Right-wing Fox News host Tucker Carlson has defended the actions of a 17-year-old man who was arrested and charged with murder after two people were killed in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when white guard agitators shot at Black Lives protesters Matter.
Kyle Rittenhouse, from Antioch, Illinois, 20 miles southwest of Kenosha, had taken to the streets of Kenosha with a gun after protesters marched and demanded justice for Jacob Blake, a young Black father who was shot by police Sunday and severely wounded.
On his TV show, Carlson – who has a long record of making racist and inflammatory remarks, provoked an advertising boycott – that Rittenhouse’s actions were understandable, considering the violence and damage to property in the city.
“Kenosha has disappeared in anarchy because the authorities responsible for the city have left it. People in charge of the governor of Wisconsin refused to enforce the law. They stood back and they saw Kenosha burning, ‘Carlson said.
He then added: “Are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with guns decided they should keep order like no one else?”
His words were immediately condemned on social media.
“An innocent black guy is murdered by police and Tucker Carlson calls him a thug. “A guilty white man killed two people and Tucker Carlson called him a patriot.” tweeted CNN commentator Keith Boykins.
“He has justified murder”, tweeted the New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.
An innocent black guy is murdered by police and Tucker Carlson calls him a thug.
A guilty white man kills two people and Tucker Carlson calls him a patriot. https://t.co/SGHhohdLfC
– Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) August 27, 2020
“If they do not take action hereafter, each of Fox News’ directors, directors and advertisers is embroiled in Tucker Carlson’s racist, murderous rants.” sei Robert Reich, a former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton.
The comments are far from the only time Carlson has issued major or extreme views, especially when it comes to race and immigration.
Last August, Carlson announced a holiday after causing a rift with advertisers by calling white supremacy a “hoax” and a “conspiracy theory.” In another incident, Carlson said low-income people immigrating to America “make our own country poorer and dirtier.”
Recently, one of Carlson’s top writers resigned after a CNN investigation found that he posted racist and sexist comments online under a pseudonym. Blake Neff regularly posted abusive language on an online forum called AutoAdmit.
In June, for example, Neff wrote, “Black deaths that keep playing Call of Duty is probably one of the biggest factors holding crimes down.” Neff also harassed a woman on the forum.
