Tucker Carlson denies hate rhetoric is a problem while accusing Democrats of politicizing Paul Pelosi attack
01 November 2022
Fox News' Tucker Carlson has delivered a bizarre argument suggesting hate rhetoric is non-existent in the United States.
The conservative primetime television host shared his opinion during the latest edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" while also discussing the assault of Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D).
“What is hate speech by the way?” the Fox News host asked in a segment accusing Democrats of politicizing the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi. “All of a sudden, everyone in the media has, sort of without explaining why, agreed that there’s this thing called hate speech that’s real, and probably actionable. They can find a billion dollars’ judgment against you if you commit hate speech.”
According to Carlson, hate speech has never existed. He also attempted to offer a unfounded argument to support his claims.
“But just to remind everyone watching, there’s no such thing as hate speech,” he continued. “Hate speech is speech people hate, usually the people in power. The truth is, all speech, except speech that encourages people to imminent illegal action, like, “Go shoot that guy.” Short of that, there’s no hate speech. All of it’s allowed under the United States Constitution, which is our final hope.”
Pushing back against Carlson's arguments, HuffPost's Rick Dicker noted that the Fox News host "denied it’s a thing but then defined it" and did so "wrongly." He also offered a dictionary breakdown of the meaning of "hate speech":
“Hate speech” is in the dictionary, too. “Speech expressing hatred of a particular group of people,” Merriam-Webster says. “Public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence toward a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation,” according to the Cambridge Dictionary.
Watch the video below or at this link.