Former U.S. congressional Democratic candidate and founder of a non-profit called Turning Green Erin Schrode told all her Twitter followers to watch her interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News Wednesday night.
Carlson, host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” offered the 25-year-old Democratic activist her wish to discuss one of her tweets sent that day: “Adolf Hitler was Time’s Man of the Year in 1938. Donald Trump is Time’s Man of the Year in 2016.”
Adolf Hitler was @TIME Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1938.
Donald Trump is TIME’s Person of the Year in 2016.
Discuss.#TIMEPOY
— Erin Schrode (@ErinSchrode) December 7, 2016
Carlson suggested it was an impossible goal because “Comparing someone to Hitler is not something to discuss; it is the end of the discussion.”
Schrode continued, “I think it is very important that we are critical, that we do not normalize or sanitize the rhetoric or actions of Donald Trump or the ghastly appointees to his new administration. And I want people to remain vigilant, I want people to realize that none of this is normal, none of the hate speech, the hate crimes that are spiking in the United States, and we, as the American people, have to hold our president-elect accountable.”
Carlson asked her to “give me an example” of his “ghastly appointees.”
Schrode identified Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as “appointing as the head of the [Environmental Protection Agency] someone who has sued the EPA.”
“What was the suit about? Do you know?” asked Carlson.
Though Schrode described a “secretive alliance between energy firms, between state prosecutors — where he was attorney general — and between oil and gas companies,” Carlson objected that “it doesn’t sound like you know a lot about this.”
He explained that Pruitt was one of 28 attorneys general who “sued the Obama administration over environmental regulations,” and observed that “what does not lead to fruitful conversation is name-calling and that’s what you’re doing. … Do you understand their position or that does that even interest you learning what they think?
Schrode objected, “It’s not about learning what they think.”
Carlson responded with a knowing “Ohhh,” and suggested that the Democratic activist was not conducting “the kind of conversation that leads to solutions; it’s the kind that leads to demonizing other people, and that’s bad.”
After Schrode unleashed another volley of vitriol against Trump, Carlson noted, “You compare Trump to Hitler, and then with a straight face you’re going to accuse him of engaging in hate speech. I’m sorry, but I can barely hear; the irony alarm is so loud in the background.”
WATCH: