Fox News Found France’s Alex Jones in Record Time

So far, it’s unclear what exactly caused the massive fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris today, which caused its central spire to fall and saw priceless stained glass consumed by the blaze. But that didn’t stop a French elected official from suggesting a conspiracy is at work during a call-in to Fox News.

Philippe Karsenty was calling into America’s network of choice for conspiracy theorists this afternoon, so clearly he was feeling at home when he told host Shepard Smith that “politically correct” people will try to hide some underlying narrative about what caused the fire, which, again, remains to be seen.

Karsenty also called the fire a “French 9/11″ and alleged that the “politically correctness [sic] will tell you that this is probably an accident,” suggesting that the fire was started maliciously, and that liberals will try to sweep it under the rug.

Smith, to his credit, shut the interview down less than two minutes in, after telling Karsenty that unless he has any information to back that conspiracy theory up, he should take a seat. When he tried to continue on, Smith shut him down completely, launching into a monologue about how people like Karsenty don’t have people’s best interests in mind.

Smith is often portrayed as one of the more responsible hosts on the network, which is also home to white nationalists and virulent Islamophobes. But whoever at Fox scheduled Karsenty to speak about this story in particular made an egregious mistake that could have been avoided by a simple skim of the politician’s Wikipedia page. Where did they find this guy amid, say, tens of other French politicians who could have spoken to this tragedy, and more importantly, who’s being held responsible for booking him?