Tucker Carlson called Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) a liar on Wednesday, but the New Jersey Democrat’s team reacted with a yawn.
Tricia Enright, the communications director for Menendez, responded to Carlson’s charge with a bitingly terse email to TPM on Wednesday afternoon.
“Who’s Tucker Carlson?” she wrote.
Less than an hour earlier, Carlson, the editor-in-chief for the Daily Caller, strongly rebutted a Washington Post report indicating that Cuban intelligence officials planted a false story about Menendez’s involvement with underage prostitutes in a bizarre and elaborate plot to smear the senator. Carlson also called the senator’s credibility into question.
“Let’s see: The New York Times and NBC both quoted government sources saying there’s no evidence at all that the Cuban government had anything to do with the story,” Carlson told TPM in an email. “So Menendez is lying, again. That strikes me as newsworthy.”
The Daily Caller reported on the allegations in November 2012 after several other outlets had passed on the story. Matt Boyle, the former Daily Caller reporter who wrote the original story, said Tuesday that he had “no indications” his sources worked for the Cuban government.
In a subsequent email to TPM on Wednesday afternoon, Carlson wrote that Menendez’s office has “much bigger problems than worrying about me.”
This post has been updated.
