Tucker Carlson warns viewers they could be ‘hurt’ in Biden’s ‘war on white supremacists’

The show has been accused of ties to white supremacy numerous times

Not long after a mob that included white supremacists stormed the Capitol, Fox News star Tucker Carlson told his viewers in a Wednesday monologue they “could be hurt” in President Joe Biden’s efforts to crack down on white supremacy.

In his inaugural address, Mr Biden warned about “a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.”

Mr Carlson, who draws an audience of nearly 5 million viewers at times, took umbrage at painting white supremacy as a national enemy to be defeated, cautioning that people who weren’t actually white supremacists could be targeted as such due to a broad definition of the concept.

“Innocent people could be hurt in this war. They usually are,” the primetime stalwart said. “There could be collateral damage in this war. And the casualties will be Americans.”

The victims of white supremacy, in his telling, were less those materially impacted by white supremacists, but those labeled as white supremacists.

“So again, what is a white supremacist?” Mr Carlson said. “You might be surprised to learn just how broad the definition for that has become.”

He suggested that poor white people who disagree they’ve benefitted from their race could be unfairly labeled as white supremacists, because, for example, the military considers denial of white privilege a sign of racism.

The prospect hits close to home for the cable host, who has faced numerous allegations that his show and its employees endorse white supremacism, which he denies.

In 2018, advertisers boycotted the programme after one episode said immigrants were making American “dirtier.” Mr Carlson has called widespread racism a “hoax,” won praise from neo-Nazis, argued the Black Lives Matter movement isn’t about helping Black people, and been labelled a “white supremacist sympathiser” by congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In July 2020, the show’s top writer resigned after it was discovered he’d posted racist, sexist, and homophobic comments on forums online under a pseudonym, and that content from these forums wound up influencing the show. 

At least ten employees and contributors to the Daily Caller, a conservative media outlet Mr Carlson founded in 2010 but left in July, 2020, have been found to have ties to white nationalists, including Jason Kessler, the organiser of the infamous Charlottesville neo-Nazi rally.

One of his colleagues at Fox News told The Daily Beast that Mr Carlson has created a “white supremacist cell inside the top cable network in America.” 

Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.