Tucker Carlson Says Black Lawmaker ‘Probably’ Got Into Bowdoin Because He’s Not White

Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested that Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson was “probably” accepted to Bowdoin College thanks to affirmative action.

Pearson was one of two lawmakers expelled by the Republican-dominated Tennessee House of Representatives last week. Pearson, Rep. Justin Jones, and Rep. Gloria Johnson all participated in a protest on the House floor calling for gun control after a shooter murdered three children and three adults at a Nashville elementary school.

Republicans expelled Pearson and Johnson, who are Black. They spared Johnson, who is White, by one vote. Both Pearson and Jones have since been reinstated to the legislature.

On his show on Wednesday night, Carlson called the protest “an insurrection” and cited Pearson’s enrollment at Bowdoin, a small college in rural Maine not far from where the Fox News host owns a home.

“Back in 2016, Justin Pearson was an earnest young student at Bowdoin – the Whitest college in the Whitest state in America, a place that costs 60 grand a year for no obvious reason,” Carlson said. “A rich kid school. Here’s what Justin Pearson looked like then as he ran for president of student government.”

The host played a clip of a clean-shaven Pearson speaking about the need “to bring together different voices, dissenting voices, voices that maybe more liberal or more conservative in order that we can reach a point of sort of the radical middle for conversation.”

Carlson then suggested Pearson sounded like a suburbanite before claiming he “probably” only got into the school because of his skin color.

“‘I want to bring everyone together,’ said Justin Pearson in a voice that, if you closed your eyes, you could easily imagine coming from a suburban orthodontist,” the host said. “Justin Pearson wasn’t White. That’s probably how he got into Bowdoin in the first place, but he did a fantastic impression of it.”

Carlson next aired a clip of Pearson speaking in the legislature last week, now sporting an afro and facial hair.

“Justin Pearson has changed quite dramatically as you can see,” he said. “He transitioned from a crypto-White kid into the modern incarnation of Martin Luther King Jr. himself. It’s remarkable.”

It’s not the first time Carlson has suggested a prominent Black figure has gotten ahead because of their skin color. Last year he demanded to see Ketanji Brown Jackson’s LSAT scores after she was nominated to the Supreme Court – a demand he has made of no White nominee to the high court.

Watch above via Fox News.