CNN anchor Jim Acosta grilled former presidential candidate Andrew Yang for granting Tucker Carlson an interview recently, and failing to call him out when he offered praise for the Unabomber.
On Saturday afternoon’s edition of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta, Acosta concluded his interview with Yang by asking him about the interview, and playing a clip of Carlson offering qualified praise for the writings of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
Acosta asked Yang what he was trying to accomplish, and why he didn’t push back on the Unabomber praise.
With a pained expression, Acosta said “I mean, Andrew, I just have to ask, I mean, Tucker Carlson, I mean, I mean, let’s just say he’s just a bad person, and he represents so much of what is wrong on, in television news these days.”
“You know this all too well. He spouts off white nationalist talking points,” Acosta added, and asked “And so why? Why would you even go on his show, and why didn’t you go after him when he’s citing the Unabomber and talking, I mean, just crazy stuff?”
“One of the things we have to do, Jim, is try and take the temperature of the country down, and the only way to do that is to reach out to people where they are,” Yang said, and cited Carlson’s large audience of potential converts to his cause.
Squinting skeptically, Acosta said “And you think you could bring some of Tucker’s viewers into the Forward Party? I mean, is that what you were trying to do there?”
Yang related an experience with the father of one of his volunteers who saw him on Carlson’s show, and told Acosta that political change is “going to involve reaching out to Americans of every political alignment.”
Watch above via CNN.