We recently saluted Rutger Bregman, the historian who told the billionaires of Davos a few home truths.
Bregman now reveals that he then attracted the attention of Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The interview did not go well, The Guardian reports,
Things become tense when Bregman tells Carlson that Fox News has tended to ignore tax because “what the Murdochs want you to do is scapegoat immigrants instead of talking about tax avoidance”. Bregman then accuses Carlson of being bought by the Murdoch family and the Cato Institute, a rightwing thinktank of which Carlson was a fellow until 2015. Bregman says Tucker took the “dirty money” of the institute, which is funded in large part by the Koch brothers and opposes higher taxes.
He says Carlson is “a millionaire funded by billionaires” and “not part of the solution” but “part of the problem, actually”.
Bregman finishes by acknowledging that the interview probably wouldn’t be aired, but saying that he “went to Davos to speak truth to power and I’m doing exactly the same right now”.
Carlson, near-speechless for much of the interview, replies by saying: “Why don’t you go fuck yourself, you tiny brain. You’re a moron. I tried to give you a hearing but you were too fucking annoying.”Fox did not air the interview. Happily our historian was making his own recording, which he has now released.
Update, February 25: Don Pittis at CBC News considers how billionaires determine much of what the media says about these issues:
From the Wall Street Journal controlled by Murdoch, Bloomberg controlled by Michael Bloomberg, the Washington Post controlled by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and Canada's richest family, the Thomsons that controls both the Globe and Mail and Reuters, is it any wonder we don't get front pages filled with stories outraged that billionaires don't pay enough tax?
