WATCH: Tucker Holds Liberal Group That Called Him Racist to Its Own Standards

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Fox News’ Tucker Carlson hit back at the Anti-Defamation League on his show Monday after the liberal watchdog accused him of racism and called for his firing.

The moment: Carlson rejected ADL CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt’s claim that his comments during a Thursday appearance on “Fox News Prime Time” amounted to “an impassioned defense of the white supremacist ‘great replacement theory.'”

  • The host replayed and reiterated what he said was a race-neutral argument that “the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate … with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World.”

Carlson also mocked “those little gatekeepers on Twitter” for becoming “hysterical” about his remarks and for “trying once again to pull this show off the air” — but he did not directly attack Greenblatt.

  • Instead, Carlson read approvingly from text on the ADL website that argues Israel cannot be a binational state because the Jewish majority would quickly be overwhelmed by “historically high birth rates among the Palestinians, and a possible influx of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.”
  • “It is unrealistic and unacceptable to expect the State of Israel to voluntarily subvert its own sovereign existence and nationalist identity and become a vulnerable minority within what was once its own territory,” the site says.

According to Carlson, the United States has the same right as Israel to “its own sovereign existence.”

  • “Why would any democratic nation make its own citizens less powerful [by allowing “mass immigration”]? Isn’t that the deepest betrayal of all?” Carlson said.
  • “Maybe ADL President Jonathan Greenblatt will join us sometime to explain and tell us whether that same principle applies to the United States. Most Americans believe it does.”

The “Tucker Carlson Tonight” segment exposed an awkward tension for the ADL, which has struggled to maintain its historical support for Israel amid heightened criticism from its progressive allies in the fight against American “white supremacy.”

Fox stands with Tucker: Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO and executive chairman of Fox Corp., on Sunday defended Carlson.

  • Responding to a Friday letter in which Greenblatt called for Carlson “to go” over his “great replacement theory” comments and pattern of “dangerous race-baiting, extreme rhetoric,” Murdoch wrote, “Fox Corporation shares your values and abhors anti-semitism, white supremacy and racism of any kind.”
  • “Concerning the segment of ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ on April 8th, however, we respectfully disagree. A full review of the guest interview indicates that Mr. Carlson decried and rejected replacement theory. As Mr. Carlson himself stated during the guest interview: ‘White replacement theory? No, no, this is a voting rights question.’”

In a follow-up letter, Greenblatt insisted Carlson’s comments were actually “worse” than outright white supremacist rhetoric “because he’s using a straw man – voting rights – to give an underhanded endorsement of white supremacist beliefs while ironically suggesting it’s not really white supremacism.”

By We'll Do It Live