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Tucker Carlson talked about former teen beauty queen Lauren Caitlin Upton in a shocking radio interview on Bubba the Love Sponge Show in 2007. The video was unearthed by Twitter account NowThis, and reveals a number of shocking comments made by Carlson and others about Upton.
At one point, Carlson said, “If you had a wife that dumb, would it be good or bad?”
Bubba’s cohost immediately replied, “Good.”
The audio was first unearthed by Media Matters; you can read the full transcript of Carlson’s time on the show here. Here’s what you need to know:
LISTEN: Carlson Mocks & Degrades Upton: ‘She’d Probably Be a Pretty Good Wife’
Exclusive: Tucker Carlson’s sexual comments about a Miss Teen USA pageant are some of the most shocking yet – in new unearthed audio.
In the audio above, Carlson degrades and insults Upton at length, challenging her intelligence and suggesting that host Mario Lopez “tied into” her after the show.
The conversation starts with Bubba saying, “How about the Miss Teen South Carolina?”
Carlson replies, “I gotta be honest. I thought she was kind of appealing.”
Carlson then went on to mock her performance at Miss Teen USA, in which she famously flubbed a question about locating a state on a map. He said, “She’d probably be a pretty good wife… if you had a wife that dumb, would it be good or bad?”
At other points in the interview, Carlson made an unsubstantiated claim that then-host Mario Lopez might have had sexual relations with Upton after the show, despite the fact that she was 16 years old at the time. He hedged the odds at “at least 90 [percent],” then went on to argue that it wouldn’t be illegal for a thirty-something Lopez to sleep with Upton, arguing, “She’s so dumb. She’s like – she’s vulnerable. She’s a wounded gazelle separated from the herd.”
When asked if it would’ve been a “problem” if Lopez slept with her, Carlson replied, “No! Are you kidding? He’s like James Brown. He gets a pass. The normal laws for that kind of thing don’t apply to him.”
Upton’s Q&A For Miss Teen USA Went Viral, & Has Since Been Viewed Over 68 Million Times
During the Miss Teen USA pageant in 2007, Upton was asked, “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?”
Upton replied,
“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., er should help South Africa, and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so that we ill be able to build up our future for our children.”