'Guilty as charged': Fox hosts urge Casey DeSantis to embrace 'America’s Karen' moniker
Editor's note: The spelling of Jackie O. was corrected.
A trio of Fox & Friends hosts on Monday was upset because of nicknames that have been assigned to Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis for her championing of culture wars that her husband, Governor Ron DeSantis, is exploiting while he seeks the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
"On other networks, they were calling his wife Casey, the Walmart Melania, which I don't really think is, um, it's not that degrading. It's not an insult. I love, I love Melania. I think she's beautiful and I love Walmart. So, uh, yeah, just everyday people," host Ainsley Earhardt began.
"Anyway, so now they're saying they're mocking her. They're calling her names and calling her 'America's Karen.' Listen to this MSNBC panel," Earhardt instructed her viewers as footage rolled of former United States Representative David Jolly (R-Florida) quipping to MSNBC's Saturday/Sunday Show host Jonathan Capehart over the weekend:
Casey DeSantis is a fairly compelling political figure in Florida and now nationally. For many, she's the brighter side to Florida's angry governor. For others, she's become America's Karen. And I think that's the ultimate disconnect here with a campaign that needs to embrace more constituencies to get to the White House.
Capehart's other guest, conservative commentator Tara Setmayer, in reference to the female antagonist in Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid's Tale, added:
I called her, I called her this, you know, 'Serena Waterford wannabe.' So there's all kinds of names for her. She needs to stop trying to measure the drapes in the White House and thinking that she's some kind of Jackie O. reincarnate. I mean, Casey DeSantis. Keep an eye on her though. She's a wiley figure.
After the clip ended, Earhardt's colleague Brian Kilmeade defended DeSantis and recommended that she double down on her controversial rhetoric.
"Tell you this, she looked the same way when she was doing local Jacksonville news. So if she looks like Jackie O. that's a compliment. It's not an effort," Kilmeade opined. "Number two is, um, she's going to bat for moms and parents. Guilty — she should say, 'guilty as charged.' That's my message. I, I'm just, and education. That's her focus. And she's unbelievably eloquent behind the microphone. I mean, even for a broadcaster, I think she's extraordinary. And she's a great partner to the president, uh, to the, excuse me, the governor who wants to be president."
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