Carlson critiques politics, media messages during Oxford speech

May 5—OXFORD — Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson made his first public appearance in Oxford Thursday night just short of two weeks after being fired from his primetime television post and one day after reports of text messages from him that have been widely interpreted as racist.

Carlson was in town as the guest speaker for the annual fundraising event for Rainbow Omega, a faith-based nonprofit organization providing vocational and residential programs to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The organization had booked Carlson in the fall of last year before the latest controversies began to swirl around the conservative television host. Ticket sales had been slow until his firing last week — which prompted a spike in ticket sales leading to a sold-out venue at the 1,200-seat Oxford Performing Arts Center.

Rainbow Omega CEO Tim Hodge said Carlson was contacted the day after his firing was announced and he responded he would keep his commitment to the organization.

It was more sparklers than fireworks as Carlson did not directly address the issues surrounding his firing during his one-hour address but began his remarks alluding to his current employment status in a joking manner.

"I'm probably the first unemployed person you ever invited to speak," Carlson said getting a hearty laugh from the audience. "It's funny. I rarely give speeches because I'm working and when I accepted this speech six months ago I didn't realize how much free time I would have. One never knows, does one."

Carlson said he accepted the invitation "because I do love Alabama. It has everything that I like."

"It has really nice people — Christian people. It has amazing food and I have the world's worst eating habits and here that's not judged. And, I think it's physically beautiful," he said.

Carlton said people in the northeast — specifically New York — used to look down at Alabama.

"I haven't heard [those disparaging remarks] in a while. I admit to not having been in New York in awhile and am never going again," he said in another veiled reference to his firing. "Nobody makes fun of Alabama anymore because they realize that's how they are supposed to be living. Are people moving to Alabama? Oh, yeah. Big time."

He said the primary reason he came was "in a sincere way I support what Rainbow Omega does."

"They help people not in an abstract way but in a natural way," Carlson said calling his visit to the campus Thursday afternoon "not depressing but uplifting."

"The unmistakable message is we care not just about the grounds but about the people who live here," he said. "This is an institution with 88 people living in it, but it does not feel like an institution at all."

Carlson said when he looked into the face of a young girl at the campus he thought, "God thinks a lot more of her than he thinks of me and I mean it. There was something about this girl's face that just radiated. What a beautiful moment that was for me."

He called helping people "being the core mission of life."

"But, it's the opposite of what you see in the rest of the country," he said.

Carlson then began leaning into harder edged subjects and his major targets were the government and the media; however, he never mentioned any specific media outlet with one exception during his presentation.

"American politics is supposed to be designed to improve people's lives, but what is the point of it actually?" he asked. "I've been doing this for 32 years and I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about what the point of American politics is. We spend billions of dollars to get the attention of 350 million Americans so somebody can have power? That's not a worthy goal."

"The point of the entire exercise should be to help people and primarily to help them help themselves" Carlson said. "If you treated your children like the federal government treats our population, they would all be in rehab."

"If you want to help somebody, restore that person's self-respect and make that person as independent as you can," he said. "That's not some right-wing talking point. It's just an observation about people that seems very obvious. It doesn't seem like a partisan point at all."

Carlson said he is starting to believe divisions in society are "pretty much manufactured."

"Obama's first term was how we were gong to get past race. I didn't vote for the guy but everybody I knew was excited and so was I," Carlson said. "We elect some guy I disagree with but we get to the point we stop picking at the scab and move forward as one country — why wouldn't I be for that? As a Christian, I was totally for that."

Carlson said in Obama's second term "all of a sudden we're not post-racial. All we're going to talk about is race and make each other hate each other on the basis of race."

"I have to say that I don't travel a ton, but when I do no one ever comes up to me and even mentions race of any color. It seems like it's being overstated," he said. "No one has ever come up to me and attacked me on racial terms. I don't think most Americans hate each other. I just don't see that. I don't think there is widespread racism in the country. I have never seen it — not one time. A lot of it is a lie designed to distract people and I think it is manufactured by the media."

Carlson he believes "the overwhelming number of stories news organizations cover have no bearing at all on people's lives."

"If the actual cost of things are rising faster than your wages, what's bigger than that? If our country Is on the verge of nuclear conflict with the country with the world's largest nuclear stockpile, why don't we talk about that?" he asked. "Why do we make up racial conflict that doesn't exist?"

"If you do that every week for ten years, maybe there is a reason you're doing that," Carlson said. "If you aren't covering any of the stories that actually matter and instead focus on the ones that are certain to inflame division in your population, it can't be a mistake. I don't think I'm a conspiracy nut. Why are they not addressing the issues that matter but going out of their way to ignore them?"

"At some point you have to call it what it is and that is lying," Carlson said. "Lying has a very specific purpose and that is to pull your attention away from the things that matter. That's not news coverage. That's classic propaganda."

Carlson said this all has an effect on democracy.

"The whole idea of democracy is based on the understanding that people who vote will have some understanding of what they are voting on and what the real issues are and what the facts are," he said. "We can argue about what the facts are. No one has a monopoly on the truth. As soon as someone tells you they have the truth and everything else is misinformation, that person is by definition is lying. That is why we have an unlimited variety of perspectives available to us — an unlimited amount of facts about what is happening in the world and what we believe will happen in the world. The First Amendment guarantees that."

He called lying "the default setting of the news media."

"What is scarier is the exclusion of facts," Carlson said. "You read a story that might be factually true, but it leaves out the essence. So, are they lying to you? Yes, they are — but not in a legal sense. When every news outlet does that it drives people crazy. It's very bewildering. It's a form of chaos."

He said smart, educated people are now willing to "entertain theories that seemed outlandish three years ago."

"These are the so called 'conspiracy theorists' we are told to be afraid of," Carlson said. "In point of fact, conspiracy theorists have as much better track record of accuracy than The New York Times. Don't judge. When everything is fake or feels fake, and you can't believe anybody in power, why wouldn't people reach those conclusions? They can't even tell you the truth about a communicable disease that is killing people. They are absolutely lying to you about that."

"And not just lying to you," he continued, "but lying to you with the knowledge you must know that they are lying to you. That's the spooky part of it. They know that we know but they don't care and they keep lying anyway."

Carlson said his understanding of democracy is it is a system "by which the government represents the will of the people —maybe not precisely."

"Who is closer to democratic ideals — you or people accusing you of a crime?" he asked. "Probably you and that's what freaks me out. What they are saying is exactly the opposite of what is true. It's not just a shade off in the mirror image. That's what scares me. It's sociopathic."

Carlson said the answer to the problems he addressed is to "try to help actual people."

"That is why I came tonight," he said.

Carlson left immediately after his speech and did not take any questions from the audience.

City officials said they received "a lot of calls" concerning Carlson's visit, but no threats were reported.

There was an increased police presence around the venue, but there were no protesters at the scene and there were no disruptions from the crowd except for a few supporting points Carlson was making.

was making.

A more detailed account of Carlson's remarks will appear in the Weekend Edition print issue of The Anniston Star.

Staff Writer Brian Graves: 256-236-1551.