Tag: Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson: It’s ‘probably illegal’ for Biden to only consider women of color for vice president

AlterNet logoFox News host Tucker Carlson, who once dismissed white supremacy as a “hoax” and “not a real problem,” falsely claimed on Monday that it was “probably illegal” for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to only consider women of color for the vice presidency.

Carlson — who has long used his show to push white grievance politics and echo white nationalist and white supremacist talking points — singled out three Black women on Biden’s short-list for attack, even though the former vice president has also considered white women candidates. Among the names were three senators: Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Biden has since said he would pick a woman of color, but his list is not limited to Black women, with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who is of Asian descent, and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., who is Latinx, reportedly under consideration. Continue reading.

Here are all the times Fox News hosts went on ‘vacation’: An investigation

AlterNet logoNews personality and frozen food heir-apparent Tucker McNear Swanson Carlson drew eye-rolls Monday when he told viewers that he was embarking on a “pre-planned vacation,” widely understood to be a euphemism for a network timeout.His respite, however, was uncannily timed to an onslaught of criticism after CNN revealed that the show’s longtime top writer had been secretly posting vile and hateful comments on the internet for years. It also comes on the heels of a marked escalation in Carlson’s own race-baiting rhetoric, which Carlson pushed far enough to draw accusations of hate speech.

Although Carlson has also been in some senses riding high, turning in the highest cable news ratings in history and drawing speculation about his possible political ambitions, he’s also currently the subject of an IRS criminal complaint and an ongoing high-profile defamation lawsuit against his network.

Following the announcement, Salon took up an intrepid investigation into other Fox News personalities who have taken conspicuously timed “vacations” over the years. Here’s what we found.  Continue reading.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson abruptly announces a vacation — right after explaining why his top writer resigned in disgrace

AlterNet logoFox News host Tucker Carlson announced Monday night that he’s going on a vacation — “trout fishing” — for the rest of the week, shortly after addressing the latest inflammatory controversy that has dogged his show.

His top writer, Blake Neff, resigned last week after CNN uncovered that he has been posting online in a forum filled with bigotry. The report found he had engaged with rank racism and sexism on the platform. Many argue that Carlson’s program itself is deeply racist — and it carries overt white supremacist themes — but the language on the forums was even more explicit and unequivocally bigoted.

Carlson addressed the reasons Neff left only obliquely. Continue reading.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson horrifies viewers with a message disturbingly similar to a white supremacist slogan

AlterNet logoPresumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign accused Fox News host Tucker Carlson of “hate speech” as he came under fire for appearing to echo a white supremacist slogan on Tuesday’s broadcast.

Twitter users widely circulated a screenshot of a chyron which aired on Carlson’s show below images for Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who is of Asian descent, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who is one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress.

“We have to fight to preserve our nation & heritage,” the chyron read. Continue reading.

Tucker Carlson suggests Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs in Iraq, hates America

Washington Post logoBefore launching a broadside against Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Fox News host Tucker Carlson acknowledged that it’s not easy to go after a Purple Heart recipient who lost both her legs while serving her country in Iraq.

“You’re not supposed to criticize Tammy Duckworth in any way because she once served in the military,” Carlson said Monday night.

That didn’t stop him from calling Duckworth, a contender to be presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, “a deeply silly and unimpressive person” and suggesting that she and other Democratic leaders “actually hate America.” Continue reading.

Texas police fact-check Tucker Carlson’s ‘gross mischaracterization’ of Black Lives Matter protest

AlterNet logoFox News host Tucker McNair Swanson Carlson kicked off his primetime program Monday with a monologue about a protest in Texas, which was so ridded with inaccuracies that the Fort Worth Police Department felt compelled to issue its own fact-check.

In a lengthy diatribe, Carlson conceded that Black Lives Matter was more popular than President Donald Trump by 20 points and claimed that the mantra was “the entire premise behind our founding documents.” However, those documents literally said black lives mattered three-fifths as much as those of landowners who were free, male and white.

