A mentally ill street person burned the Fox New Christmas tree. Here’s how they dealt with it:
Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity both led their shows last night with the worldwide breaking news about the Fox News Christmas tree. This is clearly the biggest story of all time.
Kilmeade is deadass serious about this too
This supercut of Fox News trying to turn the arson of the network’s Christmas tree into Benghazi 2.0 is pretty incredible
Originally tweeted by Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) on December 9, 2021.
From Rupar’s newsletter:
[N]obody was hurt, a suspect was apprehended, and police have made clear they do not believe the suspected arson was politically motivated.
Fox, however, turned the self-importance up to absurd levels, with network personalities characterizing the incident as evidence that “no city is safe, no person is safe” (Brian Kilmeade), claiming “it’s about Jesus, it’s about Hanukkah, it is about everything that we stand for as a country” (Ainsley Earhardt, who’s apparently unaware that a “Hanukkah tree” is not really a thing), and vowing, “We will rebuild it.” (Lawrence Jones)
“Why is burning Christmas trees not a hate crime, according to the DOJ?” Carlson asked one of his guests.
Fox News was still at it on Thursday morning. Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade suggested the arson is “a hate crime against us, against Fox News” and went as far as to connect the tree fire with the Waukesha parade murders.
”Tree” was ultimately mentioned at least 33 times just on Thursday’s Fox & Friends.
By the way, the man who did this is not political. He’s a homeless man with mental health issues.
“I have been thinking about lighting the tree on fire all day long,” Craig Tamanaha allegedly told Detective Matthew Demaio after he set ablaze the artificial tree decorated in red, white and blue, according to court papers.
Tamanaha, 49, was arraigned on one count each of felony second-degree criminal mischief, misdemeanor second-degree reckless endangerment and misdemeanor fifth-degree arson.
New York criminal justice reforms enacted in January 2020 bar judges from setting bail on these charges. Criminal defense lawyer Mark Bederow told Fox News that Tamanaha would have had to be charged with third-degree arson as a hate crime for the case to be bail eligible.
“I didn’t do it,” the defendant told reporters as he exited the courtroom before hurling obscenities at them, according to video taken by the New York Post.
“The moms that want to rape their f—-king daughter’s — they set it on fire,” Tamanaha shouted before asking reporters for a cigarette.
But that won’t stop the wingnuts from turning it into a political act anyway. Fo them everything is political.