Watch this entire clip. It demonstrates two things: 1) Why Tucker Carlson is the No. 1 cable talk host in the country, and 2) why the Republican Party is hated by its own natural base.

The interview subject is Mike Braun, a Republican US Senator from Indiana. Tucker had him on to talk about Braun’s support for Black Lives Matter and for a bill to make it easier to sue the police. I don’t know that there has been a more thorough (and thoroughly entertaining) slicing and dicing on prime time television since Iron Chef went off the air.

Does Mike Braun even know what he believes in? Leaving aside the merits, or lack thereof, of his position on the bill and on Black Lives Matter, he couldn’t defend himself, or anything about it. As Tucker put it to Braun, mobs looted and burned cities, and are tearing down monuments all over the country, with zero pushback from authorities — and this Indiana Republican wants to make it easier to sue cops, and stands with Black Lives Matter! If that’s what Republicans are for, then we might as well have Democrats.

Notice too how, at the 5:57 mark, Braun tries to blame Chuck Schumer for his own mushiness. Tucker is not having any of it. Braun makes Snuggles the Fabric Softener Bear look like Sheriff Buford Pusser.

But seriously, this was not just a disastrous interview for Mike Braun. It says something about the GOP in this hour of national crisis. The national Democrats haven’t said much about the woke mob — and why should they? They’re going to ride the protests and the tsunami of progressive bigotry into power. We elect Republicans to stand up to this kind of garbage. Don’t we?

Mike Braun, a first-term senator, won election in 2018, so he’s going to deadhead that seat for four more years. Still, when the history of this terrible political year for Republicans is written, tonight’s interview with Braun will be a symbol of something wrong with the party.