President Trump may be under heavy fire for remarks about Haiti and African nations being “sh-thole countries,” but he found a stalwart defender in Fox News host Tucker Carlson — who didn’t understand why the president’s comment had become a “major event” subjected to bipartisan criticism.
“So if you say Norway is a better place to live and Haiti is kind of a hole, well anyone who’s been to those countries or has lived in them would agree,” Carlson told his viewers Thursday night. “But we’re jumping up and down, ‘Oh, you can’t say that.’ Why can’t you say that?”
Carlson seemed to sidestep the thrust of Trump’s remarks, as reported by the Washington Post that the president questioned the U.S. interest in accepting immigrants from disadvantaged countries over more first-world nations such as Norway.
According to multiple individuals who attended Trump’s meeting with GOP lawmakers, Trump asked, “Why are we having all these people from sh-thole countries come here?”
“An awful lot of immigrants come from this country from other places that aren’t very nice,” Carlson said on Thursday. “Those places are dangerous, they’re dirty, they’re corrupt, and they’re poor and that’s the main reason those immigrants are trying to come here and you would too if you live there.”
Carlson also defended Trump’s NSFW language, saying that the president curses “all the time.”
In a tweet earlier on Thursday, the Fox News host also backed the Trump administration’s announced plan from earlier in the week to revoke the immigration status of 200,000-plus Salvadorans who had obtained shelter in the U.S. nearly two decades ago.
“Option A: El Salvador isn’t a ‘shithole,’ so they don’t need 17 years of Temporary Protected Status, and migrants from there should be sent home immediately. Option B: El Salvador is, in fact, a ‘shithole,’” he tweeted.
Option A: El Salvador isn't a "shithole," so they don't need 17 years of Temporary Protected Status, and migrants from there should be sent home immediately. Option B: El Salvador is, in fact, a "shithole." https://t.co/sea1sKoY8K
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 11, 2018