Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Monday that the U.S. military is increasingly focused on issues like diversity and “white fragility” instead of national security.
“This summer, the U.S. Army’s so-called Operation Inclusion instructed soldiers that the phrase ‘Make America Great Again’ was a form of quote ‘socially acceptable covert white supremacy,’” Carlson said on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
“A presidential campaign slogan was white supremacy, according to the army … Can you protect a nation with a military like this?” he added. (RELATED: Defense Secretary: Pentagon Will Review Diversity In Military)
The U.S. Army unveiled Project Inclusion in June and said it was designed “to improve diversity, equity and inclusion across the force and build cohesive teams.”
Carlson suggested “the brain virus” has been spreading throughout the American military because nobody has attempted to stop it.
“Now, according to the army’s Equity and Inclusion Agency — and yes, they have one —the phrases ‘All Lives Matter,’ ‘American exceptionalism,’ and ‘the celebration of Columbus Day’ are racist. This is from the army, the people who are supposed to be protecting you.”
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced the creation of the Defense Board on Diversity and Inclusion in the Military in June. The board was charged with examining diversity within the military and to provide recommendations for increasing equal opportunity for all ranks.
Carlson noted that the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, has suggested that his employees read the Robin DiAngelo book, “White Fragility,” a work that Carlson dismissed as “inherently bigoted and also stupid.” (RELATED: ‘White Fragility’ Author Robin DiAngelo Was Paid Nearly Two Times As Much As Black Counterpart To Speak At Social Justice Event)
“Again, this is the military, supposed to be protecting you. Instead, they are reading ‘White Fragility.’ Over the summer, Kaleth Wright, the Chief Master Sergeant of the [United States] Air Force at the time, proclaimed on Twitter that his greatest fear was that one of his airmen might be killed by a racist cop — not killed by the Chinese military, but by American racism. And so on,” said Carlson.
Wright told service personnel, “I am George Floyd” during a speech in June when he promised an independent review of the U.S. Air Force’s justice system.
“Where does this end?” he asked. “Can you protect a nation with a military like this?”
U.S. Army soldiers return home from a 9-month deployment to Afghanistan on December 10, 2020 at Fort Drum, New York. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Carlson suggested that not only does the focus on diversity detract from the military’s primary mission of protecting Americans from national security threats, but it undermines the long tradition of meritocracy within the armed forces that “is designed to treat people with respect and dignity. It treats them on the basis of how they behave, not on the basis of how they look.”
Top military leaders have embraced current social trends and disagreed with President Donald Trump’s desire to remove transgendered people from serving in the armed forces, arguing that they did not imperil operational integrity.