Tucker Carlson slammed for mocking Pete Buttigieg’s paternity leave: ‘Trying to figure out how to breastfeed’

Conservative TV host Tucker Carlson is dealing with ongoing backlash over a homophobic and misogynistic comment he made about U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“‘Paternity leave,’ they call it. Trying to figure out how to breastfeed. No word on how that went,” the Fox News host said on his show Thursday while referring to Buttigieg, who had recently been on paternity leave to spend time with his husband, Chasten, and their two newborn babies.

Tucker Carlson, left, and Pete Buttigieg

Buttigieg, a former Democratic presidential candidate, made history early this year when he became the country’s first openly gay Cabinet member to be confirmed by the Senate.

In August, he announced on Twitter that, “For some time, Chasten and I have wanted to grow our family. We’re overjoyed to share that we’ve become parents!”

In September, the couple posted a photo of twin babies Penelope Rose and Joseph August.

Carlson’s comment — which came in a segment of the show in which he discussed former President Bill Clinton, China, and supply chain issues — was quickly slammed as homophobic on social media.

Many comments also noted that Fox News offers paternity leave to its employees.

NPR’s Davie Gura tweeted that Carlson’s Fox News colleague Todd Piro in April thanked the network for allowing him to take six weeks of leave to help care for his infant daughter. “I cannot thank Fox enough for providing all fathers who work here with such a generous paternity leave,” Piro said at the time.

Famed LGBTQ columnist and podcast host Michelangelo Signorile said that “Carlson has a pathological obsession with homosexuality;” while former Vox Media associate editor of politics and policy, Aaron Rupar, criticized Carlson for his “crude homophobia on the most-watched cable news show.”

Seth Mandel, the executive editor of the conservative outlet Washington Examiner Magazine wrote that “his company, which used to be my company too, has pretty solid paternity leave policies [if I remember correctly]. Paternity leave is good.”

MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle wondered whether Carlson had mocked “his own @FoxNews colleagues in the same fashion,” adding a link to an article from April.

In the story, published in The Hill, Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed that he was now “pro-paternity.”

“I used to mock people for taking paternity, I used to think it was a big ruse, but now, ya know, I wish I could take six weeks,” he said.