Fox News host Tucker Carlson told millions of viewers Thursday night that merely trying to understand why Trump supporters stormed the Capitol could cause America to descend into a race war that will turn the country into Rwanda.
Carlson was the latest right-wing figure to respond to comments from Gen. Mark Milley, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told Congress this week that he wants to understand what led to the Capitol riots in January, something he labeled as “white rage.”
Videos by VICE
During his show, Carlson played clips of Milley’s testimony before laughing at the general and saying: “Hard to believe that man wears a uniform. He’s that unimpressive,” before adding: “He’s not just a pig, he’s stupid.”
Carlson, who has been Fox News’ leading voice against the teaching of critical race theory, then went on to compare the current situation in America to what happened in the east African country of Rwanda in the 1990s, when up to 800,000 people from the Tutsi ethnic minority were slaughtered by armed militias.
“The question is, and this is the question we should be meditating on, day in and day out, is how do we get out of this vortex, the cycle, before it’s too late? How do we save this country before we become Rwanda?” Carlson said, with an “Anti-White Mania” logo in the background
But this isn’t the first time Carlson has compared the U.S. to the African country.
Back in 2018, while talking about the criticism of Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate confirmation hearings, Carlson said that Democrats were no different from the Hutus who murdered their Tutsi neighbors in Rwanda.
“It’s exactly the kind of things that Hutu leaders in Rwanda were saying in the early 1990s. Responsible people do not talk like this. And yet suddenly it is everywhere on the left,” Carlson told his viewers. “And not just the professional wackos pounding on the front door of the Supreme Court. The line between dangerous extremist and US senator is blurring on the left.”
Carlson is just the latest conservative figure to lash out at Milley in recent days. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz on Wednesday tweeted: “With Generals like this it’s no wonder we’ve fought considerably more wars than we’ve won.”Meanwhile Carlson’s Fox News colleague Laura Ingraham said she was “totally outraged” by the comments.