Tucker Carlson laughed and sat helplessly as one of his Thursday night guests, a small business owner protesting Maine’s coronavirus lockdown, gave out the personal phone number of Maine’s governor on air and encouraged Fox News viewers to call her and complain.

Rick Savage, who owns a restaurant and brewery in Bethel, Maine, told Carlson that he plans on defying Democratic Governor Janet Mills’ order for certain small businesses to remain closed due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. He told the Fox News host that he pleaded with the governor to refund his state sales tax receipts from earlier in the year so his business could survive the lockdown decree. When Savage noted that the state had instead recently sent him a letter reminding him that March’s sales tax payments were due, Carlson went off.

“Ugh, come on!” Carlson exclaimed. “Janet Mills is the most incompetent, dictatorial, self-involved governor that I’ve seen in a long time.”

“Godspeed, Rick Savage,” the Fox host said moments later, as he started to wrap up the segment. But Savage quickly hijacked the show — and Carlson clearly played along.

“And one further thing, I would love to share Janet Mills’ cell phone number with everyone so they can give her a call directly,” Savage added, as a bemused grin began to form on Carlson’s face. “You can’t even call. It goes to voicemail. The lawmakers can’t even call. They have to email her,” Savage continued, his anger rising.

The incensed restaurateur then pulled out a pair of reading glasses and, glancing down, began to follow through on his promise: “Here’s her phone number. It’s 207…” At this, Carlson stumbled, laughed, held out his hand, but only put up feigned resistance as Savage bulled ahead and finished reading the number on air, his microphone and audio feed uninterrupted throughout it all.

“How about this?” Carlson said, after the fact.”If our viewers are interested, it’s Sunday River Brew Pub,” whereupon he suggested that his viewers call Savage to express support rather than calling the governor directly.

A document obtained by Mediaite shows that the cell phone number Savage made public on the show matches Mills’ phone number on a campaign finance form.

Watch above, via Fox News.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2SoyXk9