This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Rutger Bregman is the Dutch historian who became a global sensation after an appearance at this year’s Davos summit, where he accused attending billionaires of ignoring taxation. Now he has created another viral moment in an extremely uncomfortable interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson.

Bregman so riled Carson with his accusations of hypocrisy, critiques of Fox’s conservative agenda, and attacks on Donald Trump that the TV host called him a “moron” and angrily told him: “Go fuck yourself.”

According to Bregman, he recorded the interview with Carlson last week and it was scheduled to air later, but never did.

NowThis has obtained Bregman’s own recording of the exchange, where only the audio of Carlson’s questions can be heard.

NowThis (@nowthisnews) Watch Fox News host Tucker Carlson call one of his guests a 'tiny brain...moron' during an interview. NowThis has obtained the full segment with historian Rutger Bregman that Fox News is refusing to air. pic.twitter.com/kERYPUaGLY

The interview begins cordially, and Carlson congratulates Bregman on pointing out the hypocrisy of Davos attendees “who fly business to talk about global warming”. Bregman says he is just saying what most people in the world, including Fox News viewers, are thinking.

Things become tense when Bregman tells Carlson that Fox News has tended to ignore tax because “what the Murdochs want you to do is scapegoat immigrants instead of talking about tax avoidance”.

No, wealth isn’t created at the top. It is merely devoured there | Rutger Bregman Read more

Bregman then accuses Carlson of being bought by the Murdoch family and the Cato Institute, a rightwing thinktank of which Carlson was a fellow until 2015. Bregman says Tucker took the “dirty money” of the institute, which is funded in large part by the Koch brothers and opposes higher taxes.

He says Carlson is “a millionaire funded by billionaires” and “not part of the solution” but “part of the problem, actually”.

Bregman finishes by acknowledging that the interview probably wouldn’t be aired, but saying that he “went to Davos to speak truth to power and I’m doing exactly the same right now”.

Carlson, near-speechless for much of the interview, replies by saying: “Why don’t you go fuck yourself, you tiny brain. You’re a moron. I tried to give you a hearing but you were too fucking annoying.”

Tucker Carlson responds to Bregman in a video posted on the Fox News website

Hours after Bregman leaked the clip, Carlson responded to him in a video posted on Fox News. He apologised only for swearing, saying: “There is some profanity [in the interview] and I apologize for that.” But he added: “On the other hand, it was genuinely heartfelt. I meant it with total sincerity.”

He acknowledged that he called Bregman a moron, but said “that was entirely accurate”.

He claimed the reason that the interview was not aired on his show was because he had sworn, and “you’re not allowed to use that word on television”.

Fox News frequently airs clips that contain swear words and simply bleep over the offending word.

Bregman has long been making the case for higher taxes, plus a raft of other measures to rethink the way the world works, including a shorter working week and a universal basic income. He was invited to Davos after his book, Utopia for Realists, became a hit with many leaders and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

Play Video 1:46 'This is not rocket science': Rutger Bregman tells Davos to talk about tax – video

But after spending a week there, he was amazed at many of the attendees’ lack of self-awareness. “It feels like I’m at a firefighters’ conference and no one’s allowed to speak about water”, he said.