Fox News’ Tucker Carlson brushed off the media’s concerns of white supremacy Tuesday, calling it a “hoax” despite a recent mass shooting that is suspected to be fueled by anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Mr. Carlson said during his show that he wanted to “denounce this supposedly existential threat to our nation.”
“It’s not the job of this show to defend the president and everything he says. Some things we are not going to defend. But in point of fact, he never endorsed white supremacy or came close to endorsing white supremacy. That’s just a lie. But he condemned it anyway. Their response, ’He didn’t really mean it,’ ” Mr. Carlson said.
The host continued, “The whole thing is a lie.”
“If you were to assemble a list, a hierarchy of concerns, of problems this country faces, where would white supremacy be on the list? Right up there with Russia, probably. It’s actually not a real problem in America. The combined membership of every white supremacist organization in this country would be able to fit inside a college football stadium,” Mr. Carlson said.
“I mean, seriously. This is a country where the average person is getting poorer, where the suicide rate is spiking. ’White supremacy, that’s the problem.’ This is a hoax. Just like the Russia hoax. It’s a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power. That’s exactly what’s going on,” he added.
Patrick Crusius, the El Paso shooting suspect, reportedly published an online manifesto 20 minutes before the shootings where he documents his opposition to “race mixing” and tells immigrants to return to their home nations.
Mr. Carlson’s sentiment is not shared by FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, who said in a recent hearing that “a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of white, what you might call white supremacist violence, but it includes other things as well.”
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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