Fox News host Tucker Carlson left viewers perplexed by his decision to end a segment with an Instagram story post from leftist political commentator and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, whom Carlson referred to—completely unprompted—as "one heaping helping hunk of a man.”
Oddly, Carlson claimed Piker's photo would be “singeing your retinas," a bold claim to make for a tall, muscled influencer with nearly 800,000 Instagram followers.
You can hear Carlson's remarks in the video below.
Was Carlson just being homophobic?
Was it a sexual identity crisis?
Who could say?
People did have opinions, however, and many were quick to share their thoughts after Piker shared the clip of Carlson's remarks with his Instagram following.
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@jeff_the_professor/Instagram
@luqmanjimme/Instagram
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It is likely Carlson, in his own weird way, was admiring Piker's masculine appearance.
Carlson has previously devoted significant time on his program to railing against what he perceives as a calculated nationwide effort to attack masculinity.
In April, Carlson released the trailer for The End of Men, a film which starts off warning viewers about dropping testosterone levels, includes footage of shirtless white men wrestling, doing push-ups, chopping wood, firing guns, and even, yes, lying naked while getting their groin tanned.
The content of the trailer for The End of Men is particularly odd given Carlson's long record of homophobic commentary, which has received more coverage in recent months due to his repeated attacks against Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whom he has mocked for taking paternity leave and "trying to figure out how to breastfeed."
But the notion that masculinity is being attacked–namely by the left wing–is a popular one among Republicans like Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who last year accused "the Left" of hurting "the future of the American man" and went on to claim that the "deconstruction of America begins with and depends on the deconstruction of American men."
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