Tucker Carlson’s White Power Hour seized the moment of a Full-out Fox Assault on Robert Mueller to work in his own pet cause of anti-Mexican bigotry and a suggestion that Mexico poses a grave danger to our democracy.
Fox spent all day and night yesterday smearing special counsel Robert Mueller for having the nerve to emphasize the seriousness of Russia’s interference in our election, to specifically state that the investigation did not exonerate Donald Trump of a crime and to suggest that Congress should consider impeachment. But leave it to Carson to turn even this story into more hate mongering about Mexicans. Truth and honesty optional.
Carlson began by falsely claiming that Mueller “echo[ed] the view of official Washington that Russia had a major effect on the 2016 election.”
FACT CHECK: Mueller said nothing about the effect Russia had on the 2016 election. He spoke of the country’s “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election” without comment on the impact.
But Carlson could not have cared less about that. Instead, he drove his white nationalist fan base to fixate on Mexico because its president urged Americans to vote for Hillary Clinton. And, of course, because he’s Mexican. White Russians actually interfering by hacking and a dishonest social media campaign? No biggie for Carlson.
CARLSON: If you’re looking for countries that really do influence American politics, there are quite a few. Anybody who lives in D.C. can tell you that. Russia does not make the list. Mexico definitely does. At the beginning of the past presidential election cycle, for example, Mexico began what Bloomberg News described as an unprecedented effort to get American citizenship for its permanent residents living here in the U.S.
That article is from March, 2016, but it’s not hard to imagine Carlson keeping it tucked away like a treasured jewel to be used on special occasions, such as this one, when Fox’s own Judge Andrew Napolitano said Mueller’s remarks were “not good news” for Dear Leader Trump.
CARLSON: The point was obvious, of course: to make them voters so they could vote to defeat Donald Trump. Russia never even considered election hacking that bold. Mexico did.
Funny, Carlson left out one important detail: Russia broke the law; Mexico did not.
But wait, there’s more. Carlson deliberately suggested that Democrats are in cahoots with this Mexican manipulation. A classic case of projection, I suppose, so we don’t think about all the ways that Donald Trump has been in cahoots with Russia. But hey, did I mention Russians are white?
CARLSON: Marcelo Ebrard is Mexico’s current foreign minister. From 2006-2012, he was the mayor of Mexico City. He’s a very famous man in that country. But between those two jobs, he was here in the U.S. What was he doing? Well, he was working on behalf of the Democratic Party.
He urged Latino voters, in Spanish, to turn out to vote for Hillary Clinton. He then compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, subtlety not being one of his strong suits.
Imagine if the Russians did something like that!
Carlson also used this cover-for-Trump bigotry to claim that Mexicans here are not just in cahoots with Democrats to change America but to operate as stealth Mexican agents. He seized on statements by Mexican official Juan Hernandez, that he wants generations born from Mexican immigrants to think “Mexico first,” as proof.
CARLSON: Hernandez argue [sic] that Mexican immigrants to the U.S. are always, quote going to keep one foot in Mexico and will never fully assimilate. This isn’t just an idle hope on Mexico’s part, they’re working to make it come true. The Mexican government understands that if immigrants to the U.S. start speaking English, they will assimilate much more quickly into American culture and they don’t want that.
The Mexican government now says it will now spend $150 million on a campaign to convince Mexicans living here, in our country, to keep speaking Spanish. Haven’t heard about that on CNN? Huh.
Well, there’s more. Mexico has helped its citizens to break our federal laws, it’s done that for years. The Mexican government published a pamphlet advising migrants on how to sneak into our country.
The pamphlet claim is, at best, a gross distortion. And I could not find information on the rest of what he said. But why let the facts get in the way of a distraction from Trump malfeasance that white nationalists will likely swoon over? Carlson went on and on like this hoping, apparently, that Americans would think some brown people here to work and make a better life for themselves and their families are a bigger problem than a treasonous crook in the White House.
CARLSON: That’s what it looks like when a hostile foreign power interferes in your democracy. They don’t buy Facebook ads that nobody sees. Why would they?
That’s another lie. Facebook estimates that 10 million Americans saw at least one Russian ad. In 2016, one Russian Facebook ad organized a protest outside an Islamic center in Houston. Another organized a counterprotest.
Let’s not forget this white-supremacist and dishonest screed was pre-scripted and thus approved by a senior Fox producer.
Watch what Fox considers acceptable commentary below, from the May 29, 2019 Tucker Carlson Tonight.