Carlson then turned his focus to Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus, who the Fox News host criticized for what he described as a negligent level of obsequy to violent protesters. Carlson said he chose to call out Fort Worth, in particular, because the city was led by a Republican. This statement was essentially the extent of his accuracy. Continue reading.

Tucker Carlson’s Racism Repels Five Big Fox Advertisers

Update: Shortly after this post was published, Vari dropped Carlson’s program as well.

Over the past 72 hours, Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show lost four major advertisers: T-Mobile, SmileDirectClub, Disney and Papa John’s.

This recent advertising loss began on Tuesday when T-Mobile announced that it would no longer advertise on Carlson’s Fox News program. T-Mobile’s CEO Mike Sievert also weighed in, responding to a Twitter user who had asked if the company supported a program like Carlson’s by saying that “It definitely is not. Bye-bye Tucker Carlson! #BlackLivesMatter”

On Wednesday, SmileDirectClub, Disney, and Papa John’s all confirmed they would likewise cease advertising on Carlson’s prime-time show. This is a major loss for Carlson and Fox News as a whole. Continue reading.

Tucker Carlson’s Dangerous Disinformation About Social Distancing

After state and local governments implemented social distancing measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic, Tucker Carlson has used his prime-time Fox News show to falsely claim that these measures failed to slow the spread of the virus. In the broader context of Fox News’ pattern of airing misinformation about the coronavirus, Carlson’s campaign to discredit social distancing policies is particularly glaring and dangerous.

  • Experts agree social distancing slows the spread and saves lives. Experts agree social distancing slows the spread and saves lives. Experts have widely agreed with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that social distancing policies are the most effective way to intervene in the spread of the virus early enough to dramatically reduce the number of infections and deaths.
  • Epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch, the head of Harvard’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, urged in early March that social distancing protocols be implemented faster. He stated that “the goal is to minimize the number of contacts between people” so as to slow the spread of the virus. By early April, multiple studies from both a right- and left-leaning perspective had been released concluding that social distancing policies will likely have to continue in varied forms for at least a year, if not longer. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on April 12 that the United States could have saved lives if social distancing guidelines were enforced earlier. And White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx cautioned Americans on April 26 that social distancing would be required until a “breakthrough” in testing occurred. She estimated these policies would need to continue into the summer. Despite the fact that public health experts widely agree on the effectiveness of social distancing measures, Carlson has used his Fox show to undermine them.

How Tucker Carlson is crafting a dangerous and preposterous conspiracy theory to prop up Trump

AlterNet logoDuring the months when Donald Trump thought he could somehow defeat the novel coronavirus by lying, minimizing it and calling concerns about the coming pandemic a “hoax,” most Fox News hosts were right there with him.  The one major exception, however, was popular prime time host Tucker Carlson. While Sean Hannity kept calling the coronavirus crisis a “hoax” and Laura Ingraham described people concerned about it as “panic pushers,” Carlson actually criticized Trump and his Fox colleagues for “minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem,” arguing that the virus was “a major event” that “will affect your life.” The fact Trump made a reluctant pivot and began to admit that the coronavirus was a real threat — even though he’s still trying to cover up the spread of the disease — is likely due to Carlson’s pressure.

In fact, the difference between Carlson’s approach and that of his fellow Fox News hosts, especially Hannity, was so pronounced that it likely altered the course of the disease. A new study shows that communities that favored Hannity’s show over Carlson’s show had more cases of COVID-19 and more deaths. The reason is simple: Because Hannity downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus, his viewers were less likely to follow stay-at-home recommendations and therefore more likely spread the disease.

Don’t get too soft on Tucker, however. He wasn’t motivated by a real concern about the safety of his audience, much less about Americans at large. He simply took a more opportunistic attitude, viewing the inevitable panic and instability that would result from the pandemic as a chance to push his white nationalist views by blaming immigrants. He encouraged people to embrace racist frames that implied people of color were dirtier than white people, and encouraged Trump to use the pandemic as an excuse to shut down immigration. Trump has taken that advice, although his ban — which only affects people seeking green cards, not those seeking temporary work visas — has already been criticized by Carlson, who thinks it doesn’t go far enough. Continue reading.