Tag: Tucker Carlson

Trump Shares Racist Tucker Carlson Clip Amid White Supremacy Controversy

President Donald Trump retweeted a racist clip of Fox News Host Tucker Carlson, who’s facing backlash for claiming the notion of a white supremacy problem in the U.S. is “a hoax” created by the left and the media.

The video ― created by The Daily Caller, a conservative news site that Carlson co-founded ― features the Fox host discussing and questioning the legitimacy of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) prior marriage, immigration status and name. Omar, an American citizen, was born in Somalia and immigrated to the U.S. as a child.

The “sham marriage” that Carlson refers to is a popular right-wing conspiracy theory that Omar married her brother in order to bypass U.S. immigration laws. There is no evidence that indicates this is the case, and the theory originated from an anonymous internet forum post in 2016. 

Omar has denied the claim and provided a timeline of her marital history. In 2018, she showed a reporter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune images of her father’s immigration documents, which did not list her former husband among his children.

But this is not the first time that the president has drawn attention to the unsubstantiated theory.

“Well, there is a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother,” Trump told reporters last month, before adding: “I know nothing about it.”

Trump has a history of engaging in or promoting racist attacks that question the legitimacy of the congresswoman’s status as an American. He has claimed that Omar hates America and said that she, alongside three other progressive Democratic congresswomen, should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

Carlson currently faces public backlash for claiming that white supremacy is not a threat in America just days after a shooter killed 22 people and injured dozens more at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The shooter reportedly penned a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto before driving nine hours to the largely Hispanic border town.

“This is a hoax, just like the Russia hoax,” Carlson said on Tuesday of the notion that white supremacy was a major threat in the U.S. “It’s a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power. That’s exactly what’s going on.”

Fox News and Carlson have lost several advertisers, including Long John Silver’s, Nestlé and HelloFresh, in the aftermath of his claim.

When the president was asked on Wednesday if he was concerned about the rising threat of white supremacy, he told reporters he was concerned about all hate groups, “whether it’s white supremacy, whether it’s any other kind of supremacy.”

[Huffington Post]

Trump Continues Attacks on Democratic Congresswomen – Calls Them the ‘Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse’

President Donald Trump is not letting go of his latest obsession: the four progressive Democratic freshmen Congresswomen who are also women of color.

In an early Wednesday morning rant Trump quoted Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy, a chameleon who likes to appear as a moderate on MSNBC, then take off his mask and reveal himself as strongly conservative.

Trump, quoting Kennedy, called the four Congresswomen, “wack jobs” and “the four horsewomen of the apocalypse,” a phrase white nationalist Fox News host Laura Ingraham coined to attack the progressive Democrats when they were first elected in November.

“In America, if you hate our Country, you are free to leave. The simple fact of the matter is, the four Congresswomen think that America is wicked in its origins, they think that America is even more wicked now, that we are all racist and evil. They’re entitled to their opinion, they’re Americans. Now I’m entitled to my opinion, & I just think they’re left wing cranks. They’re the reason there are directions on a shampoo bottle, & we should ignore them. The ‘squad’ has moved the Democrat Party substantially LEFT, and they are destroying the Democrat Party. I’m appalled that so many of our Presidential candidates are falling all over themselves to try to agree with the four horsewomen of the apocalypse. I’m entitled to say that they’re Wack Jobs.”

Here’s Sen. Kennedy last night talking to Fox News’ host Tucker Carlson, who has been accused of being a white supremacist.

Trump finished his rant by claiming – falsely – House Democrats are getting nothing done. Meanwhile, the truth is the House has passed 325 bills but “grim reaper” Mitch McConnell is refusing to allow almost any to come to the floor.

[The New Civil Rights Movement]

Trump calls for a “treason” investigation based on a Fox & Friends news brief

President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday morning that his administration would review whether Google has committed “treason” after seeing a Fox & Friends news brief in which one of his biggest Silicon Valley supporters floated that baseless claim.

Trump was responding to a Fox & Friends segment from earlier Tuesday morning, as he indicated by tagging the show’s Twitter handle and using quotes from its programming. An hour earlier, Fox news reader Jillian Mele began a news brief, “Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel believes China should be investigated for treason.” As she spoke, Fox’s chyron read, “Thiel accuses Google of working with Chinese Govt.”

