ASHLAND – Earlier this week Fox News host Tucker Carlson described comedian Kathy Griffin’s twitter post of a decapitated President Donald Trump as the “perfect embodiment of what the modern left believes.”

On Saturday night at the 32^nd annual John M. Ashbrook Memorial Dinner in Ashland, Carlson didn’t mention Griffin. But he expanded on his view of the nation’s current political climate, and his opinion of the liberal viewpoint.

“They’ve reached the following, totally impulsive conclusion: That Trump is a bad human being, and therefore, people who support him must be every bit as bad,” Carlson said. “That’s their conclusion. I’m serious.”

Carlson, host of the Tucker Carlson Tonight show on FOX and founder of The Daily Caller, addressed an audience of 400, including Ashbrook program scholars, their families and others.

Carlson said Trump won the presidency because he found and tapped into an “unplayed market share.”

“(President Trump) said, ‘Wait a second. No one’s representing these people. I think I will,’” Carlson said.

Months after the president was inaugurated, Carlson says liberals still haven’t accepted the results of the election.

“They never in a million years thought this was going to happen,” Carlson said. “It wasn’t even their worst nightmare. It was an inconceivable notion.

“(They consider Trump) a monster in their narrative.”

He added that the election surprised a number of conservatives as well, with the president arriving from outside the normal Washington D.C. power bases.

Carlson explained that he doesn’t cover Trump’s mishaps because they are already covered in exhaustive detail by other news outlets.

“They’ve not spent one minute thinking in Washington about why this happened, why would voters do this?” Carlson said.

Carlson believes both parties have failed to accurately represent their voters. He cited that despite Bernie Sanders’ popularity, he did not win his party’s presidential nomination.

Meanwhile, Trump made a splash in his campaign by raising the topics of immigration and trade.

Additionally, he said debates are being framed as “moral conversations,” which is problematic. He urges everyone in politics to steer away from this.

“If you reframe the conversation as a theological conversation, you get the Thirty Years War,” he said.

Carlson began his career in Little Rock, Arkansas, but he went on to report on a world-wide scale. He was previously a co-host for CNN’s Crossfire and later, a co-host again for Fox and Friends Weekend.

His most recent book is called “Politicians, Paritsans and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News.”

The dinner has consistently brought well-known Republican leaders to speak at the dinner. Past speakers included Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

The dinner supports scholarships for Ashland University students who study politics, history or a related field. The program currently includes 120 students and about 430 alumni.

Dennis Clark, 21, is now a senior in the Ashbrook Scholar program.

“I came here my freshman year largely in part because of the program,” Clark said, “and I never regretted that decision.”

Clark studies history and politics. He and the other scholars met Carlson prior to the dinner.

“We talked about the state of America, politically and generally,” he said, explaining that it was a conversation.

At the dinner, notecards were distributed and a few audience questions were answered by Carlson following a speech, to make the evening more of a “conversation” than a presentation.