The conservative host accused Canadian PM Justin Trudeau of ‘hiding’ from protesting truckers
Fox News host Tucker Carlson took issue with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s attitude toward truckers protesting against the country’s vaccine mandate, branding him a “fearful despot.”
“You ever notice how almost all the leaders of almost all the countries in the Western world, particularly in the English-speaking Western world, seem kind of the same?” Carlson said on his Fox News show on Monday night. “They’re all what we call neoliberal. They’re all weak and fearful.”
“And there’s no more fearful despot in the world than Justin Trudeau of Canada,” the US conservative host added, accusing Trudeau of having turned Canada into a “relentlessly punitive surveillance state.”
Carlson tore into the PM’s reaction to the ongoing trucker protest rocking the country.
Thousands from the so-called Freedom Convoy descended on Canada’s capital Ottawa on Saturday, where they protested for three days straight, calling for an end to the cross-country vaccine mandate and other pandemic-related restrictions.
“He fled the city. Trudeau evacuated his official residence and hid in an undisclosed location,” Carlson said, slamming the Canadian leader for refusing to meet with protesters and claiming he was “repulsed” by working class people.
Trudeau announced that he tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday morning and will switch to working remotely. Although he voiced support for the right to peaceful protest, the PM struck a belligerent tone.
“I want to be very clear: we are not intimidated by those who hurl abuse at small business workers and steal food from the homeless,” he said of the truckers.
READ MORE: Truckers blockade US-Canada border
There were no police reports of physical violence during the protests. However, some residents and officials told Canadian media they felt threatened.
Nearly 90% of cross-country truckers have been vaccinated, according to Trudeau. Those declining to get vaccinated, nevertheless, argued that their livelihoods came under a threat. “I’m not able to work no more because I can’t cross the border,” a trucker in Ottawa told Reuters on Saturday. “I refuse the vaccine.”
