Jimmy Kimmel mocks Fox News and Tucker Carlson over Christmas tree arson outrage
- Jimmy Kimmel mocked Fox News on his late-night show over the network's outrage to its Christmas tree fire.
- Kimmel also targeted host Tucker Carlson during his monologue Thursday night.
Jimmy Kimmel mocked Fox News and host Tucker Carlson on his late-night show, ripping the network for its outrage over a 50-foot tall Christmas tree that was set ablaze outside the company's headquarters in Midtown, Manhattan, this week.
"Fox [News] desperately wants this to be a political thing," Kimmel said during the opening monologue on his ABC show Thursday night.
The Christmas tree — located at Fox Square on West 48th Street and 6th Avenue, just outside of the News Corporation building where Fox News, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal are housed — was torched early Wednesday.
The NYPD arrested a 49-year-old man and accused him of setting the fire. He was hit with a slew of charges for the crime, including arson and reckless endangerment.
On his show, Kimmel played clips of Fox hosts expressing outrage over the incident, including from 'Fox & Friends' co-host Brian Kilmeade who suggested that the fire could be a "hate crime" against the network.
"It's not," Kimmel said in response. "You can't commit a hate crime against a channel in the same way you can't shoplift at Etsy. It's impossible, really."
Kimmel then railed on Fox News host Tucker Carlson, saying, "No one did more phony foaming at the mouth than the 'Little Dumber Boy.' "
In a clip Kimmel played, Carlson questioned on the air why the Department of Justice does not record torched Christmas trees the way it does for burned Quran's.
"They really do seem to be running out of stuff to talk about," Kimmel joked.
A rep for Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider on Friday.
Fox News has since replaced the burned Christmas tree.
The arson has been a go-to topic for late-night hosts this week.
Stephen Colbert broke into a rendition of "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Arson" on his show on Wednesday night, while Trevor Noah on "The Daily Show" taunted the network's hosts for claiming the arson was a sign of New York City's "out-of-control" crimes.