Fox News host Tucker Carlson took his sexist attacks against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to a new level on Thursday night, telling the progressive lawmaker to “get a therapist, honey” over her detailing her fear of getting raped during the violent Jan. 6 insurrection.
Since the day former President Donald Trump incited an enraged mob to storm the U.S Capitol in hopes of stopping Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory, Ocasio-Cortez has openly and emotionally discussed her experience during the riot, explaining how scared she was that angry rioters could potentially kill her.
At the same time, Carlson has relentlessly dismissed and minimized her claims, derisively referring to her as “Sandy”—his favorite mocking nickname for the congresswoman—and suggesting that she’s never experienced any real trauma or danger. And he was back at it on Thursday.
During a segment in which he criticized lawmakers for defending the police officer who shot and killed Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt—Carlson has helped lead the charge in making Babbitt into a right-wing martyr—Carlson then turned his attention to Ocasio-Cortez, who recently revealed to CNN that she was afraid she was going to be raped during the riot. (The New York lawmaker revealed in February that she is a sexual assault survivor.)
“Occasionally, Sandy Cortez tells us about her ‘lived experience’ on January 6th,” Carlson groused. “During a recent special on CNN, Sandy Cortez—does she ever stop talking about herself, by the way?—she explained she wasn’t simply afraid of being murdered by Ashli Babbitt, she was also worried about being raped.”
The Fox News star then aired a clip of AOC saying that “misogyny” was “deeply rooted” in the attack on the Capitol and that she didn’t think she was “just going to be killed” because there was a lot of “sexualizing” of the violence that day.
“‘Sexualizing?’ Get a therapist, honey,” Carlson sneered. “This is crazy.”
Addressing Ocasio-Cortez through the screen, he went on to say that the rioters “were mad because they thought the election wasn’t fair,” adding that “you may disagree with that, but it wasn’t about you, surprise, surprise!”
He continued to ridicule Ocasio-Cortez saying that the violence had been sexualized while mockingly mimicking the progressive lawmaker. “I was going to be raped by Ashli Babbitt,” he snarked.
“Imagine this was said by a Republican about BLM rioters—across the country, Kenosha, Green Bay, Wisconsin! What would happen if some Karen said that?” Carlson continued. “Sexualized violence... Could you imagine? You could go to jail for that. But Sandy Cortez could say that because the people rioting on Jan. 6 had the wrong political views.”
While Carlson has repeatedly trivialized Ocasio-Cortez’s seemingly genuine fears while simultaneously infantilizing her and tossing sexist jabs her way, he has had no problems presenting himself as a victim.
Carlson, for instance, claimed back in 2018 that antifa protesters threatened his family’s life and left a large crack in his front door after nearly breaking it down. Police and local media, however, found no evidence of any visible damage to the door. In recent weeks, Carlson was confronted by a Montana man in a fishing shop, who calmly told him he was “the worst human being” in the world.
Fox News, meanwhile, reacted to the confrontation by saying “ambushing” Carlson was “totally inexcusable” and “no public figure should be accosted regardless of their political persuasion or beliefs simply due to the intolerance of another point of view.”