Ben Rhodes: Tucker Carlson Is Spewing Unpatriotic ‘Garbage’ on His Program

Former President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes during a Thursday appearance on MSNBC’s “Deadline,” accused Fox News host Tucker Carlson of spewing unpatriotic garbage for his comments about pregnant women serving on the frontlines in the military.

In a video from his show, Carlson said, “So we’ve got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits. Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the U.S. military. While China’s military becomes more masculine as it’s assembled the world’s largest navy, our military needs to become, as Joe Biden says, more feminine, whatever feminine means anymore since men and women no longer exist. The bottom line is it’s out of control, and the Pentagon is going along with this. Again this is a mockery of the U.S. Military.”

Anchor Nicolle Wallace said, “There is a serious side to what is a cartoonish debacle, even for Fox News, from Mr. Carlson, and that is the flagrant sort of throwing fire inside the military, and inside our fighting forces. As Amy is saying, making a mockery of those who would fight and die for our country. What is the — what is driving them so nuts?”

Rhodes said, “We’ve had hundreds of thousands of women serve since 9/11 heroically. Fox News and Tucker Carlson likes to wrap themselves in an American flag when it suits their purposes, and then runs them down when it suits their culture war purposes,”

He added, “The danger is, don’t bring the culture war into our military. We need cohesion in our military. We need our military fights together as one team, serving together as one team and to be provoking this at a time, by the way, that the military has acknowledged it wants to take steps to make sure the extremism we have seen in our society, particularly on the far right doesn’t creep into the ranks. To have Tucker Carlson stirring this kind of pot, that’s both an insult to the tens of thousands of women serving, some in harm’s way, and also an effort to sow division inside the military itself. I cannot think of anything more unpatriotic than the type of garbage that Tucker Carlson is spewing on his program.”

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