After Media Matters unearthed tapes of Fox News star Tucker Carlson defending statutory rape, Carlson responded by saying the “naughty” comments were “more than a decade” old. But less than a day later, The Daily Beast surfaced an interview in which Carlson made essentially the same argument — in early 2015.
“There are lots of things you have to play along with in life, and I understand society demands compromises,” Carlson told the future founder of the Proud Boys gang, Gavin McInnes, in an interview, adding: “But there is a limit beyond which I can’t pretend anymore. And calling — in this case, it was a 17-year-old kid — a ‘rape victim’ because a teacher, who wasn’t even that old, or married, was kind enough to initiate him into the ways of adulthood. I’m not just going to sit there.”
(The Daily Beast noted Carlson got many details of the apparent case in question wrong. The outlet initially reported that the interview took place in January 2017, but it was first posted online in 2015.)
He added: “So you’re a 15-,16-, 17-year-old boy. You are driven by biology to procreate, so you are either going to be inflicting your attentions on one of your peers, who let’s be honest is not ready for it; she’s going to get hurt emotionally—90 percent, I mean I’ve never seen a woman—girl—not hurt at that age.”
“Or, you can have a safer, albeit technically illegal outlet, with a woman who knows what she’s doing. You’re not going to hurt her feelings. You know what I mean? This is harm reduction. This is like a needle exchange.”
He added: “I’m not going to pretend that’s rape, because it’s not.”
Fox News spokespeople did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment, nor to TPM’s request.
