Tucker Carlson Utterly Loses It Over the Thought That the FBI Ought to Goal White Nationalist Terrorists

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson unleashed a furious floor Tuesday night in response to California Democrat Adam Schiff’s argument that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are focusing their efforts on white nationalist terrorism.

“Listen to America’s new Grand Inquisitor,” Carlson said on the air, introducing a clip in which Schiff was speaking.

In the clip, the Jewish ship told CNN that the concern was not new.

“We have been calling for the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to increase the priority of domestic terrorism and white nationalism as it threatens the country,” he said. “And we will continue to raise the alarm and make sure they are spending the time, resources and attention. Just as we did after 9/11 against the threat of international terrorism, we must give domestic terrorism the same priority and urgency. “

It wasn’t surprising remarks that came just weeks after the storming of the US Capitol by a violent and deadly mob full of racists and white supremacists trying to overturn the constitutional order. As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, it is Schiff’s job to monitor the behavior of the agencies concerned.

But for Carlson the remarks were completely outrageous. To get that message across to his audience, he had to completely distort what Schiff was saying. The way Carlson misinterpreted the remarks was quite telling.

“Understood?” Carlson said after playing the ship clip. “Choose wrong and you are a jihadi. You thought you were an American citizen with rights and a different point of view. But no, you are a jihadi. And we’re going to treat you as we treated those radicals after 9/11. As if we’d treated bin Laden. Line up, buddy. This is a war on terror. Remember, if you listen to the people who talk like that – and Adam Schiff is far from the only one – they are talking about American citizens here. They talk about you. But nobody seems to notice or care. “

It was a remarkable response. In the clip – the clip Carlson specifically picked because he thought it would best illustrate his point – Schiff spoke explicitly about white nationalist domestic terrorists. This is undeniably a crime, not a First Amendment protected activity, and it is a threat that Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned of as an increasing danger.

“Within domestic terrorism, the category of racially motivated violent extremism as a whole is, in my opinion, the largest area within this larger group. And within the racially motivated violent extremist bucket, people who join some sort of white supremacist ideology are certainly the bulk of it, ”Wray said last September. “We have about 1,000 domestic terrorism cases every year recently. This year it’s higher. “

The attack on the Capitol only made this danger clear. It is to be feared that the new government will overreact to this threat and that civil liberties will be jeopardized as they were after 9/11. These are concerns worth taking seriously.

But Carlson didn’t say that. Instead, he told his audience that Schiff argues that people should be treated like terrorists if they “choose wrongly”. In fact, he even said that “you” are treated like Osama bin Laden – that is, hunted and killed – because “you” vote. That is not what Schiff or anyone else said. This is a QAnon-level conspiracy theory that Carlson publishes on the primetime cable news.

Carlson also displayed his own prejudice and bigotry, which directly implies that “jihadists” cannot be American citizens with all the rights that entitle them to do so. This is wrong, of course – some terrorists who commit jihadist-inspired acts of terrorism are Americans. Even foreign jihadist terrorists have many rights that should be recognized. But it was people like Carlson and his allies who have consistently argued against the rights of terrorists when they are Muslim. Despite his stance now against the war on terror, he has previously supported it. In fact, Carlson called an Iraqi “semiliterate primitive monkeys” who “should just shut up and obey”.

So it should come as no great surprise that, while Carlson overreacted to the idea that white nationalist terrorism should be attacked by law enforcement, making it clear that terrorists who are Muslim should have no rights. He is absolutely clear about who he is with and against whom he is standing.