Fox News star Tucker Carlson—currently facing outrage from network colleagues over his racist rhetoric—upped the ante on Monday night, claiming it was “probably illegal” for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to prioritize Black women in his running-mate search, while calling those candidates unqualified.
Carlson, whose former head writer was recently outed as an outspoken racist, kicked off Monday night’s broadcast of his hit primetime show by singling out the women of color whom Biden is reportedly considering as the vice-presidential nominee.
“We’ve taken a closer look at three potential candidates. All of them are said to be on Joe Biden’s shortlist for the job,” Carlson declared, referencing a previous inflammatory segment. “They are Stacey Abrams, Karen Bass, and Kamala Harris. Now, in a normal year, no mainstream candidate would consider any of these people. All of them would be disqualified without debate.”
The far-right Fox host first described Rep. Bass (D-CA) as a “lunatic Fidel Castro acolyte” and an armed revolutionary, referring to her past praise of the Cuban dictator and work for a young leftist group during the 1970s. After calling Abrams, a former Georgia state representative and gubernatorial candidate, “delusional” and accusing her of writing “bad porn novels,” Carlson took aim at Sen. Harris (D-CA).
“Kamala Harris, meanwhile, is so transparently transactional that even Democratic primary voters who have a strong stomach found her repulsive,” he exclaimed. “Pretty much no one who knows Kamala Harris likes her.”
Claiming the three women did not represent a “blue ribbon group,” Carlson then grumbled over the Biden campaign’s apparent prioritization of a woman of color to fill out the ticket.
“For what could very well be the most important job on Earth, Biden has decided to hire exclusively on the basis of qualities that are both immutable and completely irrelevant—race and gender,” Carlson huffed. “And that’s it. But wait a second, you ask, isn’t that insulting? Isn’t it wrong? Isn’t it probably illegal?”
“Yes, it is all three of those things,” he continued. “But no one’s pushing back against it so Biden is doing it.”
Carlson then tore into another Black woman whom Biden is reportedly considering, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice. Describing her remarks in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi terror attacks as “hateful” and “heinous,” the Fox host accused Rice of committing a “moral crime” by initially blaming the embassy attack on an anti-Islamic video.