Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday called racism “one of America’s problems,” adding that people should “calm down” a night after he said the problem of white supremacy in the U.S. is a “hoax.”
America isn’t a “white supremacist country plotting the slaughter of its own people,” Carlson said in a post on Twitter that was accompanied by a message that was aired on his nightly program.
“There’s been a tremendous response to last night’s show. The left wants to silence us. They won’t,” he added.
Carlson came under heavy criticism throughout the day for his remarks the previous night that white supremacy wasn’t a “real problem in America.”
Those remarks followed a mass shooting by a long gunman in El Paso, Texas, that left 22 people dead.
The suspect in the shooting is believed to have shared a racist manifesto describing an “invasion” of Hispanic immigrants before carrying out the attack. It followed a separate attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue last fall that killed 11 people, the deadliest attack in U.S. history on a Jewish community.
Since the El Paso shooting, leaders of both parties, including President Trump, have moved to condemn white supremacism.
Separately, FBI Director Christopher Wray said last month that the agency has made about 100 domestic terrorism-related arrests since October, with the majority tied to white supremacy.
In his remarks on Tuesday, Carlson said the U.S. is on the “decline” and that that frustration has led Americans to embrace new leaders, such as President Trump, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
“But this country is not on the brink of genocide,” he said. “It’s not even close to that. This is not a white supremacist country plotting the slaughter of its own people. It’s a kind country full of decent people of all races, who like all people everywhere make bad decisions from time to time.”
“But they mean well and they genuinely try their best. Going forward, give them the benefit of the doubt, even when you disagree with them. Maybe especially when you disagree with them” he concluded. “These are your fellow Americans. Cut them a break. They deserve it. And remember the alternative is disaster.”