Fox News host Tucker Carlson derided President Joe Biden’s nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to be the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
Carlson, who has the highest-rated cable news show, said Mr Biden did not care about the country he led by announcing his intention to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court.
“Let’s say you wanted to humiliate and degrade it and undermine its ancient institutions,” he said. “Well you might take the single most important appointed position in the entire government and announce in public that you were filling that position on the basis of appearance. Not on the basis of skill or wisdom or fealty to the founding documents of the United States but on the way the person looks.”
Mr Biden nominated Ms Jackson, a double graduate of Harvard who serves on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, on Friday to replace retiring Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom she clerked.
“It’s not a question of ‘we found the most qualified person who happens to look this way,’” Mr Carlson said. “What you’re saying is ‘we found a person who looks this way, who by the way, may be qualified.’ That would send a very clear message that you don’t like the country you run and you don’t care about the institutions that its ancestors built.”
He added: “Do you want to live in that country? Most people don't, of all colours. They think you should be elevated in America based on what you do, on the choices not on how you were born, not on your DNA, because that's Rwanda.”
Mr Biden had pledged to nominate a Black woman to the court when he was running for president. Numerous Republicans ranging from Senators Ted Cruz to Josh Hawley to Roger Wicker criticised the move.
But other Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said they did not have an issue with nominating a Black woman before Mr Biden announced Ms Jackson’s nomination.
Mr Biden’s announcement of his intentions is also not unprecedented. Ronald Reagan announced his intention to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court and did so when he nominated Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, who is distantly related to Ms Jackson by marriage, praised her on Friday.
“Janna and I are incredibly happy for Ketanji and her entire family,” he said. “Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji's intellect, for her character, and for her integrity, is unequivocal.”
