Tucker Carlson caught saying women are 'primitive' and child rape is fine

Over the weekend, Media Matters put together a compilation of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson saying some truly repugnant and misogynistic things. From 2006 to 2011, Carlson repeatedly called into the “Bubba the Love Sponge” radio show. His remarks ran the gamut of awful, ranging from calling Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan unattractive, to defending child rape.

Many of Carlson’s comments consisted of commenting on women’s appearance or demeanor in a degrading way. He called Paris Hilton and Britney Spears the “biggest white whores in America,” and said Ariana Huffington was a pig. As to women generally, he called them “extremely primitive.”

He also expressed a creepy amount of enthusiasm for a scenario spun by Bubba: young girls at boarding school engaging in sexual experimentation with each other. At the time, Carlson had a 14-year-old daughter at a boarding school, and Carlson said, “If it weren’t my daughter I would love that scenario.”

Perhaps most appalling, though, is that Carlson defended, at length, cult leader Warren Jeffs. Jeffs was convicted of two felony counts of sexual assault for assaulting two young girls — one 12, one 15 — because he asserted they were his “spiritual wives.” During his trial, Jeffs’ nephew testified that Jeffs had raped him when he was just five years old. Jeffs also facilitated marriages between underage girls and his older male followers.

Carlson told Bubba that he doesn’t even believe Jeffs should be in prison, at least for the arranged marriages. And Carlson said that he doesn’t think forcing young girls into an underage marriage with an older man is a big deal because “[t]he rapist, in this case, has made a lifelong commitment to live and take care of the person.”

Really, these views of Carlson should come as no surprise. He hates women through and through. He thinks Democrats invented the concept of sexual harassment, and he defended Trump when the “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced.

Of course, when it suits him, Carlson loves to feign morality about the treatment of women. When the Harvey Weinstein allegations first came to light, Carlson argued that the Department of Justice needed to get involved in the case and knocked Democrats for, he asserted, ignoring the stories of abuse.

When Samantha Bee used the term “cunt” to describe Ivanka Trump, Carlson went on the air and said the word was “degrading” and that he didn’t know any man who would use such language. Except he knows at least one man: himself. In one of his many call-ins to Bubba, Carlson described Alexis Stewart, the daughter of Martha Stewart and a television and radio host, as “cunty.”

Carlson is following the Trump playbook and absolutely refusing to apologize for his disgusting actions. Instead, he has minimized them, characterizing his remarks as “saying something naughty on a radio show more than a decade ago.” He also said that if anyone disagrees with his views, they are welcome to come on his show and explain why.

Tucker Carlson, enclosed in the right-wing bubble that is Fox News, might be quite surprised to find out that there are many, many people who would be more than happy to explain why defending child rape is very, very wrong.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.