing sex trafficking charges against the Florida Republican. Apparently, Gaetz has been engaging in the Epstein-like practice of paying for air fares and hotel rooms for an  underage “friend” in violation of federal law. Gaetz had been, until now anyway, one of the Republican Party’s up and coming Great White Hopes.

Obviously responding to a cry for help from his desperate erstwhile loon-pal, Carlson tried to inoculate himself against whatever disasters might lay ahead by telling his audience he had “no background at all, and not even any very informed questions” for Gaetz.  He then thanked Gaetz for coming on the air to “respond to these stories and give his view of them.”

Oh, boy.  Deer in the headlights doesn’t begin to capture the look on Carlson’s face as Gaetz launched into what appeared to be a lawyered-up explanation of why the Department of Justice might be interested in his “dating” practices.  To take care of the sex trafficking charge, Gaetz told Carlson that all of the allegations that he paid for an underage girl to travel with him are “verifiably false” if you examine his “travel records.”   

He then presented an excruciatingly convoluted story that he was being extorted for $25 million by a “former Justice Department official” who was demanding the money or he would “smear my name.”  He claimed his father had “worn a wire” for the FBI and “cooperated with the investigation” and demanded that the bureau “release the tapes” so “I can clear my name.”

Carlson started to make a semi-attempt to understand Gaetz’s extortion conspiracy story, but soon gave up as Gaetz quickly attempted to rope him into his story by claiming that he wasn’t the “only person on the screen right now who has been falsely accused of a terrible sex act.  You were accused of something you did not do, so you know what this feels like.”

The reference was to an old story that Carlson was accused of rape by a “mentally ill viewer” 20 years ago.  Our man Tucker was not a happy right-wing-co-camper.  If he could have come physically through the screen and grabbed Gaetz by the throat, he would have, but somehow he managed to maintain the befuddled innocent look he has patented for dealing with loose cannons when they start firing off right-wing conspiracies, inanities, insanities and absurdities. 

Then Gaetz veered further off his orbit by bringing up a dinner he and a girlfriend had with Carlson and his wife.  “You’ll remember her,” Gaetz said, referring to his female companion. “And she was actually threatened by the FBI, told that if she wouldn’t cop to the fact that somehow I was involved in some pay-for-play scheme that she could face trouble.”

That did it.  Carlson tossed his befuddledness out the window.  “I don’t remember the woman you’re speaking of, or the context at all,” he said flatly. “But, they’re saying there is a 17 year old girl you had a relationship with.  Who is this girl? What are they talking about?”  It was his first direct question of the night, and it caught Gaetz unawares.  That’s not the way the game is supposed to be played, Tucker!  Unfair!C’mon!  It’s the libs we’re after, not poor little me!

“She doesn’t exist,” Gaetz bleated unconvincingly. 

Carlson had done what a good Fox News host is hired to do.  He’d had one of these right-wing goofs on the air so he and the goof could whine about the libs and do a little woe-is-us victimization sharing and the thing had gone completely off the rails.  He just wanted out.  After a commercial, he came back on the air and tried to do a little damage control: “You just saw our Matt Gaetz interview. That was one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted. That story just appeared in the news a couple of hours ago, and on the certainty that there’s always more than you read in the newspaper, we immediately called Matt Gaetz and asked him to come on and tell us more. Which, as you saw, he did. I don’t think that clarified much, but it certainly showed this is a deeply interesting story and we’ll be following it.”

You betcha. Our boy Tuck is going to tap-dance around this lunatic as he circles down the drain, and you’ll never hear the words “Matt Gaetz” on his show again.