Fiery Interview: Tucker Carlson Brushes Aside Racist Claims

Ben Smith, Tucker Carlson

Fox News host Tucker Carlson swatted away suggested ties to white supremacist ideology when pressed about the rhetoric on his nightly show during a tense interview at an event on Thursday, reports The Hill..

“I’ve never had a white supremacist work for me. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a white supremacist,” Carlson said during event hosted by Semafor, a new media company founded by journalist Ben Smith and media executive Justin Smith. “I’m not sure what that means. I know it’s a slur and the worst thing that a person can be. I don’t really understand the terms.”

Carlson had been asked by Ben Smith about comments the host has made in recent years on matters of immigration, race relations and demographic changes in the American electorate.

Smith played during Thursday’s event a widely shared clip from one of Carlson’s recent shows, which pulls in an average viewership of more than 3 million people every weeknight, in which the host argues that Democratic politicians are working to “replace” what he called “legacy” Americans with new voters from other countries.

WATCH: Former New York Times journalist spends 10 minutes trying to call Tucker Carlson a racist.

It doesn't go well. pic.twitter.com/stg5MQ0h99

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 7, 2022

Critics have likened comments like those to so-called great replacement theory, a racist ideology that suggests white people are being deliberately replaced by minorities. A recent analysis conducted by The New York Times found Carlson has mentioned variations on the replacement theory idea in more than 400 episodes of his show since 2016.

“I have no empathy for people who derive their judgments about anything from 30-second clips on Media Matters,” Carlson said Thursday, referring to the liberal watchdog group that tracks narratives present on Fox News and in other conservative media.

Smith pressed Carlson specifically about a number of staffers that formerly worked on his show who were found to have posted on white supremacist message boards, something Carlson argued at the time he did not know about.