MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday explained why he doesn’t buy Tucker Carlson’s apparent soul-searching at the end of his newly-unearthed text message in which the former Fox News host said three white men attacking an “Antifa kid” were “dishonorable” because it’s “not how white men fight.”
In the message, Carlson also confessed that while watching footage of the beating he wanted the kid to be killed. But he then claimed an “alarm went off” in his brain. “I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed,” he wrote. “If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?”
O’Donnell called Carlson’s, “How am I better than he is?” question, “his version of white supremacist introspection.”
Carlson, suggested O’Donnell, just asked it rhetorically.
“He means, ‘I am better than he is.’ And that is Tucker Carlson’s right-wing, religious belief about the world. Posed with fake introspection as a question,” he added.
Fox News announced it had parted ways with Carlson last week. Multiple media outlets report Carlson was fired. The exact circumstances remain murky. Some newspapers have suggested the text led to his departure, although O’Donnell insisted there “must be more” to it considering Carlson’s long history of making offensive, racist and xenophobic comments on air.