Prominent MAGA voice slammed for 'not smart' dig at reporter: 'Wrong in some telling ways'

Tucker Carlson's putdown of a political analyst has been mocked by The Bulwark, with Catherine Rampell noting the ex-Fox News anchor got the facts wrong.

Rampell, appearing in conversation with Tim Miller in a recent post from The Bulwark, responded to a clip of Carlson talking about a decade-old encounter between the pair. Carlson claimed Rampell's father sued a country club because they would not let him into the building.

Carlson said of Rampell, "There was a girl called Catherine Rampell, I think she worked for the Washington Post, but she was a Fox contributor. Not impressive. At all. I was sitting on the set with her during a commercial break once. She was a sort of liberal neocon type person, but not smart.

"We were talking, and I'm trying to be nice, and she's like, 'Where are you from? I grew up in Palm Beach. We moved there, and my dad sued the Bath and Tennis Club for discrimination because they wouldn't let him in.'

"And I'm listening to this, and I'm like, 'He sued a- your dad- and if I'm getting this wrong I want to apologize, but I remember this conversation like it was yesterday. 'Yeah, he sued because they wouldn't let us in.' It's not my job to tell you that these are private associations.

"What are you even talking about? That's repulsive to me. You should have the right to hang out with whoever you want to hang out with... The hatred behind that, the desire to destroy something you didn't build, was so evident. This girl's a hater, actually, that's what I realized talking to her."

Rampell responded, "He's wrong in some pretty telling ways. So, here is what actually happened and what I'm sure I relayed to him over a decade ago at this point. It was in the '90s that my father didn't sue country clubs. Tucker is actually right that freedom of association is allowed under the law.

"What happened was my dad waged a newspaper campaign against a bunch of these country clubs in the town because they were antisemitic and racist. Basically, what happened was it's not just that they didn't allow Jews, blacks, Asians, or Hispanics as members. Oh, they also didn't allow single women, by the way.

"They would not allow any of those racial or ethnic groups as guests. And we learned this or my family learned this because my brother was in preschool at the time and he was not invited to a birthday party, and we subsequently found out that the reason he was not invited is that the country club that Tucker is referring to, the Bath and Tennis Club, did not allow Jews in its doors, even four-year-old Jews, as it turns out."

Rampell further clarified Carlson's comments and her father's actions in a post to her X account, "Perhaps to no one’s surprise, Tucker Carlson just gave a full-throated defense of segregated country clubs.

"Out of the blue Tucker recently attacked me on his show by recounting a story I told him ~10 years ago. In his telling, my father sued a country club for not admitting him as a member. The actual story: In the ’90s, my father waged a newspaper campaign (not a lawsuit) against local country clubs because they were discriminatory.

"That’s the fight my dad waged — at significant personal and professional cost at the time — and I’m proud of him for it."