OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld did not hold back his disgust at his own network after it showed a video clip of climate activists defacing a famous painting in recent days with a can of soup, calling them “idiots” after “playing this crap.”
Gutfeld’s outburst came during a segment on “The Five” on Monday after a segment being introduced by liberal co-host Jessica Tarlov featured the clip of two Just Stop Oil activists — one with pink hair — tossing a can of tomato soup on Vincent Van Gogh’s famous “Sunflowers” painting at the National Gallery in London. The two activists were arrested, and officials at the museum said that while there was some minor damage to the frame, the art itself was unharmed as it is covered by a sheet of glass.
“Let’s not show it,” Gutfeld can be overheard saying off-camera. “Don’t show it.” Tarlov responded, “no, I don’t think we even have it,” though the clip began to play right after that, which set Gutfeld off, as he explained that the media amplifying the incident is why such stunts continue to happen.
“This is why it works!” Gutfeld replied. “This is why it works because we’re idiots because we play it. This is why these people are brilliant because you saw this originally at sporting events.”
Co-host Jeanine Pirro disagreed but Gutfeld cut her off. “Once … yes, this is a brilliant play,” he added. “We’re not supposed to play this crap. We’re amplifying their stupid silly message. But I get it. It’s fun to watch.”
“But it’s not hard to find out how they figured this out,” Gutfeld went on. “It all works with mass shootings as well. If you can just read the press, we’re suckers. We’ll just play the same thing, over and over and over again. Like when it was happening at sporting events. It happened once. Then it happened twice and then it kept happening. And then it stopped.”
He then explained that twenty years ago, so-called “streaking” was a thing at professional sporting events — running across the field of play naked. But, he explained, once networks stopped showing them, the streaking faded out as a fad.
“So, I thought that we weren’t going to play it, that’s really sucky,” Gutfeld added, going on to say that his solution for such incidents is the old adage “an eye for an eye for this crap.”
“We should be able to vandalize their belongings,” Gutfeld said. “Like, if they got a smartphone, which they all do … you confiscate, you step on it. That’s a couple of hundred bucks. Or you go to their house. You find out where they sleep and you just dump a bunch of milk in their house.”
The ‘milk’ comment is in response to other young activists across Britain showing up at grocery stores recently and dumping containers of cow-produced milk out on the floor to promote natural alternatives.
“Because you know, I don’t like being played,” Gutfeld said. “That’s what they’re doing. They are playing the media on this … I’d hate to be their parents.”
WATCH:
Greg Gutfeld compares climate activists spilling milk on floors and streakers at sporting events to mass shootings.
"It’s not hard to find out how they figured this out. It all works with mass shootings as well. If you can just read the press, we're suckers!" pic.twitter.com/qxTXqKLCTJ
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 17, 2022
After the two activists threw soup on the Van Gogh, each of them glued one hand to the wall beneath the painting.
“What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people? The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of the oil crisis, fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families. They can’t even afford to heat a tin of soup,” one of the activists said, according to reports.
Just Stop Oil has been protesting in the U.K.’s capital for the past two weeks, CNBC reported, adding that the group said in a press release its actions were “in response to the government’s inaction on both the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis.”
