Fox host Carlson accused in barroom scuffle

In a statement released by attorney Michael Avenatti, a country club patron said he’s considering whether to pursue criminal charges against Tucker Carlson after cellphone video showed the Fox News host appearing to threaten him during a scuffle at the bar.

“You better get the f*** out of here!” Carlson yells repeatedly in the Oct. 13 video as Juan Manuel Granados sits at the Farmington Country Club bar in Charlottesville, Va.

A moment later, an unidentified man standing with Carlson grabs Granados by his collar and appears to yank him up from his seat, at which point bystanders break up the confrontation.

Carlson has not disputed that the incident took place; he’s even said that his son threw a glass of wine in Granados’ face just before the video began. But the conservative news host denied assaulting Granados and accused him of provoking the scuffle by insulting Carlson’s daughter.

“It took enormous self-control not to beat the man with a chair, which is what I wanted to do,” Carlson wrote in a statement to reporters over the weekend, after Avenatti published the video on Twitter.

In Carlson’s version of events, he was having dinner at the club with two of his adult children and some friends on Oct 13.

“Toward the end of the meal, my 19-year-old daughter went to the bathroom with a friend,” he said in his statement, which news outlets obtained from Fox News. “On their way back through the bar, a middle-aged man stopped my daughter and asked if she was sitting with Tucker Carlson.”

Upon learning she was the conservative commentator’s daughter, Carlson said, the man called her a misogynistic slur.

The woman returned to the table crying, according to Carlson. He and his son got up to confront Granados at the bar, Carlson said. “My son threw a glass of red wine in the man’s face and told him to leave the bar, which he soon did,” says his statement, which did not directly address the scene in the cellphone video.

Avenatti, who is known for representing accusers of President Donald Trump and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, called Carlson’s statement “an absolute lie.”

He subsequently released contradictory statements from Granados and two unnamed people who he said witnessed the altercation.

In his version, Granados was sitting with a group of friends at the bar and noticed that a woman from Carlson’s table kept walking back and forth to order drinks.

“She was intoxicated,” Avenatti said. He said Granados had been drinking, too, and told the woman, without realizing she was Carlson’s daughter: “I can’t believe you’re having dinner with him,” which started the dispute.