Fox News host Tucker Carlson began Thursday night’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” with a lengthy monologue full of examples of how media and leaders are “eagerly stoking” racial division as Minneapolis burns.
As riots rocked the city Tuesday and Wednesday night in the wake of the death of Michael Floyd while in police custody, Carlson began by panning media and politicians portraying looting, store burning, and violence as “democracy in its purest form,” a “political rally” even.
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While “technically” the people “smashing cash registers” may be looters, Carlson said, at least they aren’t “doing something immoral like protesting Gretchen Whitmer’s coronavirus lockdowns in Michigan.”
The Fox News host then played clips of media condemning nonviolent lockdown protests, then treating the Minneapolis rioters with kid gloves.
“As their city crumbled around them, local leaders huddled in deliberation,” he said. “They emerged with a plan. They declared that racism is quote, ‘a national emergency.’ CNN immediately trumpeted the development, as if it were breaking news. Meanwhile, mobs in downtown Minneapolis kept looting. Stores kept burning. Normal people of all colors huddled indoors, terrified.”
After playing a clip of people saying, “shoot the white folk” during the riots, Carlson noted that such a clip would never appear on CNN because it challenges “the carefully-constructed storyline that our leaders richly profit from.” He then challenged the narrative that “white cops are a mortal threat to black men” with a study that found that “white police officers were less likely to shoot and kill non-white suspects than non-white police officers were.”
“In any given year, police kill more white suspects, armed and unarmed, than black suspects,” said the Daily Caller co-founder. “That’s a fact, by the way. It’s not political propaganda. It’s provably true. Yet no one on TV will ever say it, because that fact threatens the scams they’re working.”
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“The problem with outbreaks of mob violence is, you really have no idea where they’re going next,” Carlson said. “Sometimes they subside. Often they metastasize. They’re unpredictable, and they are mortally dangerous. That’s why you don’t encourage them.”
Carlson pointed out “This is a black-owned business” signs that “have appeared in store windows.”
“In other words, ‘we’re the right skin color; spare us.’ What does that tell you?” he asked. “Imagine if you saw signs saying ‘white owned business’ in windows. You’d be horrified. And you should be. You’d know it was a race riot. We’ve had a lot of those in this country through the years, and there’s nothing worse than that. But Minneapolis has decided to just let their riot happen, and damn the consequences.” (RELATED: Brooke Baldwin Breaks Down On Air: ‘As A White Woman, Aware Of My Own Privilege’)
After playing a clip of Minneapolis’ police chief explaining why his department didn’t stop rioters, Carlson contended that the “safety of officers” shouldn’t be his primary concern, but rather that of citizens.
“Society’s first concern is the safety of citizens, especially the weakest citizens,” the Fox News host explained. “That’s why we have police in the first place: To protect people who can’t protect themselves — the public. Not everyone wants to do that job. And thats fine. Do something else. But we can’t allow this. Imagine if the Secret Service adopted the same attitude: ‘Sorry. Can’t protect the president today. Too risky.’ How about the military: ‘We’d love to repel the invasion, but unfortunately we might get hurt. Our apologies.’ Things would fall apart. Things are falling apart in Minneapolis.”
“And as they collapse our leadership class seems thrilled, they’re doing nothing to calm racial division, in fact they’re eagerly stoking it,” he continued.
