“Given his long career dodging the race, we think it’s time for Carlson to leave,” says ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
Carlson, Fox News’ top rated host, condemned his comments about “replacement” on another Fox show Thursday night.
Greenblatt accused Carlson of an “open endorsement of white supremacist ideology” in the ADL letter he obtained Friday, first obtained by CNN Business.
Appearing with his friend Mark Steyn, who was filling in at 7pm ET, Carlson invoked the “white replacement theory,” a racist conspiracy theory that imagines whites being intentionally replaced by immigrants.
“No, no, no,” Carlson said, insisting he wasn’t parotizing the theory.
But then he said, “This is a question of voting rights. I have less political power because they care about a new electorate. Why should I sit down and take this? The power I have guaranteed in the United States at birth is a man, a vote. , and they dilute it. No, they are not allowed to do it. Why do we support it? “
His statements came in the context of a conversation about how the government treats immigrants crossing the southern border, one of Fox’s most frequent topics.
Moments earlier, Carlson seemed to predict it would provoke outrage: “Now,” he said, “I know the left and all the little Twitter porters are literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement’ if you suggest the Democratic Party try to replace the “Current electorate, now voters who vote, with new people, more obedient Third World voters. But they become hysterical because that’s what’s really going on. Let’s just say, it’s true.”
No one is being “replaced.” Existing voters are not exchanged for the “most obedient” immigrants Carlson imagines.
But Carlson has raised that idea repeatedly in his own eight-night program. In Friday’s letter to Fox, Greenblatt said, “At ADL, we believe in dialogue and giving people a chance to redeem themselves, but Carlson fully embraces the theory of replacing the white supremacist on yesterday’s show and his repeated allusions to racist issues in past segments are a bridge too far. “
The letter noted that “the theory of replacement” is what “underlies the modern white supremacist movement in America.”
The theory was aired on American television screens when the men left for Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, and said “Jews will not replace us” and “you will not replace us.”
And the theory has been cited by racist mass murderers, including the man who attacked a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in 2019.
“This is not a legitimate political speech,” Greenblatt wrote to Scott.
A spokeswoman for Scott did not respond to any requests for comment on the ADL’s call.
Jonathan Chait, who wrote for New York Magazine, said Carlson has been appealing to racists “for years with winks and gestures that match his paranoid issues” and “last night the embrace of white supremacy crossed an important and dangerous new threshold. “
But if history is a guide, Fox will take no action. Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch have ignored past criticism of Carlson. And they’ve tripled Carlson’s comment mark, including the recent expansion of Carlson’s content into Fox Nation’s broadcast service.