Tucker Carlson responded Wednesday night to Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s characterization of the Fox News host as a “racist fool,” calling the charge a “hustle” and blaming the American left, which stokes “the resentment of new arrivals and turns them into grievance-mongers.”
“Not gonna lie, it’s kinda fun watching a racist fool like this weeping about my presence in Congress,” Omar wrote Tuesday night via Twitter. “No lies will stamp out my love for this country or my resolve to make our union more perfect. They will just have to get used to calling me Congresswoman!”
Not gonna lie, it’s kinda fun watching a racist fool like this weeping about my presence in Congress ????????
No lies will stamp out my love for this country or my resolve to make our union more perfect.
They will just have to get used to calling me Congresswoman! https://t.co/nRS13yWivK
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) July 10, 2019
The Minnesota congressman was responding to the Fox News host’s Tuesday night contention that she is “living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous to this country.”
Tucker began the segment by observing that, while “even the most liberal Democrats” once said “patriotic things about America,” it’s now “routine to hear Democratic presidential candidates question the basic legitimacy of the United States.” (RELATED: Ilhan Omar Filed Joint Tax Returns With Man She Wasn’t Married To)
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“That should worry you,” he said. “No country can survive being ruled by people who hate it, and we deserve better. For all of our country’s flaws, this is still the best place in the world. Most immigrants know that and that’s why they come here. That’s why we’ve always been glad to have them. But now there are signs that some people who move here from abroad don’t like this country at all. As we told you last night, one of those people now serves in our congress.”
The Fox News replayed a segment from Tuesday which dug into the “amazing story” of Omar’s history and how she came to sit in Congress.
“Only in this country could it have happened,” Carlson said. “Ilhan Omar has an awful lot to be grateful for. But she isn’t grateful. Not at all. After everything America has done for Omar and for her family, she hates this country more than ever.”
Carlson quoted from a recent Washington Post story profile on Omar: “In Omar’s version, America isn’t the bighearted country that saved her from a brutal war and a bleak refugee camp. It wasn’t a meritocracy that helped her attend college or vaulted her into Congress. Instead, it was the country that had failed to live up to its founding ideals, a place that had disappointed her and so many immigrants, refugees and minorities like her.”
“If anything that’s an understatement,” he said Tuesday. “Omar isn’t disappointed in America. She’s enraged by it. Virtually every public statement she makes accuses Americans of bigotry and racism. This is an immoral country, she says. She has undisguised contempt for the United States and for its people.”
Despite the fact that the United States “rescued Ilhan Omar from the single worst place on earth,” Carlson contended Wednesday, she responded with scolding, name-calling, and contempt.
“The United States admits more immigrants than any country on earth, more than a million every year,” he said. “The Democratic Party demands that we increase that number and admit far more. OK. Americans like immigrants. But immigrants have got to like us back. That’s the key, it’s essential. Otherwise, the country falls apart. We made that point last night. We’ll continue to make that point because it’s true.”
Rather than refuting his points, the Fox News host said, Omar and her allies “immediately demanded that this show be pulled off the air.”
“They just tried to silence us,” said Carlson. “That’s how they operate. And of course they called us racist. On one level, that’s amusing, given how absurd the charge is. This show, more than any other show on television, has taken an aggressive position in favor of colorblind equality, and against racism, particularly the casual racism of the modern left. We despise the current habit of judging people on the basis of their skin color. It’s wrong. We say that virtually every night. Racist? No. We’re against racism, adamantly. Omar consistently puts her own race at the center of the conversation, but to us it’s irrelevant.”
“Ayaan Hirsi Ali, for example, would, by the standards of identity politics, by Omar’s standards, seem to have everything in common with Ilhan Omar. Like Omar, she was born in Somalia, moved to Kenya, and eventually came to this county. Unlike Omar, Ali loves and cares about the United States. She believes our country is superior to the country she came from, and she says that. For saying that, the left despises her. Omar’s friend Linda Sarsour once tweeted that Ali deserves to be mutilated for her beliefs. So, two Somali immigrants. One, among the most impressive people in America. The other, among the least. It’s not about race.”
Noting that “nothing they say about the subject is sincere,” Carlson contended that it’s “all a hustle, designed to get them what they want.”
“Omar may be from another country, but she learned young that crying racism pays,” he concluded before contending that the left, the “real villain,” stokes “the resentment of new arrivals and turns them into grievance-mongers like Ilhan Omar. The left did that to her, and to us. Blame them first.”