- Fox News primetime presenter Tucker Carlson attacked one of his favorite targets on Thursday night: MP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He called the congresswoman a “totalitarian and empty idiot”.
- Carlson scoffed at the Democrat’s claim that many lawmakers and officials “narrowly escaped death” during the violent turmoil, during which five people died and dozens of police were injured.
- “When the most distressing thing you did in life was to spend first year sociology at Boston University, every day is a new drama,” said Carlson. “Sandy’s heart is still beating fast!”
- Federal prosecutors argued on Friday that pro-Trump rioters intended “to capture and murder elected officials of the United States government”.
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Fox News primetime presenter Tucker Carlson attacked Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday night, whom he called “empty little totalitarian idiot”, disparaging her for fearing for her life during the deadly siege of the last week to the Capitol by followers of President Donald Trump.
Carlson scoffed at the Democrat’s claim that many lawmakers and officials “narrowly escaped death” during the violent turmoil, during which five people died and dozens of police were injured.
“When the most distressing thing you did in life was to spend first year sociology at Boston University, every day is a new drama,” said Carlson.
“Sandy’s heart is still pounding,” he added, referring to the congresswoman by her childhood nickname.
Carlson also accused Ocasio-Cortez of being a hypocrite for praising Capitol police officers as “heroic”, while supporting the reallocation of law enforcement funds to social services.
“She likes the cops now, despite the fact that they are white supremacists,” he said. “What a difference a day makes.”
The Fox presenter repeatedly denied the fact that the protesters included many white supremacists and that they were attempting an insurrection, rather than describing the events as “a political protest that has gone completely out of control”.
Carlson’s account of the Capitol rebellion runs counter to overwhelming evidence and accusations by law enforcement officials. Federal prosecutors argued on Friday that pro-Trump rioters intended “to capture and murder elected officials of the United States government”. They described the protesters who forcibly invaded the Capitol building and invaded the police as “rebels”. Some of the protesters shouted “hang Mike Pence”, others beat the police, one of whom was killed after being beaten with a fire extinguisher.
The rioters almost met lawmakers in the Capitol building. The vice president was just seconds away from contacting the crowd before he, his wife and daughter were evacuated, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
A Fox News spokeswoman declined to comment on the record and a spokeswoman for Ocasio-Cortez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
—Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) January 15, 2021
Ocasio-Cortez detailed her Capitol experience during the riots in an Instagram Live video last week, in which she said, “I thought I was going to die.”
“I didn’t know if I could make it to the end of the day alive,” said the congresswoman.
Notably, Ocasio-Cortez said she did not feel safe in the safe place where she and other lawmakers were evacuated, because she was concerned that some of her far-right Republican Party colleagues would reveal her whereabouts and “create opportunities to allow me to go. injured, kidnapped. ”
Carlson himself made exaggerated threats against himself and his family, which expressed outrage on his program. In 2018, he apparently falsely claimed that antifa protesters broke into his front door.
And Carlson has long been accused of sympathizing with white supremacist advocates, whom he occasionally rejected. Former chief editor of Carlson’s evening show, Blake Neff, was exposed last summer for posting racist and sexist comments for years on an anonymous online forum. After Neff resigned, Carlson called his fanatical diatribes “wrong”, but reserved a more forceful condemnation for the “hypocrisy” of Neff’s critics.