Trump regularly watches Fox News programs like Fox & Friends (often on delay using his “Super Tivo”) and tweets about segments that catch his attention. This creates a feedback loop between the president and his most avid propagandists which can swing both the national news cycle and federal policy. 

Fox segments spur some of the president’s most inflammatory comments — this morning’s tweet marks at least the fourth time the president has responded to the network’s coverage by promoting a treason charge against his perceived enemies.

In this case, Trump was picking up on an accusation from Thiel, a wealthy tech investor and major Trump donor who spoke at the 2016 Republican convention. In a speech on Sunday, Thiel said that Google’s decision to work with the Chinese government to produce a censored version of its search while letting a Pentagon contract lapse was “seemingly treasonous,” and he suggested without evidence that Google’s executive corps had been “infiltrated” by foreign intelligence services. “These questions need to be asked by the FBI and the CIA,” he added. (Thiel sits on the board of Facebook, a Google competitor.)

The Pentagon has previously alleged that Google’s work in China provides a “direct benefit to the Chinese military,” and Trump has echoed the point. The tech company responded that it is not working with the Chinese military. 

Thiel returned to the subject during a Monday night appearance on Fox News host and sometime Trump adviser Tucker Carlson’s show, floating what he described as “a few different possibilities” while offering no evidence for his claim of Chinese infiltration of and treason by Google. 

“If [Google CEO] Sundar Pinchai was sitting right here, what would you say to him?” Carlson asked at one point.

“Well, I would say, answer my three questions,” Thiel replied. “How many foreign intelligence agencies have infiltrated Google? Have the Chinese in particular infiltrated? And why are you working with Communist China and not the U.S.? What is the reason you’re doing that?”

“The questions you raise, and this is not in any way to minimize their importance, are kind of obvious questions,” Carlson replied. “Why hasn’t the U.S. government ascertained the answers?”

“It’s possible that there are people in the U.S. government looking into it and they haven’t told us, but yeah, I think the FBI and CIA would be the natural places to look into it,” Thiel said.

Mele aired a clip from that interview during her news brief the following morning. 

Fox’s credulous coverage of Thiel’s speculation — and Trump’s parroting of those claims — is no surprise. Right-wing activists and journalists have treated tech companies as an emerging enemy force in recent years. By inflating claims of purported bias against conservatives on social media platforms, they sought to redeploy ref-working tactics previously used against news media outlets. 

Fueled by Fox, Trump has adopted this campaign as his own. Last year, Trump claimed Google’s search engine was “suppressing voices of Conservatives” and promised to act against it, apparently in response to a conspiracy-minded segment he saw on Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs Tonight. 

Last week, Trump took that accusation from Twitter to the White House Rose Garden. “We had a terrible bias,” Trump said at Thursday’s “Presidential Social Media Summit,” an event that sought to mainstream previously fringe pro-Trump figures. “We have censorship like nobody has any understanding or nobody can believe.” 

[Media Matters]

Trump claims homelessness ‘is a phenomenon that only started two years ago’

President Donald Trump seemingly took credit for homelessness starting during his administration during a bizarre interview with Fox News personality Tucker Carlson.

“You come to where we are now, Osaka, or Tokyo and the cities are clean, there’s no graffiti, no one going to the bathroom on the streets,” Carlson said. “Very different than our cities.”

“New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles have a major problem with filth,” he argued.

“It’s very sad,” Trump replied.

“Why is that?” Carlson asked.

“It’s a phenomenon that started two years,” Trump claimed.

“It’s disgraceful. I’m going to maybe — and I’m looking at it very seriously — we’re doing some other things, as you’ve probably noticed, like some of the very important things we’re doing now,” he said.

“You can’t have what’s happening, where police officers are getting sick just by walking the beat. I’m mean, they’re actually getting very sick,” Trump said, without evidence.

[Raw Story]

Reality

This is a very strange claim because Ivanka Trump told a story while walking down 5th Avenue her father Donald Trump pointed to a homeless person outside Trump Tower and told Ivanka “that guy has $8 billion more than me” because Trump was “in such extreme debt” at that point.

Media

Trump Baselessly Claims to Tucker Carlson That Twitter is Stopping Him From Getting Followers: It’s ‘Possibly Illegal’

President Donald Trump baselessly claimed Twitter is stopping him from getting followers in his interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, calling the alleged conspiracy “possibly illegal.”

