Tucker Carlson responded to attacks over re-surfaced comments he made on a radio show a decade ago by inviting critics on to his Fox News show.
The host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” extended the invitation hours after a left-leaning, progressive watchdog group released audio tapes of him from as long ago as 2006, which sparked a backlash over what some saw as derogatory comments about women.
Media Matters for America released audio recordings of Carlson from 2006 to 2011 on Sunday which featured the Fox News host’s calls in to the “The Bubba the Love Sponge Show,” a “shock jock” radio program that is hosted by Todd “Bubba” Clem.
Carlson discussed political and various other topics in his weekly call in to the show and, in one audio recording from 2009, spoke about Warren Jeffs, who was convicted of felony child sexual assault and is s currently serving a life sentence, saying he “is in prison because he’s weird and unpopular and he has a different lifestyle that other people find creepy.”
“He’s got some weird, religious cult where he thinks it’s okay to, you know, marry underage girls, but he didn’t do it,” Carlson said about the former leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Why wouldn’t the guy who actually did it, who had sex with an underage girl, he should be the one who is doing life.”
“Look, just to make it absolutely clear. I am not defending underage marriage at all. I just don’t think it’s the same thing exactly as pulling a child from a bus stop and sexually assaulting that child,” Carlson added.
Media Matters claimed Carlson “diminished the actions” of Jeffs as he spoke about Jeffs again in another 2009 interview, calling the charges against him “bulls–t” because he was not “accused of touching anybody. He is accused of facilitating a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a 27-year-old man. That’s the accusation. That’s what they’re calling felony rape.”
Carlson, who joined Fox News in 2009 after working at MSNBC from 2005 to 2008 and CNN from 2000 to 2005, also used what were seen as derogatory remarks about Martha Stewart’s daughter, Alexis Stewart, journalist Arianna Huffington and Britney Spears in other interviews.
Warning: The following audio contains explicit language.
According to the more than a dozen incidents that Media Matters chose to pull out to compile and transcribe, Carlson commented in 2007 that women as a whole were “extremely primitive,” as part of a discussion about women who hated putting up with some men.
“Women hate you when they do you wrong and you put up with it,” he said. “Because they hate weakness. They’re like dogs that way. They can smell it on you, and they have contempt for it; they’ll bite you…I mean, I love women, but they’re extremely primitive, they’re basic, they’re not that hard to understand. And one of the things they hate more than anything is weakness in a man.”
The audio and transcripts released Sunday quickly went viral and opened the floodgates of backlash against Carlson’s decade-old remarks on the popular “shock Jock” radio program. Voices on the left were quick to condemn the Fox News host.
.@TuckerCarlson – And you have the audacity to call me “creepy”? You are a complete dirtbag. Typical hypocrite. We are about to find out if @FoxNews has any decency standards whatsoever. 13 yrs old! https://t.co/dG8XkvEV6x
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 11, 2019
Hey, @TuckerCarlson. Shame on you. You have daughters. https://t.co/HX5ePEMgCN
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) March 11, 2019
Remember the time that Carlson, at the Daily Caller, roped his brother into some pushback against a femaile DeBlasio spox who’d requested a correction? She was called “spoogeneck,” among other nasty things. Carlson refused to make amends.
— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) March 11, 2019
Wow who could have known Tucker Carlson is a sexist pig https://t.co/8F5UHah8qN
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) March 11, 2019
In normal times, this might be the end of Tucker Carlson’s television career. We shall see. https://t.co/wX6D8nespb
— Tony Webster (@webster) March 10, 2019
Carlson issued a statement on Twitter hours after the left-wing group released the recordings.
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 11, 2019
Media Matters president Angelo Carusone fired back with an explanation for why his organization published the audio as Carlson faced calls for a boycott of his Fox News show.
The reason we released this is precisely because the things you say on your Fox News show echo the misogyny displayed in those clips. We were actually helping people better understand just how vile your current Fox News show is by showing what that worldview really looks like. https://t.co/R4TmeFN6jK
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 11, 2019
With the left’s pitchforks and torches out for Carlson over his comments in ten-year-old interviews, he had plenty of supporters, such as Donald Trump Jr., who saw the targeted attack for what it really is.
For comments made on the “Bubba The Love Sponge” show. Obviously a serious policy show where no satire would be made.
The left is not going after @TuckerCarlson for any reason other then he’s effective at destroying their agenda. That’s what they do. https://t.co/ExtAY86q5i
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 11, 2019
Media Matter Guy when he finds comments to take out of context from 2006 pic.twitter.com/6whE2lWe6h
— Author Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) March 11, 2019
How the Left comes up with its standards: pic.twitter.com/dgmQHKedCt
— Author Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) March 11, 2019
I can’t believe somebody said something offensive to a bunch of leftist prudes on a show hosted by “Bubba the Love Sponge.”
Buzz off you geeks. How about @TuckerCarlson and everybody else say whatever they want and you sit there and be pissed off about it? https://t.co/lnvZPM9gKY
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) March 11, 2019
I can dig up countless examples of leftists making literal pedophile child rape jokes and they’ll defend it to no end.
This is nothing more than a hit piece on #Tucker by the communist left and their resistance eunuchs. pic.twitter.com/9F91r2D54p
— Zapp Cam (@Zapp_Cam) March 11, 2019
Imagine if the Left spent as much time looking for actual evidence of collusion as they do looking up old Tucker Carlson phone calls
— Author Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) March 11, 2019
See, the problem is @TuckerCarlson did not do the radio show 12+ years ago in black face. If he had the Democrats would love him.
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) March 11, 2019
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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