Tucker Carlson deliberately misled Fox News viewers last night as he pretended that the Trump impeachment is merely about an unimportant phone call – despite the fact that Carlson previously blasted the call as an abuse of power and corruption.

While Fox News hid the actual impeachment trial from its viewers, Carlson dishonestly spun it with his overgrown-frat-boy brand of insult “humor.”

As a banner blared, “DEMS SPEND ANOTHER DAY YELLING ABOUT A PHONE CALL,” Carlson pretended to be thinking only of helping Americans during his show's opening. He sneered, “Here’s where we are: Tens of thousands of Americans continue to die in their prime from drug ODs. The middle class is still shrinking. Housing prices in our cities are crushing an entire generation of ambitious young people. China’s economy is about to overtake ours.”

“So that’s all the bad news right there,” Carlson continued. “But have no fear. Here’s the good news. Washington is on it. Your representatives in the capital city, this city, just spent their third day in a row yelling at each other about a phone call Donald Trump once made to some guy in Ukraine.”

We know for sure that Carlson deliberately mischaracterized the issue at the heart of impeachment because he bluntly condemned Trump about that same call and explained the corruption it represented in an editorial. It began:

Donald Trump should not have been on the phone with a foreign head of state encouraging another country to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden. Some Republicans are trying, but there’s no way to spin this as a good idea. Like a lot of things Trump does, it was pretty over-the-top. Our leaders’ official actions should not be about politics. Those two things need to remain separate. Once those in control of our government use it to advance their political goals, we become just another of the world’s many corrupt countries. America is better than that. 

Furthermore, Carlson must also know that the impeachment is about more than just Trump’s call to “that guy,” who happens to be the president of Ukraine, but about Trump’s illegal hold up of Congressionally approved aid to that country to help it fight its hot war with Russia – as well as the fact that Trump did so in order to smear an American. In other words, it’s also about national security.

But did the guy who claims his show is the “sworn enemy of  lying, pomposity, smugness and group think” delve into any of the issues he complained were not being covered? No, the 50-year old Carlson merely provided another six minutes of smug, adolescent insults about Schiff. Simpatico banners on the lower third of the screen often accompanied him.

Carlson: “Amateur thespian and full-time Congressman Adam Schiff gets to try out new parts for the camera.” Banner: “AMATEUR THESPIAN SCHIFF TRIES OUT SOME NEW LINES.”

Carlson: “The Russians are coming, he squeaked,” meaning Schiff.

After playing a clip of Schiff condemning Trump’s handling of Russia as exemplified by Vladimir Putin “thanking God for the president of the United States,"  Carlson pretended Schiff had cast himself into some kind of theological role. He was “dropping references to God like the two were old friends,” Carlson said misleadingly. Banner: “SAINT ADAM PRAYS FOR THE SOUL OF OUR NATION.”

Carlson: America’s newsrooms may be the last place in the English-speaking world where Adam Schiff is still considered impressive. To your average news anchor, Adam Schiff is not a bug-eyed hysteric, he’s a statesman.

Carlson played clips of media pundits praising Schiff’s performance but didn’t mention that Trump ally and Fox News fixture Sen. Lindsey Graham did, too. “These are not policy people,” Carlson complained about others in the media, apparently not noticing the unintentionally hilarious irony.

Carlson: The media “spent the last few years studiously pretending that Adam Schiff is a serious person and not a wild-eyed conspiracy nut. ... To Schiff, [Trump collusion with Russia] was everywhere – on Facebook, on television, inside the box of Honey Bunches of Oats, sitting in the breakfast nook in his airless Capitol Hill apartment. At one point, he even began to suspect his cats, his many cats.”

You can watch Carlson’s 6:46 opening commentary that is all about ad hominem attacks on Schiff, none on the substance of the impeachment trial and none on the subjects Carlson claims should be covered instead.

The video is below, from the January 23, 2020 Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Correction: "capital" was misspelled.