Carlson teed up Trump by claiming the Google is conspiring against him.

“Google, by some measures, the most powerful company in the world — all information flows through it — they’re against you,” Carlson said. “They don’t want you reelected. Can you get reelected if Google is against you?”

“I won. They were totally against me,” Trump said. “I won.”

He then leveled the allegation against Twitter.

“If you look at Twitter, I have millions and millions of people on Twitter and it’s — you know, it’s a very good arm for me. It’s great social media. But they don’t treat me right,” he said. “And I know for a fact, I mean, a lot of people try and follow me and it’s very hard. I have so many people coming up that they say, ‘Sir, it’s so hard. They make it hard to follow.’ What they’re doing is wrong and possibly illegal. And a lot of things are being looked at right now.”

Carlson did not question Trump’s claim. Jack Dorsey, the Twitter CEO, had to explain to Trump at a meeting earlier this year how followers on the social media platform work.

Trump continued by agreeing with Carlson that “Google is very powerful, but I won.” He added that his polling is at “54 or 55, and they do say you can add 10 to whatever poll I have, okay?” It’s unclear who told Trump he can add 10 points to his polling numbers.

“So when they say it’s the most powerful, it may be, but they were against me,” he continued. “Facebook was against me. They were all against me. Twitter was against me. Twitter — I’ve been very good for Twitter. I don’t think Twitter would be the same without what I do on Twitter.”

Following Trump’s suggestion that Twitter is breaking the law by thwarting his following, Carlson asked if the Justice Department should investigate.

“Well, they could be and I don’t want to even say whether or not they’re doing something, but I will tell you, there are a lot of people that want us to and there are a lot of people — all you have to do is pick up a newspaper and read it or see it or watch Fox or watch some other network,” Trump explained. “There are a lot of people that want us to take action against Facebook and against Twitter and frankly, against Amazon.”

“A lot of people want us to take action,” Trump said.

“Are you going to?” Carlson asked.

“I can’t say that, Tucker,” Trump replied. “That I can’t say.”

[Mediaite]

Media

Donald Trump Spends Morning Live-Tweeting Made-Up Quotes From CONCATENATED Fox News Chryons

President Donald Trump, loyal cable news viewer, tweeted out a quote he saw on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show Thursday night regarding the Mueller investigation.

The quote was attributed to Sean Davis, a writer at The Federalist who appeared on Carlson’s show to criticize Robert Mueller for his press conference this week.

Weirdly enough, Davis never said that quote on Carlson’s show. As it turns out, Trump just cobbled together a series of Fox’s chyrons from the segment to fabricate a quote he attributed to Davis.

If you thought Davis would take issue with the president of the United States fabricating a quote and attributing it to him, you don’t know The Federalist. Davis celebrated Trump’s made up quote with a retweet:

When a Media Matters editor pointed out that Trump invented the quote, Davis responded, claiming the president was actually quoting an article he wrote on the subject.

Davis is correct that the first part of Trump’s Franken-Quote is inspired by his headline, which was used in a Fox News chyron. But the rest of the quote — “Still ZERO evidence of Trump-Russia Collusion, and no new evidence from Mueller” — is pulled directly from Fox News chyrons.

Mediaite reached out to Davis to confirm that he does not care about the president making up quotes and attributing them to him. He did not respond.

UPDATE 2:29 p.m. EST: Davis stood by the president’s made up quote in an email to Mediaite:

“The president accurately quoted the headline of an article I wrote, you’re a clown for having a temper tantrum over this, and I’m so sorry this is happening to you.”

[Mediaite]

Trump defends Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro after Islamophobic comments

President Trump came to Fox News anchor Jeanine Pirro’s defense on Sunday in response to the network taking her off the air without explanation, one week after she implied Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) use of a hijab was antithetical to the U.S. Constitution.

“Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Fox must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, don’t give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Stay true to the people that got you there. Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard for @JudgeJeanine. Your competitors are jealous – they all want what you’ve got – NUMBER ONE. Don’t hand it to them on a silver platter. They can’t beat you, you can only beat yourselves!”

