Last night, Tucker Carlson gave an extraordinarily racist monologue on his Fox News show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in which he called Rep. Ilhan Omar a “fire alarm” who should warn us that immigrants are ruining America.
Tonight, despite backlash, Carlson continued in the same vein. He argued that because the U.S. took in Omar as a refugee, she has no right to criticize us.
“Think about that for a minute. Our country rescued Ilhan Omar from the single poorest place on Earth. We didn’t do it for the money, we did it because we are kind people,” Carlson said. “How did she respond to the remarkable gift we gave her? She scolded us, called us names, showered us with contempt. It’s infuriating. More than that, it is also ominous.”
Carlson then went on to once again warn that if we don’t force immigrants to assimilate and limit the number we admit (particularly, we assume, from Muslim-majority countries) then they will destroy America.
He also brought up what he considers a “good” immigrant: anti-Islam extremist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who, Carlson says “believes this country is superior to the country she came from.” Ali has called Islam “inherently violent” and “a destructive, nihilistic cult of death.” She’s also claimed that no Islamic society has “made a discovery in science or technology, or changed the world through artistic achievement.” A model citizen!!!
Later on the show, a lawyer Carlson had on as a guest claimed that if Omar “wasn’t in Congress she would be in the KKK.” Ah yes, the KKK... famously welcoming to black people!
Omar herself has largely brushed off the attacks from Carlson. Since his show last night, several members of Congress tweeted in support of her.
Carlson has lost many advertisers in the last year, first due to a particularly vile monologue in which he said immigrants make our country “poorer, dirtier, and more divided,” and then for recordings unearthed from a talk radio show in which he called Iraqis “semiliterate primitive monkeys.”
It’s hard to imagine why white supremacists like him so much!