Tucker Carlson, a top surrogate for former President Donald J. Trump who spoke at the Republican National Convention this summer and made racist claims at a Trump rally last week at Madison Square Garden, said on Monday that the increased occurrence of hurricanes in the United States was a consequence of abortion — which he characterized as “human sacrifice.”
Appearing on a podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, a right-wing political strategist and Trump ally who was just released from prison, Mr. Carlson repeatedly portrayed abortion — a medical procedure — as a kind of religious human sacrifice. He dismissed scientific research that links global warming to the increased potency and frequency of hurricanes, saying instead that “it’s probably abortion, actually.”
“I’m sure I’ll be attacked for saying this, but I really believe it,” Mr. Carlson said, adding, “You can’t participate in human sacrifice without consequences.”
Throughout his 25-minute appearance on Mr. Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Mr. Carlson described himself as a secular person but spoke of politics in starkly religious terms.
Mr. Carlson also described nuclear weapons as “demonic,” adding that they were created by “not-human forces,” and asserted that the U.S. military had “consistently” targeted and killed Christian populations since the end of World War II.
After being ousted from his perch as the top-rated host on Fox News last year, Mr. Carlson has remained an influential figure on the right, and his appearances on the campaign trail with Mr. Trump have occasionally resulted in bizarre remarks during warm-up speeches at Trump rallies. Last month he likened a second Trump term to an angry father who comes home and gives a “vigorous spanking” to his disobedient daughter.
At Mr. Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, which faced a public backlash over racist, misogynistic and other bigoted remarks by speakers, Mr. Carlson mocked Vice President Kamala Harris — the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father — with a made-up ethnicity, saying she was vying to become “the first Samoan-Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.”
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