Context: The string of tweets comes one day after authorities said “an immigrant-hating white supremacist” killed at least 50 people at a pair of mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Trump issued a single tweet on the day of the attack extending his sympathies to the people of New Zealand, but he did not condemn the shooter’s racial motives or acknowledge the targeting of Muslims.

  • When asked on Friday if he believes white nationalism is a “rising threat,” Trump said he believes “it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.” Far-right extremists have killed more people in the U.S. since 9/11 than any other organized terrorist group.

The big picture: A series of damning incidents over the past several weeks has seen Pirro, fellow host Tucker Carlson and Fox News as an entity come under fire for charges of racism and coziness with the Trump administration.

[Axios]

Trump Quotes Tucker Carlson to Bash ‘Fake News’ as ‘Enemy of the People’ Again

President Donald Trump quoted Tucker Carlson‘s opening monologue on how far the media has fallen tonight to bash the “fake news” as the “enemy of the people” once again.

Carlson tonight opened by blasting BuzzFeed, mocking their cat coverage, ripping their Russia reporting after Michael Cohen‘s testimony last week, and facing off with editor-in-chief Ben Smith, but before all that he said this:

“We’ve seen an awful lot of change during the two years Trump has been president. American politics has been completely reordered. But also the American media has changed forever. News organizations that seemed like a big deal just five years ago are now extinct. Some of them are totally forgotten. Those that remain have either degraded themselves beyond recognition––like the New Yorker––or they’ve been purchased like Jeff Bezos to conduct unregistered lobbying for Amazon.com, like the Washington Post. It’s hard to remember that not so long ago, America had prestige media outlets.”

He went on to deride BuzzFeed as a “New York-based cat blog.”

And after Carlson’s show finished tonight, the president approvingly quoted him to once again bash the “enemy of the people”:

This morning the New Yorker––one of the news outlets Carlson name-dropped––published a report on the president’s relationship with Fox News, including how he “frequently posts about points that he agrees with” while watching.

[Mediaite]

How Fox News Gets Away With Using KKK Talking Points

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At Stop The Donald Trump we are constantly pointing out Fox News has spent a lot of energy in creating an alternative reality for their viewers by ignoring key facts, withholding context, and making stuff up.

Fox also uses strategy of vilifying the rest of the news media (“The liberal media!”, “The mainstream media”) which has been so successful that most Fox News viewers only get their information from Fox News.

This is a dangerous recipe that makes it very easy for Fox to get away with overtly racist arguments because if you’ve lived in this worldview they created and maintained for the past 20+ years it is all very normal.

So when Fox News ignores systemic racism and on a daily basis repeats ideas like “blacks must try harder to get ahead”, “Irish, Italians, and Jewish minorities overcame prejudice and now it’s African American’s turn”, and generations of slavery and Jim Crow is not a factor in discussions on upward mobility, what would seem cruel, ridiculous, and missing important context to the rest of the world, a regular Fox News viewer doesn’t blink.

Like remember when Megyn Kelly shoutted “Santa Claus is white kids! He just is!” and nobody on her panel did a double-take.

This is because their viewers have been conditioned for decades to fear minorities, foreigners, other religions, paint liberals as Jesus-hating communist baby murders who want to turn your kids gay, and because of the mistrust they instill of other actual news media, they can outright lie to their viewers.

Some examples include:

  • Saying the United Nations was laughing with Trump and not at him.
  • Giving full credit to a booming economy Trump was gifted to by Obama.
  • Claiming the FISA judge was unaware the Steele Dossier was funded as opposition research.

There has been two specific moments that normalized white supremacy enough where Fox News has been able to be more open with their racism.

  1. Milo Yiannopoulos’ “An Establishment Conservative’s Guide To The Alt-Right”
  2. The candidacy and election of Donald Trump.

What Milo did in his successful Breitbart article was paint the alt-right as just another conservative movement by downplaying the white supremacist origins and made the ideas of a white nation more palatable to a larger audience.

And people forget that article was widely shared, written about, and discussed in conservative circles, including months of sympathetic portrayals of the alt-right on Fox News, right up until (and during) Charlottesville. 

That really pushed white nationalism into the open and mainstream.

And I could talk for hours about Trump, but in short his election validated his racist, sexist, and xenophobic comments and made them more everyday normal. Case in point, Trump attacked a sexual assault survivor to a cheering crowd and it’s not a scandal today.

