What You Need to Know About Tucker Carlson’s Stomach-Turning Comments

By Clare Martin  |  March 11, 2019 | 11:42am
Photo by Rich Polk/Getty
Politics News Tucker Carlson
What You Need to Know About Tucker Carlson’s Stomach-Turning Comments

Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host who looks like the grown version of every ‘80s teen movie villain rolled into one, is facing widespread criticism after Media Matters dug up audio from 2006 to 2011 in which Carlson spews sexist remarks on the radio program Bubba the Love Sponge. Carlson called into the shock jock program on a weekly basis during those years, discussing an array of matters with the hosts, and often throwing in degrading remarks about women and sickening views on the sexual abuse of children.

Inflammatory rhetoric is nothing new from Carlson, who in 2018 said that Planned Parenthood perform “human sacrifice rituals,” as per Media Matters. This recently unearthed audio shows that Carlson’s horrific comments date back over a decade, many of them focusing on underage girls. Below are some of the low-lights of the transcripts:

—April 4, 2006: Carlson downplays the molestation of a 13-year-old boy abused by his teacher, saying that female teachers who rape their underage male students are “doing a service to all 13-year-old girls by taking the pressure off.”

—April 8, 2006: Carlson calls into question when sex workers accuse men of sexual assault, saying, “She sells sex for a living. If she’s accusing other people of nonconsensual sex, it’s a little more complicated than if some, you know, housewife claims she was pulled off the street and raped. It’s just not the same thing. It’s harder to determine what’s consensual and what’s not.”

—Sept. 6, 2006: Carlson argues that Warren Jeffs, the former leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints convicted of the aggravated sexual assault of a child under age 14 and sexual assault of a child under age 17, does not deserve life in prison for arranging marriages to underage girls. He says:

He’s not accused of touching anybody; he is accused of facilitating a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a 27-year-old man. That’s the accusation. That’s what they’re calling felony rape. [crosstalk] That’s bullshit. I’m sorry. Now this guy may be [crosstalk], may be a child rapist. I’m just telling you that arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old and a 27-year-old is not the same as pulling a stranger off the street and raping her. That’s bullshit.

(Note, 3/12, 12:28 p.m.: Jeffs may still be the president.)

—May 9, 2006: Carlson calls for the end of rape shield laws, saying that under this legislation rape victims are “hiding behind anonymity, while the person I accused, whether he’s guilty or not, has his life destroyed. That’s totally unfair.”

—Aug. 27, 2009: Carlson claims that marrying an underage child is not “the same thing exactly as pulling a child from a bus stop and sexually assaulting that child.” He later adds that, “The rapist, in this case, has made a lifelong commitment to live and take care of the person, so it is a little different.”

—Aug. 27, 2009: Carlson says that if he made the laws, “Michael Vick would have been executed, and Warren Jeffs would be out on the street.”

—Oct. 25, 2009: When Bubba the Love Sponge imagines underage girls at Carlson’s 14-year-old daughter’s boarding school getting sexually involved with one another, the Fox News pundit says, “If it weren’t my daughter I would love that scenario.”

That’s not even covering his comments about TV host Alexis Stewart, who he calls “cunty”; his calling Britney Spears and Paris Hilton the “biggest white whores in America”; his remarks that journalist Contessa Brewer is “saucy and cute”; and his claim that Hillary Clinton is “anti-penis.”

The conservative host refused to apologize for his disgusting comments Monday, merely calling them “naughty” in a tweet.

We’re taking a wild guess that Fox News won’t lift a finger, either.

 
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