Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Monday his network has his back after a liberal media watchdog group published years-old audio of him on the radio making disparaging and perverse comments about young girls and women.
At the end of an eight-minute-long monologue about the controversy, which began Sunday evening when Media Matters published excerpts from between 2006 and 2011 of Carlson calling in to to the shock jock radio program of Bubba the Love Sponge, Carlson said he would not bow to a liberal “mob” of critics.
“First, Fox News is behind us as they have been since the very first day,” he said. “Toughness is a rare quality in a TV network, and we are grateful for that. Second, we’ve always apologize when we’re wrong and will continue to do that. that’s what decent people do: They apologize. But we will never bow to the mob, ever, no matter what.”
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 12, 2019
Carlson suggested his words were mischaracterized saw no reason in trying to make a case.
“There’s really not that much you can do to respond. It’s pointless to try to explain how the words were spoken in jest, or taken out of context, or in any case bear no resemblance to what you actually think, or would want for the country,” he said.
[Related: Progressive Democrat Ro Khanna praises Tucker Carlson for taking on Max Boot, Bill Kristol]
“None of that matters. Nobody cares,” Carlson added. “You know the role you’re required to play: You are a sinner, begging the forgiveness of Twitter. So you issue a statement of deep contrition. You apologize profusely for your transgressions. You promise to be a better person going forward. With the guidance of your contrition consultants, you send money to whatever organization claims to represent the people you supposedly offended. Then you sit back and brace for a wave of stories about your apology, all of which are simply pretexts for attacking you again. In the end, you get fired, you lose your job. Nobody defends you. Your neighbors avert their gaze as you pull into the driveway. You are ruined.”
Around the time Carlson spoke, Media Matters published a second and third wave of audio of Carlson using a term that is insulting to gay people and making comments about race, including questioning the blackness of former President Barack Obama and calling Iraq “a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semiliterate primitive monkeys.”
In reacting to the first wave Sunday evening, Carlson refused to apologize and stressed that his “naughty” comments were years old.
“Media Matters caught me saying something naughty on a radio show more than a decade ago,” Carlson, 49, said. “Rather than express the usual ritual contrition, how about this: I’m on television every weeknight live for an hour. If you want to know what I think, you can watch. Anyone who disagrees with my views is welcome to come on and explain why.”
Carlson worked for MSNBC from 2005 to 2008 and moved over to Fox News in 2009. He also co-founded the conservative website the Daily Caller in 2010.
Fox News did condemn another one of its hosts, Judge Jeanine Pirro, for suggesting Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is against the U.S. Constitution because she wears a hijab.
[Also read: Carlson explains why segment with Dutch historian never made it to air]
