Tucker Carlson called out Newsweek senior writer Kurt Eichenwald for spreading potentially fake news on Twitter without an explanation.
The Fox News host started off the interview Thursday night by saying he’s read Eichenwald’s work for “20 years, probably” but has noticed a “partisan turn.”
“Do you believe that you’re practicing journalism?” Carlson asked in the testy confrontation.
The Eichenwald tweet that irked Carlson said, “I believe Trump was institutionalized in a mental hospital for a nervous breakdown in 1990, which is why he won’t release medical records.”
“One day you’re criticizing the press for being lazy and inaccurate, and the next day you yourself are being lazy and inaccurate,” Carlson said.
Eichenwald shot back, “Let me give you what the question is a journalist would ask. A journalist would ask, ‘Why did you send that tweet?’”
His answer was a long-winded explanation about how he began covering Trump in the 1980s, when he obtained Trump’s medical records, which stated the real estate mogul was prescribed an “amphetamine derivative.”
Carlson didn’t care for the back story and repeatedly asked Eichenwald for a simple yes or no. “Was he in a mental hospital in 1990 or not?”
Eichenwald either didn’t have an answer to why he sent the tweet, or the answer was going to be extremely longwinded and Carlson tried to speed things up. However, the Newsweek writer was combative, saying things like, “You’re not fooling anybody, you’re trying to stop me from giving the answer.”
At one point, Eichenwald pulled out a binder labeled “Tucker Carlson Falsehoods,” to which Carlson seemed extremely amused. The two continued to argue for a few minutes and Carlson eventually said, “This is a little nutty, I’ve got to be honest.”
Watch the video above.