Jim Acosta blasts ‘human manure-spreader’ Tucker Carlson over claim Biden sending Afghan refugees to swing states

Jim Acosta has gone after Tucker Carlson for his ‘race-baiting’ views on Afghans being resettled in the US

Bevan Hurley
In New York
Monday 06 September 2021 16:18 BST
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Jim Acosta
Jim Acosta
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CNN anchor Jim Acosta has berated Tucker Carlson for spreading ‘race-baiting conspiracy theories’ about Afghans being resettled in the United States.

Mr Acosta called the Fox News host a ‘human manure-spreader’ for his claim that President Joe Biden was deliberately sending Afghan refugees to swing states to influence the outcome of future elections.

In a monologue delivered on his primetime show, Mr Carlson claimed refugees were being relocated in states such as Florida, Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania to disfranchise voters there.

“Are you surprised by this? Funny,” Mr Carlson said, adopting a typically conspiratorial tone.

He went on to claim Afghans were being secretly settled in Wisconsin, another key swing state that flipped from Donald Trump to Mr Biden in 2020.

Tucker Carlson (Getty Images)

“What do the people of Wisconsin think? It’s not their country. Oh, but it is.”

Responding to the comments on CNN, Mr Acosta said: “Over on Fox, human manure-spreader Tucker Carlson has floated yet another race baiting conspiracy theory that tens of thousands of Afghan refugees are being sent over to this country in order to change the outcome of elections.”

Mr Acosta’s comment attracted an outpouring of support – and some condemnation – online.

“Tucker and his kind are dangerously deceptive and it’s costing people their lives,” Rex Zane wrote.

“Acosta has become my favorite person on CNN,” wrote another.

“Newscasters be beefin’ like rappers,” Jamaal S. Abdul-Alim said. “They might as well start doing battle raps.”

“​​Republicans had no problem having Afghans help American troops in Afghanistan but now want nothing to do with them!”

Tens of thousands of Afghans who worked as translators and contractors for the US military were evacuated from Kabul as the Taliban took the country at breakneck speed last month.

Many qualified to come to the US under the special immigrant visa category.

According to the State Department, newly arrived Afghans will be dispersed between more than a dozen cities, including Phoenix, Jacksonville, Portland, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City. Many will go to states considered safely Democrat or Republican.

It’s not the first time Mr Acosta has gone after Mr Carlson for airing his ‘race-baiting’ views.

In April, he called the Fox host the “chief white power correspondent” over his reaction to Derek Chauvin being found guilty of the murder of George Floyd.

Mr Carlson has a long history of promoting a conspiracy popular among the white supremacist movement known as the ‘great replacement theory’ on his prime time Fox show.

The theory posits that white people are being replaced by non-whites through immigration and birth rates and has been cited by at least four white supremacist mass murderers since 2018, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

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