Fox News host Tucker Carlson was ridiculed on social media for his hour-long interview with Donald Trump just months after his leaked text messages revealed he “passionately” hated him.
Carlson spoke to Mr Trump in an interview billed as “historic” by Fox News as it was the first time the twice-impeached former president gave an interview since becoming the first-ever US president to be charged with a crime.
Mr Trump spoke almost uninterrupted for long periods of time during the interview as Carlson listened to him and nodded his head or gave amused reactions, apart from occasionally repeating his words.
The right-wing host, known for his long rants and blunt rhetoric, got called out on Twitter by users who said the interview was “humiliation” and “torment” for him and was meant to redeem himself after the emergence of his critical Trump text messages.
“This interview is just an hour-long exercise in complete humiliation for Tucker,” tweeted Kat Abu.
“Tucker’s only been able to say four words in the first five minutes of this interview lmfao,” she said.
Ms Abu also shared another video of the interview and said “Trump has got him whipped”.
She also said the interview was “penance for the Dominion texts”.
“Man, Carlson must have been summoned by Murdoch personally to make him sit through this interview,” wrote Tom Nichols of The Atlantic.
“This interview is the torment that Tucker Carlson totally deserves.”
Jordon Chariton of Status Coup news called Carlson a “phoney populist” who is “crawling back to the Donald – and competing with Hannity for who can do a bigger softball interview – after his real feelings about hating Trump got leaked”.
Each segment of the programme was preceded by an introduction by Carlson, who complimented Mr Trump at length.
Over his comments on foreign policy, Carlson called Mr Trump a “moderate, sensible and wise” man and said his understanding of world affairs “is so much more nuanced and sophisticated and pro-American than the moronic neocons currently in charge”.
Carlson spoke to Mr Trump at his Mar-a- Lago residence in Florida just two months after Dominion lawsuit documents revealed text messages to his co-workers saying he hated Trump “passionately”.
The texts also revealed he had called the one-time president “a demonic force, a destroyer”.
“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson told an unknown Fox News employee just two days before the Jan 6 Capitol riot, according to the court documents. “I truly can’t wait.”
“I hate him passionately,” he said.
The messages were a bombshell revelation in the $1.6bn (£1.35bn) defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against the conservative news network owned by Rupert Murdoch.
