Fox's Carlson criticized for saying Democrats hate America
By DAVID BAUDER, AP
3 hours ago
NEW YORK — Television's most popular political host, Tucker Carlson, says leaders of the Democratic party should be disqualified from running the country because they “despise” it.
That led the Biden campaign to accuse the Fox News Channel host on Tuesday of using “hate speech masquerading as journalism” and acting as an accomplice to President Donald Trump.
Days after reports surfaced that some Republicans were discussing Carlson as a potential 2024 presidential contender, he delivered a monologue Monday night striking in its language and amplification of points made by Trump over the Fourth of July weekend.
Trump said at Mount Rushmore that the “radical ideology attacking our country” in protests that followed George Floyd’s death in police custody “would demolish both justice and society.” Trump has been critical of efforts to remove monuments to the Confederacy, which has led to reevaluations of other historical figures.
While some analysts called it divisive, Carlson praised it as the best speech the president has made in his life.
He played clips of cable TV hosts and analysts critical of some of the nation’s actions historically. Carlson said that “these people hate America. There’s no longer any question about that.”
“The leaders of today’s Democratic Party ... despise this country,” he said. “They have said so. They continue to. That is shocking but it is also disqualifying. We cannot let them run this nation because they hate it. Imagine what they would do to it.”
He contrasted Trump's speech with one made over the holiday weekend where former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said Americans had the chance to rip out the roots of systemic racism. Carlson said Biden was wagging his finger “in the face of the nation that promoted someone as mediocre as you to the position you held.”
“Tucker Carlson and his colleagues who traffic in hate speech masquerading as journalism are accomplices to Donald Trump’s perverse mission to use division and bitterness to tear this country apart,” said Biden campaign spokesman T.J. Ducklo. 'It is the polar opposite of what Joe Biden stands for, and exactly what he means when he talks about a battle for the soul of America.”
