Tucker Carlson has claimed he is the victim of a PR offensive by the Pentagon after he mocked women soldiers.
Senior military officials and the Department of Defense rebuked the Fox News host for a segment on his show in which he poked fun at women serving their country.
Carlson addressed the controversy on his Thursday night show and complained at the “hostile” treatment he had received.
“Today the Department of Defense launched a large and coordinated public relations offensive against this show,” he claimed.
“Pentagon brass issued hostile statements, people in uniform sent out videos on social media. The DOD even issued a news release attacking us.”
The right-wing TV host had ridiculed Joe Biden for saying that the US military had created uniforms to fit women properly and flight suits for pregnant women.
“So we’ve got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits. Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the US military,” Carlson said earlier this week.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin shared the same “revulsion” expressed by many military leaders towards the comments.
The senior enlisted leader at the US Space Command, Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sgt Scott Stalker, posted a video to social media branding Carlson’s show “drama TV” and said that the journalist’s opinion was “based off of actually zero days of service in the armed forces.”
Carlson insisted on Thursday’s show that he did not “have some hateful bias against pregnant women flying military jets.”
And he added: “We are pro-pregnancy as we often say, we are also open minded.
“Maybe pregnant women make the best pilots? The Department of Defense measures everything so there’s got to be extensive research on this question.
“If the Pentagon can show that pregnant pilots are the best we will be the first to demand an entire air force of pregnant pilots.”
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