MxM News

Quick Hit:

Republican Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw was caught on video saying he would “f*cking kill” Tucker Carlson if he ever met him, only to deny the threat shortly afterward. The footage, released by GB News, contradicts Crenshaw’s denial and raises questions about his remarks toward the Daily Caller co-founder.

Key Details:

• GB News reporter Steven Edginton posted a video showing Crenshaw making the violent comment after an interview in early February.
• Crenshaw denied the accusation when questioned by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, responding with “lol, no” on X.
• GB News then released a video where Crenshaw explicitly stated he would “f*cking kill” Carlson, doubling down when Edginton initially laughed it off.

Diving Deeper:

The controversy began when GB News reporter Steven Edginton shared on X that Crenshaw made the threat after an interview earlier this month. According to Edginton, when he asked Crenshaw if he had ever met Tucker Carlson, Crenshaw responded, “I would kill him if I saw him.” When Edginton laughed, Crenshaw reportedly reiterated, “No seriously, I would kill him.”

After Edginton’s post, Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly questioned Crenshaw about the accusation. Crenshaw responded dismissively, writing, “lol, no.” However, less than 30 minutes later, GB News released a video that contradicted Crenshaw’s denial.

The footage showed Edginton asking, “Have you ever met Tucker?” as the two removed their microphones. Crenshaw responded, “No, we’ve talked a lot on Twitter. If I ever meet him, I’ll f*cking kill him.” Edginton laughed, but Crenshaw continued, “No, seriously, I’ll kill him. He’s the worst person I’ve ever met.”

The release of the video prompted widespread backlash and demands for clarification. The Daily Caller reached out to Crenshaw’s office for comment, and a spokesperson responded, “No, of course not,” when asked if the statement was serious.

Crenshaw’s remarks are particularly controversial given his position as a sitting U.S. Congressman. Threats of violence, even if intended as a joke, carry serious implications and have sparked debate over the tone of political discourse in America.

This incident also adds to the ongoing tension between Crenshaw and Tucker Carlson, who have clashed over policy issues and public commentary. Carlson has been a vocal critic of establishment Republicans, a group with which Crenshaw is frequently associated.

The fallout from Crenshaw’s comments is likely to continue as political figures and media outlets react to the video. Neither Crenshaw nor Carlson have issued further statements regarding the incident at the time of this report.

“Dan Crenshaw” by Gage Skidmore, licensed by CC BY-SA 2.0.

From the Fraser Institute

APPEARED IN THE FINANCIAL POST

By: Bjørn Lomborg

Canada’s chattering classes claim that climate change is one of the country’s pre-eminent threats. This is extraordinary. Canada is experiencing a productivity slowdown, the worst decline in living standards in 40 years, and growth rates that lag most developed economies. Geopolitical threats loom, the healthcare system is under stress and education is faltering. Yet the federal government has spent or committed more than $160 billion on climate initiatives since 2015, and is funneling $5.3 billion to help poor countries respond to climate change.

Like most nations, Canada faces tough decisions in coming decades. Resources spent on climate will not be not available for health, education, security or boosting prosperity.

Global warming is a real problem. Science has shown quite clearly that more CO₂, mostly from fossil fuel use, increases global temperatures. Climate economics has shown how this brings both problems and benefits (for instance, more deaths caused by heat, fewer by cold) but, overall, more problems than benefits. More CO₂ means higher social costs, so reducing CO₂ does have real benefits.

But climate policies also have costs. They force families and businesses to use more expensive energy, which slows economic growth. You might have heard otherwise but if the new ways really were cheaper, no regulations or mandates would be needed.

If climate change were treated like any other political issue, we would openly recognize these trade-offs and try to balance them to get the most climate benefits for the least cost, recognizing that climate policies need to compete against many other worthy policies.

But in two important ways the climate conversation has gone off the rails.

First, people say — wrongly — that global warming is an existential challenge, risking the end of mankind. Of course, if the world is about to end, it follows that any spending is justified. After all, if a world-obliterating meteor is hurtling towards us, we don’t ask about the costs of avoiding it.

Second, it is also often claimed — somewhat contradictorily — that the green transition will make energy cheaper, societies safer and everyone richer. In this “rainbows and unicorns” scenario, there are no trade-offs and we can afford climate policy and everything else.

Both claims are repeated ad nauseam by Canadian politicians and activists and spread by media hooked on selling climate catastrophes and green utopias. But both are quite untrue.

That is why I’m writing this series. I will outline how many of the most sensationalist, scary climate stories are misleading or wrong and ignore the best climate science. Being data-driven, I will show you this with the best peer-reviewed data and numbers.

So: Is climate change the world’s all-encompassing problem today? One way to test this is to look at extreme weather, which we constantly hear is having an ever-larger impact on our societies. But the data paint a very different picture (see chart).

We have good evidence for the number of people killed in climate-related disasters, i.e., floods, storms, droughts, and fires. (We’ll look at temperature deaths next week.) A century ago, such disasters routinely killed hundreds of thousands, even millions of people in a single disaster. On average, about half a million people a year died in such disasters. Since then, the death toll has declined precipitously. The last decade saw an average of fewer than 10,000 deaths per year, a decline of more than 97 per cent.

Of course, over the past century the world’s population has quadrupled, which means the risk per person has dropped even more, and is now down by more than 99 per cent. Why this great success story? Because richer, more resilient societies with better technology and forecasting are much better able to protect their citizens. That doesn’t mean there is no climate signal at all, but rather that technology and adaptation entirely swamp its impact.

In the same way, climate’s impact on overall human welfare is also quite small. In proportion to the total economy, the cost of climate-related disasters has been declining since 1990. Looking to the future, the best estimates of the total economic impact of climate change come from two major meta-studies by two of the most respected climate economists. Each shows that end-of-century GDP, instead of being 350 per cent higher, will only be 335 per cent higher.

“Only” becoming 335 per cent richer is a problem, to be sure, but not an existential threat. Despite that, as this series will show, many of the most draconian climate policy proposals so casually tossed around these days will do little to fix climate but could dramatically lower future growth and the opportunities of future generations.

We need to get smart on climate. This series will map out how.

Bjørn Lomborg