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Topline
The Anti-Defamation League called on Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson on Friday, after the host said Democrats are deliberately using immigrants to dilute the power of U.S. voters, a statement the ADL said was a nod to the white supremacist “replacement” theory.
Tucker Carlson speaks onstage during Politicon in Los Angeles on October 21, 2018.
Key Facts
In a Thursday appearance on Fox News Primetime, Carlson told guest host Mark Steyn the Democratic Party is “importing a brand new electorate” made up of immigrants from poorer countries, whom Carlson suggested are more “obedient” than existing voters.
The ADL — an anti-Semitism watchdog group — cast Carlson’s remarks as a race-baiting defense of white replacement, a conspiracy theory favored by white supremacists who believe white people are at risk of being wiped out by other races.
In an open letter, ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt told Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott “it is time for Carlson to go.”
Carlson insisted on-air Thursday he isn’t backing the white replacement theory, instead claiming his fears are rooted in a concern for voting rights.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Crucial Quote
“I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate … with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World,” Carlson said. “They become hysterical because that’s what’s happening, actually. Let’s just say it: That’s true.”
Key Background
Carlson’s Thursday comments were not entirely new territory for him. The host claimed last week unnamed “people in charge” are using the current surge at the U.S.-Mexico border to deliberately change the country’s political makeup, and three years ago, he said Democrats see a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants as a way of building political power. Carlson often portrays immigration as costly and undesirable: He’s repeatedly suggested some immigrants are unsanitary, and he claimed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — a Somali-American who moved to the country as a teenager — is “living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous.”
Tangent
Carlson has survived backlash in the past. Some advertisers ditched his show after he said immigrants make America dirty in 2018, and another round of companies pulled their ads last year because he suggested Black Lives Matters activists will “come for you.”
Big Number
3.2 million. That was Tucker Carlson Tonight’s average audience in March, making it the most popular show on cable news, according to ratings released by Fox.
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