In less than three minutes, Tucker Carlson suggested immigrants make the United States “dirtier,” contradicted himself on their values and gushed over Mexicans frustrated with Central American caravans. The opening tear cost his Fox News show an advertiser, at least for now.
Few advocates, if any, argue the economic merit of immigration, Carlson said in his opening monologue Thursday evening. The nation needs skilled workers, but Carlson said that is not who arrives here. (Fact check: Not true.)
“Our leaders demand that you shut up and accept this,” he said, while name-checking Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis). “We have a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided. Immigration is a form of atonement.”
.. Carlson added: “They’re nice people; nobody doubts that,” before changing his tone minutes later in his own monologue, over reports some caravan leaders demanded $50,000 in reparations for U.S. involvement in Central America, calling them “cynical shakedown artists.”
.. Pacific Life has run commercials on Carlson’s show for just over a year, spokesman Steve Chesterman told The Washington Post on Saturday. The company is not running any ads for other Fox News programs at this time, he said.
.. Carlson has been a frequent critic of immigration. In March, he voiced concernthat America’s demographics were changing too quickly without “debate.”
.. In his Thursday monologue, Carlson rolled footage of Mexican protesters critical of the caravan, suggesting some were criminals mounting an “invasion,” in an echo of President Trump’s rhetoric.
.. The network has defended itself against similar advertiser pullouts driven by public scrutiny.
In March, half a dozen companies yanked commercials during Laura Ingraham’s program after she taunted former Parkland student David Hogg. She later apologized, but Fox News co-president Jack Abernethy decried the move as “agenda-driven intimidation efforts” and censorship.
George Will: ‘Oleaginous’ Pence Tops Donald Trump As ‘Worst’ In Government
George F. Will explains why he wrote that VP Mike Pence is worse than President Trump and elaborates on his use of the word “oleaginous” to slam Mike Pence in his latest column.
Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew
While millions of Republican primary voters have chosen Donald Trump as the party’s nominee, Bill Kristol and a small but well-heeled group of Washington insiders are preparing a third party effort to block Trump’s path to the White House.
.. In addition to alleging that Trump is lacking in principles and character, Kristol claims that the Republican candidate is a crackpot conspiracy theorist, a disqualifying trait. Kristol’s evidence is a remark Trump made on the eve of the Indiana primary suggesting that Ted Cruz’s father might have something to hide about his alleged acquaintance with Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Kristol wrote:
Calling in to Fox and Friends, Donald Trump, as Politico summarized it, “alleged that Ted Cruz’s father was with John F. Kennedy’s assassin shortly before he murdered the president, parroting a National Enquirer story claiming that Rafael Cruz was pictured with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963.”
The liberal writers at Politico can perhaps be forgiven for reporting that the Enquirer only claimed that Oswald and the senior Cruz were pictured together. The Enquirer actually published the picture.
“Here’s Trump in his own crazed words,” Kristol continues:
[Trump:] “His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Kennedy’s being — you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don’t even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it. I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting? It’s horrible.”
Comments Kristol: “What’s horrible is a leading presidential candidate trading in crackpot conspiracy theories.”
So it might be, if Trump were actually putting forward a conspiracy theory. But what we have here, obviously, is not a theory but some Trumpian campaign mischief — not dissimilar in form to his earlier suggestion that because Ted Cruz was born in Canada, he might not be able to actually run for president even if he were to win the nomination. These were both campaign tricks — dirty tricks if you like — to throw a rival off balance and gain an advantage.
O’Reilly: ‘You can’t second-guess’ Trump’s birther strategy
Bill O’Reilly brushed aside Donald Trump’s refusal to say earlier Friday whether he was going to disavow his questioning of President Barack Obama’s citizenship, saying, “you can’t second-guess the strategy that has him tied with Hillary Clinton, who should be ahead by 15 points.”
“I wouldn’t have done it this way, but I would have put it to bed a long time ago,” O’Reilly said in a telephone interview on Fox News in the minutes preceding Trump’s speech in Washington.