If we recognize we live in a country where racism has all been normalized because of the efforts of Fox News and Republican radio hosts, it makes sense that someone like Tucker Carlson can literally repeat talking points of the KKK verbatim (“It’s okay to be white”) and it is seen as acceptable and popular to a Fox New audience. 

Trump revives charge Obama spied on his campaign

President Donald Trump is reviving his unverified claims President Barack Obama spied on his campaign and touting the words of a conservative Fox News host who also claims there’s now a precedent for presidents to use the government to spy on political rivals.

Trump, in a series of early morning tweets, quoted Tucker Carlson, who claimed on his show Tuesday night that President Obama had spied on Trump’s campaign and later argued the ‘lunatics on the left’ created a model that future presidents could follow.

‘The Obama people did something that’s never been done…They spied on a rival presidential campaign. Would it be OK if Trump did it next? I am losing faith that our system is on the level. I’m beginning to think it is rotten & corrupt. Scary stuff Obama did.’ @TuckerCarlson DOJ’ Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning.

His ‘DOJ’ might have been an indication the tweet was meant for the Department of Justice, who he has heavily criticized for not reining in the investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 election and for not probing rival Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s looking into Russia’s role in the presidential contest – and whether or not Trump obstructed that investigation – remains on going.

Trump was quoting Carlson, a conservative pundit who as seen as one of the president’s staunchest defenders.

Carlson, in a conservation with Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist on his Fox show Tuesday night said: ‘The Obama people did something that’s never been done that I’m aware of, they spied on a rival presidential campaign and that’s okay with you. But would it be okay if the Trump did that to the next guy?’

He went on to argue there was now a precedent for presidents to use the government to spy on rival political campaigns.

‘What’s the next election is going to be like?’ he asked attorney Richard Goodstein, who was also a guest on his show. ‘I don’t want the Trump Administration to spy on rival campaigns, but you and the lunatics on the left have created a precedent that will allow them to, and future presidents to do that. I don’t want to live in that country, that’s all I’m saying.’

There has been no proof Obama spied on the Trump campaign. The FBI was investigating the campaign’s ties to Russia during the 2016 election, which Trump argues is evidence of a ‘deep red state’ conspiracy to keep him out of the White House.

In May, Trump demanded the Justice Department investigate his allegation that the Obama administration’s FBI ‘infiltrated or surveilled’ his 2016 campaign.

The agency directed its Office of Inspector General y to formally probe those claims, an investigation that remains ongoing.

Trump’s demand came after multiple reports that the FBI had sent an informant to speak with campaign advisers about matters related to possible Russia ties, which the president has used to claim Obama was spying on him.

Some reports named Stefan Halper, an American professor at Cambridge University, as the FBI informant who met with Trump campaign aidesCarter Page and George Papadopoulos.

Both aides were suspected of dealing with the Russians.

Halper also reportedly met with a third Trump campaign official, Sam Clovis, to whom he reportedly expressed interest in helping the president’s campaign.

The use of an information is common FBI practice in criminal investigations but there is no public evidence that Halper was an FBI informant, and official sources have refused to comment on the subject. Halper has not given any comment on the issue.

Papadopoulos revealed in a plea agreement to having been told by an apparent Russian agent that Vladimir Putin government had access to a raft of hacked Clinton emails before this was made public. He has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Page, meanwhile, was under surveillance by the FBI at the time he met with the FBI informant.

Trump and his allies claim that FBI surveillance of Page was a done through a tainted FISA warrant that relied on the unverified Christopher Steele dossier, paid for by a law firm with ties to Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.

The dossier claimed the Russians had information on Trump that it could use for blackmail, which the president has denied.

Last month, documents released through a Freedom of Information Act request showed federal agents relied on more information than the Steele dossier to obtain the warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

But Trump on Tuesday morning quoted Carlson making another charge – that Clinton and the DNC paid for information from the Russians to use against the American government, likely in a reference to the Steele dossier.

‘Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid for information from the Russian government to use against her government – there’s no doubt about that!’ @TuckerCarlson,’ Trump wrote.

Carlson, on his Fox show Tuesday night told attorney Richard Goodstein:  ‘The Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC paid for information from the Russian government to use against their opponent. There is no debate about that.’

[Daily Mail]

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