Tucker Carlson Probably Thought Witches Would Be an Easy Target for Mockery. He Was Wrong.

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In February of this year, the witches and witch enthusiasts of America made news with plans to do do a binding spell on Trump. Coordinated online, thousands of magick practitioners (including Lana del Rey) joined together to peacefully bind Trump from doing harm to the people of the world. And they’ve continued to do so at every month’s waning moon.

Earlier this week, Tucker Carlson had one of these witches onto his show to talk about these spells. He says he’s invited many witches to come on, but only Amanda Yates Garcia, “The Oracle of Los Angeles,” was “brave enough” to accept. (I’m not sure how much bravery plays into it so much as just not having interest in sharing words with a crustless mayonnaise sandwich come to life, but okay.)

Ostensibly, Carlson wants to ask questions to understand the spells. But if you’ve ever watched his show, you know that he doesn’t actually care about or listen to answers; the questions are just a jumping-off point for derision.

He expresses concern over the legality of spells, asking if there’s any “federal regulation.” Garcia then has to explain the point of symbolic actions, like saluting a flag or singing the national anthem. These actions are “used to harness the powers of the imagination and achieve a tangible result,” but that result doesn’t necessarily need to be the direct effect on Trump (although that would be nice). Rather, she tells him, “I think that what’s really important is that we create a sense of solidarity and empowerment within the people who are participating in the spell to galvanize them towards actions so that they can feel empowered to make the changes they want to see in the world.”

Carlson is really hung up on the specifics, though. Like “is eye of newt an actual ingredient?”

Garcia responds, “I think the real problem is not whether or not eye of newt is an actual ingredient. The real problem is we’re about to have some kind of big nuclear extravaganza with North Korea. The real problem is that we’re punishing immigrant children. The real problem is that we’re causing students to go into deep debt. I don’t think the real problem is whether or not we use eye of newt.”

Carlson still won’t let the eye of newt thing go, though, so Garcia has to point out that it was Shakespeare who introduced that idea to the public. So he was probably taking some creative license. (Fun fact: eye of newt is just an old-timey name for mustard seed, which Shakespeare also used as the name for one of his fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)

The whole exchange is pretty bizarre, with Carlson ending by telling Garcia she “seems nice.” Carlson loves attacking and being attacked, but Garcia held her own without ever taking offense at his attempted mockery and concern trolling, so he had nowhere left to go.

Let us all now go back to not paying attention to Tucker Carlson.

(image: screengrab)

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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.