Fox News host Tucker Carlson ripped the media’s attack on author Joseph Epstein after he published a Wall Street Journal op-ed critical of Jill Biden’s use of “doctor.”
“Jill Biden is not a doctor,” Carlson said during a Tucker Carlson Tonight segment. “No. Maybe in the same sense Dr Pepper is. In 2007, at the age of 55, she got a doctorate in education. So she’s got the same degree as Dr. Bill Cosby.”
Epstein’s Friday op-ed argued that the future first lady using the qualifier before her name “feels fraudulent” because her advanced degree is in education, not medicine. Critics quickly pounced on the op-ed, labeling it “misogynistic” and “sexist,” prompting the Wall Street Journal editor Paul Gigot to write an op-ed defending the piece.
Carlson seemingly agreed with Epstein’s point, blasting Biden for using the term while showing clips of the View co-host Whoopi Goldberg calling for Biden to be nominated for surgeon general, apparently confused she wasn’t a medical doctor.
“Don’t ask for advice on your coronary artery disease because she’s not actually a physician. She’s a doctor of education, which means basically nothing,” Carlson said.
Carson also took aim at Biden’s 2009 admission that she only earned her doctorate so mail could be “addressed to Dr. and Sen. Biden.”
“In other words, Jill Biden was diagnosed with a very bad case of status anxiety, and she decided to cure that, as so many do in our country, with another pointless title,” Carlson said.
Carson said the Bidens have “for years” been guilty of having “deep class insecurity,” rolling a clip of President-elect Joe Biden in 1988 arguing that he had a “much higher IQ” than a voter on the campaign trail because he “ended up in the top half” of his law school class.
“What’s so hilarious is how unbelievably touchy they are,” Carlson continued. “They have no sense of humor about this. It’s like going up to a Panamanian general and asking where all those medals came from. You win a lot of battles, really? No, because they are self-awarded. … Nobody cares about Dr. Jill. This is a threat to their entire system of credentialism.”
