Jim Acosta to Andrew Yang: What the Hell Were You Doing on ‘Tucker Carlson’?

Andrew Yang might be pitching himself as the guy to head up a new, more “inclusive” third party, but Jim Acosta had some questions about the entrepreneur-turned-politician’s methods during a CNN interview on Saturday afternoon. Specifically, he asked Yang to answer for his decision to appear on Tucker Carlson Today.

“Tucker Carlson... I mean, let’s just say he’s a bad person,” Acosta told Yang. “And he represents so much of what is wrong in television news these days. You know this all too well; he spouts off white nationalist talking points. So why would you even go on his show?”

During his appearance on Carlson’s daytime show, Yang discussed leaving the Democratic party to chart a new path—and Carlson responded by praising the Unabomber (admittedly a “bad person”) for his “smart analysis, I think, of the way systems work.”

“His argument is that large organizations over time morph into purely self-preservation projects,” Carlson continued. “A big system in the end protects itself and that’s kind of all it does.”

This prompted Acosta’s second question for Yang on Saturday: “Why didn’t you go after [Carlson] when he’s citing the Unabomber and just talking about crazy stuff?”

Yang’s response? He’s working to “take the temperature of the country down” by reaching across that proverbial aisle to meet folks “where they are.”

“As you know, Tucker commands a massive audience, and if you wanted to try and build a unifying popular movement that does call attention to the fact that our system’s not working, really, for anyone, you have to, again, reach out,” Yang continued.

“And that’s what I was doing on that show. I mean, the goal is to have Republicans who are discontent to channel their discontent in a positive way. And right now, in my view, it’s not going in a positive direction. I’d like to help change that.”