Fox News host Tucker Carlson took on the so-called transgender murder epidemic during Thursday night’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Carlson began the segment by playing a campaign trail clip from Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren promising to “read the names of transgender women, of people of color, who have been killed in the past year.”
“Just how many transgender women of color were murdered last year, and why?” the Fox News host asked. “Warren didn’t say. That didn’t stop the Human Rights Campaign, a highly aggressive Democratic pressure group, from immediately endorsing her position. There is, the organization claimed in a statement, a quote, ‘epidemic of violence against transgender people – especially trans women of color.'”
Carlson played a clip of former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg agreeing, followed by media headlines declaring the issue a “crisis” and an “epidemic.”
“That means it’s time to see the numbers behind these claims, the ones Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren didn’t mention,” said the Fox News host said before citing stats from the “left-wing Human Rights Campaign” to prove his point. (RELATED: Are Transgender Individuals Being Murdered At A Higher Rate Than The Rest Of The Population?)
“According to the Human Rights Campaign, in 2018, a total of 26 transgendered Americans were murdered,” Carlson said. “That’s 26 too many of course. Every murder is a tragedy, very much including these. But does 26 constitute an epidemic? Let’s break it down. A few years ago, the Williams Institute estimated that 1.4 million American adults identify as transgender. If that figure is correct, then in 2018 the murder rate for transgendered people was 1.8 per 100,000. While granting that every murder is too many, relatively speaking, that is a very low rate.”
The murder rate for the general population in the United States in 2018 was “4.9 murders per 100,000 people,” Carlson said, noting that transgender people are actually “safer than your typical American.”
Instead, the “all-too-real epidemic of murders” is happening in the “poorest parts of our major cities.”