Joe Biden did not mention Tucker Carlson’s name this week as the US president sought to meld outrage with comfort in a speech to Americans reeling from the deadly shooting rampage in Buffalo, New York.
Yet the conservative firebrand Fox News host, along with other figures in rightwing American media and politics, was clearly at the top of their minds for Biden and many fellow Democrats as they reacted to the latest episode of white supremacist violence in the country.
“We have to not only talk about how we’re going to end the hate, but who’s responsible for generating it,” Biden said on Tuesday during a visit to Buffalo. “You have folks on television stations talking about the ‘replacement theory’, scaring the living hell out of people who don’t have a whole lot of emotional stability.”