Carlson: Former Fox colleague Jennifer Griffin ‘a true Trump hater'
Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson took a shot at Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin after she pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, also a former host for the outlet, over the Iranian nuclear program following U.S. strikes on three enrichment facilities in Tehran last weekend.
'Jen Griffin is a liar, but also very liberal — a true Trump hater, to the point where I complained about her,' he said during a recent episode of his podcast, first highlighted by Mediaite. 'And I really tried not to complain about other people at Fox when I worked there because I don't like that office politics stuff, but she was discrediting the channel.'
Carlson also suggested he tried to convince leadership at the outlet to oust her, claiming she's 'too emotional.'
'I said to an executive at Fox, 'What are we doing with this Jennifer Griffin person? She's an idiot. She doesn't tell the truth. She misleads our viewers, and she's like a screaming liberal who hates Trump, who our viewers love,' he continued. 'So, what are we getting out of this?' And I was told, oh, you could not touch Jennifer. I don't know what that's about.'
Hegseth also chastised Griffin during a briefing with reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday after she asked how certain he was 'that all the highly enriched uranium was inside the Fordow mountain?'
'Jennifer, you've been about the worst. The one who misrepresents the most intentionally,' Hegseth said.
Griffin replied: 'In fact, I was the first to describe the B-2 bombers, the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy … So I take issue with that.'
Several of the Fox reporter's colleagues and elsewhere across the media defended Griffin and praised her work digging for more information on the U.S. strikes in Iran. The Trump administration has overtly defended its decision to attack the nuclear facilities, though competing reports have emerged on how much damage was caused.
Fox political analyst Brit Hume called it 'an attack she certainly in my view did not deserve. Her professionalism, her knowledge, her experience at the Pentagon is unmatched.
'I have had and still have the greatest regard for her. The attack on her was unfair,' Hume said.
Carlson has for weeks been ridiculing his former network over its coverage of the Middle East unrest, claiming top hosts at the network are trying to influence for the U.S. to get more involved in the Israel-Iran conflict.
Fox fired the conservative commentator in 2023 while news reports in the weeks that followed revealed text messages showing the former host disparaging leadership at the network and making controversial comments about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and other issues.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Iran admits U.S. strikes caused 'significant damage' to nuclear sites
June 27 (UPI) -- Iran officially acknowledged its nuclear sites had sustained "serious and significant damage" from U.S. air and missile strikes last weekend. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that while the extent of the damage was still being assessed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, it was undeniable that the losses were substantial and that the country's nuclear facilities "have been seriously damaged." The admission by Araghchi in an interview with Iranian state television on Thursday came amid conflicting reports on the efficacy of the unprecedented military action launched by the United States against three nuclear sites on June 21. Earlier Thursday, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khanamei claimed the opposite of his foreign minister, saying damage to the sites had been minimal and instead hailing the "damage inflicted" by Tehran's "victorious" retaliatory strike on the United States' Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Monday. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has said the strikes using 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs and long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles "completely and fully obliterated" Iran's nuclear program -- although public briefings have focused on the "primary site," a key underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordow, with few details forthcoming on the facilities at Natanz and Esfahan. U.S. officials have pushed back on a leaked preliminary report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency that assessed the strikes had only set back Iran's nuclear development by a few months at most, with the White House calling its findings "flat-out wrong." Araghchi said inspectors from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, might never be allowed back into Iran. Iranian lawmakers passed a bill Wednesday, effectively banning any future cooperation with the IAEA, which Tehran has accused of carrying out reconnaissance on behalf of Israel and the United States. The legislation has been waived through by the Guardian Council and will go forward to President Masoud Pezeshkian's desk for him to sign into law, or veto. "Without a doubt, we are obliged to enforce this law. Iran's relationship with the agency will take a different shape," Araghchi warned. The independent London-based Iran International said Tehran was considering quitting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. However, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Thursday, reasserted Iran's right to pursue peaceful nuclear development afforded to it by the treaty, according to state-run Press TV. Citing Article IV of the 1968 agreement, he said Iran was determined to keep its nuclear program going "under any circumstances." The statement came a day after Trump, announcing fresh Iran-U.S. talks, said he wasn't interested in existing or new agreements because the only thing the U.S. would be asking for was "no nuclear." Araghchi took to social media to claim Iran had conducted itself honorably and abided by international diplomatic norms, contrasting its record against that of European countries and the United States in particular, accusing Washington of treachery for attacking when Iran-U.S. talks were still in play. "Our diplomatic legitimacy was undeniable. In every conversation I had with foreign ministers, they either approved Iran's rightful position or were forced into silence. We stood firm, and even adversaries acknowledged our position," he said in a post on X. "We have had a very difficult experience with the Americans. In the middle of negotiations, they betrayed the negotiation itself. This experience will certainly influence our future decisions." Araghchi confirmed no resumption of talks was planned despite Trump saying Wednesday that the two countries would meet "next week." White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at her regular briefing Thursday that nothing was "scheduled as of now," but that communication channels between the United States and Iran remained active.
The Verge
41 minutes ago
- The Verge
Trump's T1 phone drops its ‘Made in the USA' promise.
Trump's T1 phone drops its 'Made in the USA' promise. This week on The Vergecast , we revisited how the flagship Trump Mobile phone suddenly swapped out its 'Made in the USA' claim for 'Designed with American values in mind.' We already had our guesses about who might really make the T1, but with new specs and screen size, we might have to do another round of investigation.
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Is Chinese history repeating itself in the US?
Scholars and commentators in both the US and China are drawing comparisons between the early months of President Donald Trump's second term and communist dictator Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. But some believe the way of Mao is unlikely to take root in America. CNN's Kristie Lu Stout explores the similarities and differences between the two leaders.
