Fox seems more upset the clips were leaked than the fact that Tucker Carlson edited out Kanye West’s anti-Semitic rants.
As I wrote for Crooks and Liars last week, Vice’s Motherboard got hold of some of the interview clips Tucker Carlson tried to hide from viewers, presumably in an effort to make his new Black Friend, Kanye West, now known as “Ye,” look better.
Some examples, via Motherboard:
[W]hen complaining that his children are going to a school that celebrates Kwanzaa, Ye added, “I prefer my kids knew Hanukkah than Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering.” (The belief that Jews control the financial system is one of the oldest and most deeply-rooted antisemitic claims. It’s unclear if that’s what he meant by “financial engineering,” a term generally associated with the creation of exotic financial instruments.)
In one more aside, Ye told Carlson that he was going to be “the first Latino president.” That statement was aired, but it was followed by something that wasn’t. “I just, I trust Latinos when I, you know, when I work with them,” he told Carlson. “I trust them more than—” he paused. “I'll be safe, certain other businessmen, you know.” (Carlson did not ask which businessmen those might be.)
In another disappeared clip, West spoke of “fake children” being put in his house “to sexualize my kids.”
Before airing the first of his two slobbering West interviews that took up nearly two full episodes of the Tucker Carlson Tonight show, Carlson gushed about his new Black Bestie, “[West] has his own ideas, we can say that. Creative people tend to. That's why they're artists, not actuaries. His free-form social media post gives the impression of a man channeling his rawest emotions right onto Instagram.”
Of course, Carlson’s whole slobberfest soon became quite awkward when some of those raw emotions West channeled right onto Instagram last weekend were so anti-Semitic that West/Ye was booted from both Instagram and Twitter as a result.
Then came Motherboard. We know from previous reporting that Carlson, Lachlan Murdoch’s pet white supremacist, is a big (white) snowflake who bullies those who disagree with him. So, we can just imagine the Tucky Meltdown that occurred as a result of such a public embarrassment coming from inside the house.
Today, The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona reported in his "Confider" newsletter that Fox News executives are “full-on freaked out” over the leak and are closing in on the leaker. "If you’re the leaker, or anyone else at Fox with some juicy info, we’d love to hear from you,” Baragona wrote. “Email us at [email protected]." Yes, please do.
So far, not a word about any repercussions for Carlson.
In my Crooks and Liars post, I wrote:
Media Matters’ Matt Gertz notes that the deceptive editing highlights “how much leeway the Fox host thinks he has from the network brass, as well as the deceitful way he handles his show.”
In other words, this again demonstrates that Carlson is a political charlatan. And the Murdochs appear to be just fine with that.
They just don’t like getting caught.
You can watch Ye’s comments about Kwanzaa and Hannukah below, via Motherboard. You can watch more of the interview clips Carlson didn’t want you to see here.
