Tucker Carlson wasn’t allowing Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin to make blanket assumptions about Trump voters Friday night.
The host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” challenged the self-styled “on the right” opinion writer to back up her suggestions that “angry white males” with racist opinions elected Donald Trump. She predicted a reliance on these alleged voters would lead to the demise of the Republican Party.
Carlson started the discussion by stating: “I want to challenge you on one thing,” said Carlson, “and that’s your claim [about angry white voters] is true and that you can support it, which is of course totally false.”
Rubin continued to claim that Trump voters were feigning concern for declining jobs and increasing terrorism and were secretly just “angry white males who think the country is changing.”
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Carlson then asked her point blank, “Do you have access to some special poll that the rest of us haven’t seen, that that proves that it’s not about jobs that it’s about their anger based on race? You don’t know that and you claimed it anyway: why?”
Rubin continued to repeat her assertion that Trump voters “have more negative attitudes towards African-Americans,” ignoring Carlson’s observations that Rubin was supposed to be addressing attitudes towards immigration and “African-Americans are not immigrating to this country.”
Rubin suggested it was “a big mistake” to assume that voters are rational.
He accused Rubin of sheer speculation, “No, you’re claiming that they’re immoral, you’re saying they’re racist… Why would you write something like that – in a newspaper – without having any fact to back it up unless you somehow have access to the inner thoughts of Trump voters, why would you imagine you know their motives?”
Rubin continued to assert that the average Trump voter “has negative views about various minorities” but quoted no statistics about how these voters view issues like employment or terrorism.
Carlson repeated: “You’re saying it’s not about jobs or terrorism it’s because they’re racist. Do you have evidence for that or are you just dismissing them as bigots because you can’t imagine another explanation?”
When pressed for data, Rubin claimed the average Trump voter is “not affected by immigration and displacement” and earns $72,000 a year: “so that’s pretty good for them.
“So they’ve got no cause for complaints; they must be racist,” said Carlson shaking his head. “Before you call people racist, you better have some real evidence — and you don’t.”
Rubin continued to insist, “That’s not true, that’s not true,” laughing when Carlson said they had run out of time.
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