Thursday May 4, 2023
By JARED GANS
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called former Fox News host Tucker Carlson the “king of hate” and said she is “relieved” that he has been fired from the network after a string of insults he has made about her.
“Tucker was the king of hate and loved fearmongering and picking on immigrants and Muslims in many cases,” Omar told MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan in an interview Tuesday.
Carlson had repeatedly criticized Omar, who first came to the United States as a refugee from Somalia, during his show.
He said in July 2019 that Omar is “living proof” that U.S. immigration laws are “dangerous,” arguing that she was able to succeed in the country but constantly slams it.
“No country can import large numbers of people who hate it and expect to survive. The Romans were the last to try that with predictable results. So be grateful for Ilhan Omar, annoying as she is. She’s a living fire alarm, a warning to the rest of us,” Carlson said.
Omar responded by saying that she believes Carlson is a “racist fool” who is “weeping about the fact that we have an African-born member of Congress.” She also criticized companies that advertise on Fox News, arguing that they should not be “underwriting hate speech.”
“I can’t tell you just how both relieved and terrified I am of where he might end up and the kind of platform that he might end up having,” Omar said Tuesday. “It is really hard to make people understand just how dangerous this man was and how many lives he risked with his hateful rhetoric on a daily basis.”
Carlson was ousted in a surprise move by Fox News last week, days after the network settled a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems. A report from The New York Times Tuesday night said that Fox’s leaders were distressed by a text that Carlson sent about violence he saw during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
“It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight,” Carlson reportedly said in the text. “Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it.”