Tucker Carlson tears into ‘bureaucratic tapeworm’ John Bolton

After beginning his show Friday night by praising President Donald Trump for deciding not to bomb Iran, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson turned his attention to the hawkish national security adviser, for whom he had some harsh words.

Describing John Bolton as a “bureaucratic tapeworm,” Carlson ripped his unthinking and hawkish approach to foreign policy. “War may be a disaster for America, but for John Bolton and his fellow neocons, it is always good business,” Carlson said.

Watch below:

Bolton targeted

Carlson began his attack on Bolton by playing an old video clip showing that the national security adviser has long been in favor of overthrowing the Iranian government.

“I had said for over 10 years since coming to these events that the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the Mullah’s regime in Tehran,” Bolton told an audience. “And that is why before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran. Thank you very much.”

Once the clip was finished, Carlson let it rip. “In other words, last night has been in the works for years,” he said. “John Bolton is kind of a bureaucratic tapeworm. Try as you might, you can’t expel him. He seems to live forever in the bowels of the federal agency, reemerging to cause pain and suffering. But critically, somehow, never suffering himself.”

“Washington in a nutshell”

Earlier in the segment, Carlson highlighted Bolton’s position on a number of foreign expeditions that were not exactly complete successes — that is unless you’re talking to John Bolton.

“According to John Bolton,” said Carlson, “[Iraq’s] a raging success. We killed hundreds of thousands of people, lost thousands of our own troops, spent more than $1 trillion all to eliminate a WMD threat that despite John Bolton’s assurances, never existed in the first place. Bolton is glad we did all that. Really happy about it. That’s demented. Normal people don’t talk about that. There’s nothing normal about John Bolton.”

Carlson continued by pointing out that Bolton’s “life really is Washington in a nutshell.”

“Blunder into obvious catastrophes, again and again, refuse to admit blame, and then demand more of the same,” he said. “That’s the John Bolton life cycle”

Praising Trump

The Fox News host, however, had nothing but good things to say about President Trump for calling off a retaliatory attack on Iran, after it shot down a United States drone over international waters. Carlson was one of the skeptics who advised the president against taking military action, the New York Times reported.

“Bombing Iran would have ended his [Trump’s] political career in a minute,” he said. “There would be no chance of re-election after that. Ill-advised wars are like doing cocaine, the initial rush rises your poll numbers but the crash is inevitable.”