The Twitter fight between the U.S. military and Tucker Carlson continued over the weekend as an official U.S. Marine Corps account posted a tweet calling the Fox News host a “boomer.” The Corps’ account later deleted the tweets and apologized.
On Saturday, the official account for the II Marine Expeditionary Forces Information Group tweeted a picture of a female Marine carrying an ammo can in one hand and another Marine over her shoulder, with the caption, “What it looks line in today’s armed forces @TuckerCarlson. Get right before you get left, boomer.”
A Twitter user reacting to the original tweet called on the Marine account to “Please focus on China and not Tucker Carlson,” to which the II MEF Information Group responded, “Come back when you’ve served and been pregnant.”
The tweet comes after Carlson drew criticism from Pentagon leadership with a show segment questioning the military’s priorities in developing maternity flight suits for pregnant female pilots.
FOX 11 Los Angeles reporter Bill Melugin tweeted, “Pretty wild to see this tweet from an official US military account…”
The II MEF Information Group responded to Melugin, stating, “We are human and we messed up. We intended to speak up for female Marines and it was an effort to support them. They are a crucial part to our corps and we need them to know that. We will adjust fire and ensure the utmost professionalism in our tweets.”
The Marine account’s tweet also drew scrutiny from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who said on Sunday, “Under Biden, the military is launching political attacks to intimidate Tucker Carlson & other civilians who criticize their policy decisions. Officials in uniform are being used for the campaign. I’ve demanded a meeting with the Commandant of the USMC to put a stop to it.”
Department of Defense regulations state, “Military service members and federal employees acting in their official capacity may not engage in activities that associate the DOD with any partisan political campaign or elections, candidate, cause or issue.”
In his original segment last week, Carlson pointed to maternity flight suits in the context of what the U.S. military is prioritizing in comparison to China’s rapid growth of their military, naval fleet, and weapons arsenals. Carlson said “While China’s military becomes more masculine as it assembles the world’s largest navy, our military needs to become, as Joe Biden says, ‘more feminine.’”
Several official military accounts responded to Carlson on Thursday by defending the practice of women serving in the military.
Carlson responded Thursday with a segment Fox News segment stating, “Maybe pregnant women make the best pilots. The Department of Defense measures everything, so there’s got to be extensive research on this question. If the Pentagon can show that pregnant pilots are the best, we will be the first to demand an entire air force of pregnant pilots. The problem is we’re pretty confident that Joe Biden hasn’t asked to see those numbers.”
