Fox News’ Gretchen Carlson revealed her disdain for poor kids while hosting a totally “fair and balanced” discussion about Bernie Sanders with a conservative and a Clinton-backing liberal who smeared him as, essentially, anti-American.
In a discussion on The Real Story, Carlson opened the segment by asking “What is fueling the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders as a real challenge to Hillary Clinton?” and “Why do so many young people want to elect a socialist?”
For answers that would make Sanders look bad, Carlson hosted two Sanders critics.
It was no surprise that conservative guest Katherine Timpf would call Sanders’ proposals “a disaster” but it’s hard to imagine what Democrat Jessica Tarlov thought she’d gain by saying, “Our generation has not felt the full thrust of the responsibility.” Or, “This is such a deep challenge for Hillary Clinton to be able to paint him as unrealistic without offending him or his voters and saying, ‘You guys are a bunch of dummies if you think this is going to happen.’”
Carlson, of course, took her own swipes at Sanders: “We have fought wars!” she exclaimed. “Men and women have died in this country to fight against communism and many of these same principles, quite honestly - Katherine, I mean, it’s astounding.”
Tarlov did not point out that Sanders is not a communist.
Timpf called Sanders’ proposals “horrifying” and “terrifying.”
“The populist message works,” Carlson said fearfully. “Where he said, you know, poor people should be able to go to college free, like rich kids. Free? …If that’s actually true, quite possibly their parents worked incredibly hard to be able to pay for them, the full ride to go to college!”
Carlson was suggesting that poor kids don’t deserve a free education and that if they can’t afford college, it’s probably because their parents didn’t work hard enough.
But rather than call out Carlson’s insinuation, Tarlov went after Sanders again, with the kind of attack that must have warmed the heart of the Fox News producer.
“The most dangerous part of this – and I say this as a very strong liberal and as a supporter of Hillary Clinton - that this is completely anti- capitalist which is foundational to what makes America great, not to sound Trumpian at all,” Tarlov said.
Timpf called it a “ridiculous” narrative that conservatives hate poor people that Democrats “have been getting away with for so long.”
And yet Carlson had basically just thumbed her nose at those who can’t afford college and Tarlov either didn’t notice or deliberately gave her a pass on it.
I’ve got nothing against Democrats and liberals vigorously debating Clinton’s and Sanders’ policies and platforms – just about anywhere but on Fox News. And I don’t mean to be harsh on Tarlov who seems like another nice, likeable, go-along-to-get-along Fox News Democrat that Fox seems to have an endless supply of. But if anybody thinks that Tarlov wasn’t a Fox News patsy in this segment, then I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Watch it above, from the February 12 The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson.
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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