It’s difficult to imagine that anyone could even try to malign Fred Rogers, the beloved star of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, but one right-wing radio show host did just that on his program, Right Wing Watch reports. Chris McDonald was interviewing the so-called “firefighter prophet” Mark Taylor on his program at the time and claimed the new film about the life of the beloved icon is a “pedophile signal.”
McDonald singled out the film’s star, Tom Hanks for special attention.
Perhaps McDonald is remembering the movie Philadelphia, where Hanks starred as a gay man suffering from AIDS. But whatever is going on in his feverish little right-wing brain, he used the interview to claim the actor has “been named in many, many pedophile-related tweets, pedophile-related call-outs,” and then claimed the Mr. Rogers biopic is really a “pedophile code.”
Whatever that means.
McDonald has spouted nonsense about Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders, so no one should be surprised that he’s doing this yet again. It’s just par for the course for McDonald.
“This is insanity to me,” McDonald told Taylor. “He’s going to be in the role of Mr. Rogers in this new movie that is coming out and I don’t think that’s by mistake. Again, I think that’s just code, it’s signaling. It’s a pedophile signal.”
He went on to say that even though he’s never heard anything negative about Rogers he “wasn’t the most masculine guy out there” and he “dealt with children,” and “it makes you wonder” about the movie’s real purpose.
“I just think this thing with Tom Hanks again, you put a mainstream actor in this role and, again it just is almost like it’s blatantly in our face and saying, ‘Guess what? We’re going to recruit more of the pedophilia by putting this man up as Mr. Rogers, who deals with children,'” McDonald claimed.
Check out the clip below …
Then check out the trailer from the actual film to retain some of your sanity …
Featured image courtesy of the video above
