Life imitated satire on Monday night when Fox News host Tucker Carlson offered effusive praise for President Donald Trump’s ability to stare at the sun during the eclipse without protective lenses.
“In a move that is not a complete surprise, he looked at the sun without any glasses,” Carlson gushed. “Perhaps the most impressive thing any president has ever done.”
Carlson was joking, it turned out. His comments, he said in a statement on Tuesday, were “a test to see if liberals are really as slow and humorless as people claim. Turns out they are.”
Still, given Carlson’s history of praising Trump, the humor was a little tough to spot.
Indeed, before his show even aired, humor writer Jason O. Gilbert tweeted a mock screencap showing Carlson praising Trump for going blind while looking at the eclipse:
When Carlson made the comments, Gilbert tweeted:
Others were similarly confused where the satire ended and reality began:
Others clearly saw it as a joke:
Clarification: The Tuesday statement from Fox News was from Carlson, not a spokesperson as previously stated.