Conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson opened his primetime show Wednesday night by surprisingly lauding Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s recently released plan for “economic patriotism,” all while blasting Republican policies.
Summarizing Warren’s proposal, which calls for an “aggressive intervention on behalf of American workers” and a new Department of Economic Development, Carlson—who has mockingly called Warren “Fauxcahontas” and “Lie-awatha” in the past—asked regular Republican voters if they would disagree with any of the things he just described.
“Was there a single word that seemed wrong to you? Probably not,” he noted. “Here’s the depressing part: Nobody you voted for said that or would ever say. Republicans in Congress can’t promise to protect American industry.”
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Saying the GOP is scared of “making the Koch Brothers mad,” Carlson told his viewers the “words you just heard are from Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.”
“Yesterday, Warren released what she’s calling her plan for economic patriotism,” the right-wing host said. “Amazingly, that’s pretty much exactly what it is: Economic patriotism.”
Praising her proposal for not mentioning “identity politics” but instead being “about preserving good-paying American jobs,” Carlson added: “Many of Warren’s policy prescriptions make obvious sense.”
“The U.S. government should buy American products and it should. We need more workplace apprenticeship programs. We see American companies take research and use it to manufacture products overseas like Apple did with the iPhone. She sounds like Donald Trump at his best.”
Carlson didn’t keep up his praise too long, however, before arguing that Warren is actually part of the problem. Describing her as a “gun-grabbing abortion extremist,” he complained that the current political landscape is full of “trust-fund socialists” or “libertarian zealots.”
The solution, he said, would be some blend of economic nationalism and social conservatism.
“Why couldn't you have a party that is economically nationalist and socially conservative? Why is that so hard?” Carlson said, pivoting to blast Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for saying Republicans are “not fans” of tariffs.
“Imagine a more supercilious, out of touch, infuriating response,” he exclaimed. “You can’t, because there isn’t one.”
“In other words, says Mitch McConnell, the idea may work in practice but we’re against it, because it doesn’t work in theory. That’s the Republican Party, 2019. No wonder they keep losing. They deserve it. Will they ever change?”
