Longtime hack Tucker Carlson thought he’d do a cute segment with Dutch historian Rutger Bregman after video of Bregman calling out billionaire attendees of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, went viral. Bregman told the billionaires they were basically ignoring the obvious: Many of these problems could be solved if these billionaires paid higher tax rates or if loopholes, shell companies, offshore accounts and other vehicles that allow the ultra-wealthy to hide their wealth were eliminated.
I mean 1,500 private jets flown in hear to hear Sir David Attenborough speak about, you know, how about wrecking the planet. And I mean I heard people talk in the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency, but then I mean almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right? And of the rich just not paying their fair share. I mean it feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no one's allowed to speak about water, right?
Tucker McNear Swanson Carlson, whose father married the heiress to the Swanson Frozen Foods empire when he was 10 years old, decided to have the historian on, presumably to have a good laugh about billionaires using private jets and polluting the environment to get to the conference. Or maybe it was because he thought he could get the better of Bregman. But, the discussion quickly went downhill as Bregman took his “speaking truth to power” thing a little too far for Carlson’s taste.
As the conversation soured, Carlson became increasingly angry and began cursing after Bregman said people like Robert Murdoch and Tucker Carlson “scapegoat immigrants instead of talking about tax avoidance.” Carlson snidely shot back, asking Bregman if he thought he was taking orders from Murdoch. Bregman explained how Carlson works for the Cato Institute and that he doesn’t talk about these issues because he’s a “millionaire funded by billionaires.” And that, friends, is when Tucker McNear Swanson Carlson became unglued. Watch the segment below.
For the record, this is not the most embarrassing segment Tucker Carlson has ever done with a guest. That segment will now and forever be the 2004 Crossfire segment where guest Jon Stewart absolutely shredded “hack” Tucker Carlson, whose show was cancelled by CNN only a short time later. There is a reason this segment has nearly 12 million views on YouTube. Enjoy this walk down memory lane.