In calls to a radio show, Fox News host Tucker Carlson defended a child rapist, justified child rape, and said that women were “extremely primitive.”
Between 2006 and 2011, Tucker Carlson spent approximately an hour a week calling in to Bubba the Love Sponge, a popular shock jock radio program where he spoke with the hosts about a variety of cultural and political topics in sometimes-vulgar terms. During those conversations, Carlson diminished the actions of Warren Jeffs, then on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list for his involvement in arranging illegal marriages between adults and underage girls, talked about sex and young girls, and defended statutory rape.
Carlson, who was hired by Fox News in 2009, also used sexist language to talk about women, including then-co-workers at NBC and public figures. He referred to Martha Stewart’s daughter Alexis Stewart as “cunty,” called journalist Arianna Huffington a “pig,” and labeled Britney Spears and Paris Hilton “the biggest white whores in America.” He also said that women enjoy being told to “be quiet and kind of do what you’re told” and that they are “extremely primitive.” …
Carlson said underage marriage is not “the same thing exactly as pulling a child from a bus stop and sexually assaulting that child. … The rapist in this case has made a lifelong commitment to live and take care of the person so it is a little different.”
Excellent reporting from Madeline Peltz and Media Matters from America. Carlson is unrepentant; in a statement, he said his comments on child rape were “naughty” and said anyone who cares should watch his TV show.
He knows it won’t matter. His right-wing audience is indifferent to child welfare in institutionalized settings (if not outright approving of pedophilia) and already drowning in contempt for women. If there’s any fallout at all from this it’ll be some temporary loss of ad revenue for Fox and a little more peeling away of the conservative morality mask for the last few suckers who can’t see through it anyway.