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“ ‘People will put up with almost anything if you do that. You can regularly say embarrassing things on television. You can hire Omarosa to work at the White House. All of that will be forgiven if you protect your people. But if you do not protect them — or worse than that, if you seem like you can’t be bothered to protect them — then you’re done.’ ”
That’s Fox News host Tucker Carlson, in his opening monologue, delivering a scathing rebuke of how President Trump has responded to the protests erupting across the nation.
“What Americans want most right now is an end to this chaos. They want their cities to be saved. They want this to stop immediately,” he said. “If the commander-in-chief cannot stop it, he will lose in November. The left will blame him for the atrocities they encouraged, and some voters will agree.”
Carlson used an incident with one of his network’s reporters to question whether Trump is even capable putting an end to the violence at this point.
“If you can’t keep a Fox News correspondent from getting attacked directly across the street from your house, how can you protect my family?” Carlson said on his show. “How are you going to protect the country? How are you trying?”
He did, however, give Trump credit for the “powerful symbolic gesture” of him posing for a photo outside St. John’s Church after law enforcement officers fired teargas at the crowd to clear the way, a spectacle that was widely panned by those supporting peaceful protests.
“The president announced that he’s going to marshal all available forces — military and civilian — to stop these riots… Good for him,” Carlson said. “We fervently hope this all works.”
Still, the criticism from Carlson, who also went after Jared Kushner and a number of Trump’s “key advisers,” stands in sharp contrast to his typical support of the president and the attacks he continuously unleashes on Trump’s liberal detractors.
“‘No matter what,’ they’ll tell you, ‘our voters aren’t going anywhere,’” Carlson said of those surrounding the president. “‘The trailer parks are rock-solid. What choice do they have? They’ve got to vote for us.’ Jared Kushner, for one, has made that point out loud. No one has more contempt for Donald Trump’s voters than Jared Kushner does.”
Of course, the White House wasn’t the only one under fire from Carlson. The staunch conservative also slammed state and local leaders for supporting the protesters.
“When the violence began, what we needed more than anything was clarity in the middle of this. It’s hard to see when the tear gas starts,” he said. “Someone in America needed to tell the truth… Instead, almost all of our so-called conservative leaders joined the left’s chorus, as if on cue.”
Watch the full segment:
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