Here's how Fox News chose to spin Trump's 'shithole' remarks

(Image credit: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)

last updated 12 January 2018

On CNN and MSNBC, a bipartisan array of pundits and lawmakers condemned President Trump's "shithole" remarks, but on Fox News, Tucker Carlson rushed to Trump's defense, blaming the backlash on overzealous political correctness, while Jesse Waters downplayed the comments as how "the forgotten men and women in America talk at the bar."

On The Five, Watters said Trump's remarks were "a little offensive," but "there's so many more offensive things happening in the world. ISIS beheading people. There's crime in the inner city. There are people getting kicked off welfare." Trump was talking "about third-world countries," he continued. "You're bringing in people that have very low skills and low education." (That's actually not true, GOP pollster Frank Luntz noted on Twitter: "43 percent of immigrants from 'shithole' African countries have a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to 33 percent of the overall American population.")

On his show, Carlson argued that "President Trump said something that almost every single person in America actually agrees with," and later said he didn't "understand what the sin is. You are not allowed to point out other countries aren't as good places to live as America? Like, what is the problem?" When guest Jose Parra pointed out that Trump was only targeting "countries with brown people," Carlson ignored him. "People are actually staying in this country right now legally because Haiti is so bad, we don't think they should have to return," he said. "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! But we're jumping up and down, 'Oh, you can't say that!' Why can't you say that?"

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.