The Democratic senator and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, who was awarded the Purple Heart medal after losing her legs during combat operations in 2004 as a helicopter pilot, has been targeted in an apparent smear campaign from leading Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who labelled her a “coward” during a segment on his show on Tuesday evening.
Duckworth, a US senator for Illinois and one of those in the running to become Joe Biden’s vice-presidential pick, drew the ire of Carlson after encouraging a national debate on the removal of statues honoring historical figures, including George Washington, who owned enslaved people.
“I think we should listen to everybody, I think we should listen to the argument there,” Duckworth, who is Thai American, told CNN last Sunday.
In response, Carlson, an outspoken ally of Donald Trump who frequently uses his primetime Fox News show to attack senior Democrat women from minority backgrounds, launched into an angry diatribe laced with nativist rhetoric.
The host argued Duckworth “hates the country”, labelled her a “moron” and “a fraud”. Over a chyron at the bottom of the screen that read “We have to fight to preserve our nation & heritage”, Carlson accused Duckworth and the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar of wanting to “tear … down” the country.
“The problem is,” Carlson said, “there are many of us here who do like this country, we live here, we don’t want to destroy it. We have every right to fight to preserve our nation and our heritage and our culture.” Carlson then encouraged his viewers to “laugh in their [Duckworth and Omar’s] faces”.
Although Carlson has faced mounting pushback over his ever polarising and aggressive rhetoric, causing many advertisers to flock to other Fox News shows instead, his ratings have risen in recent months, making his 8pm ET show the most popular on cable news with about 4m nightly viewers.
In a statement to the Associated Press, the Biden campaign describing Carlson’s remarks as “hate speech”.
“Tucker Carlson and his colleagues who traffic in hate speech masquerading as journalism are accomplices to Donald Trump’s perverse mission to use division and bitterness to tear this country apart,” said TJ Ducklo, Biden campaign spokesman. “It is the polar opposite of what Joe Biden stands for, and exactly what he means when he talks about a battle for the soul of America.”
Fox News has not responded.
Biden himself spoke at a fundraiser event with Duckworth on Tuesday night. He labelled Carlson’s diatribe as “sickening”.
“I know you can handle yourself, you’ve already done that. But I just think it’s a reflection of the depravity of what’s going in the White House right now.”
Duckworth did not respond to the segment during the event but in response to Carlson’s first segment on Monday, she tweeted: “Does @TuckerCarlson want to walk a mile in my legs and then tell me whether or not I love America?”
