Fox News host Tucker Carlson lobbed a thinly veiled racist attack at a Black congresswoman on Tuesday night, declaring that Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) “could never have a job in the real world” because she’s simply “not smart enough” to hold one.
Of course, the fact that Bush has had several “real world” jobs went unmentioned by the frozen fish fortune heir who has spent the last twenty years failing up in the cable news world.
During Tuesday’s broadcast of his Fox News primetime show, Carlson latched onto the conservative outrage over Bush and other progressives issuing critical statements on Independence Day. Bush, in particular, drew intense backlash from the right for tweeting that “this land is stolen land and Black people still aren’t free.”
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Claiming “some of our elected leaders” spent the Fourth of July weekend “reminding you that the country isn’t worth anything” and an “awful place not worth defending,” Carlson then took direct aim at Bush—continuing his frequent habit of viciously insulting women of color.
“Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush, for example—someone who could never have a job in the real world because she’s not smart enough for a real job, complained that her taxpayer-funded gig is really a form of slavery,” the Fox News star exclaimed.
“Cori Bush, however, is free to say stupid things on Twitter as much as she wants. And draw a federal paycheck! And draw lifetime benefits for her job wrecking the country that she hates,” he continued after reading aloud her tweet.
After highlighting a similar tweet from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), another Black congresswoman who has been a favorite target of Carlson’s, the conservative host went on to ask fellow Fox News host Jesse Watters why the minority lawmakers “want you to dislike” America.
“So the people who run the country are telling us two things,” Carlson added. “One, the country is not worth having and it’s terrible and, two, despite being the most powerful people in the country, they are oppressed. How should we interpret this?”
Reiterating comments he made earlier in the day, Watters dismissed Bush’s assertion that America was “stolen land” from Native Americans, saying “we won this land on the battlefield and the rest we purchased from the Europeans.”
He added: “Are we supposed to give the Dakotas back to Crazy Horse’s family? Are we supposed to give California back to Mexico?”
Despite Carlson’s claims to the contrary, Bush—who is in her first few months as a congresswoman—is a registered nurse who went on to work as a nursing supervisor and was also a pastor of a St. Louis-area church.
Carlson, on the other hand, has jokingly bragged in the past that he’s “extraordinarily loaded” from his trust fund and doesn’t need to work. Furthermore, despite both CNN and MSNBC canceling his shows and firing him, Fox News hired Carlson in 2009. After serving as a weekend morning co-host for a few years, he was eventually rewarded with yet another show in 2016.
