Fox News used out-of-context video of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to claim he was opposing a judicial nominee from President Donald Trump because the nominee is white. In fact, the full video of Schumer’s criticism showed his objection to the nomination of Marvin Quattlebaum to the U.S. District Court in South Carolina came in response to Republicans’ refusal to observe Senate tradition and their failure to support President Barack Obama’s nominees for the vacant seat.
Tucker Carlson Tonight, Fox & Friends First, and Fox & Friends all used out-of-context video to portray Schumer as racist. Tucker Carlson claimed on March 1 that Schumer “said he’s opposing the nomination because Quattlebaum is the wrong color. For real.” Fox News Headlines reporter Carley Shimkus stated March 2 on Fox & Friends First: “Chuck Schumer voted against the nomination not because of Quattlebaum’s resume or anything like that, but because of his race.” A little later, Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt read off a string of headlines all saying essentially “Chuck Schumer votes against Trump judicial nominee because he’s white.” Brian Kilmeade then said there was no difference between Schumer’s comment and Trump’s racist declaration that a federal judge couldn’t be fair in his 2016 Trump University case because of of the judge’s Mexican ancestry.
These smears likely originated with Carlson’s former website, The Daily Caller, which during the early afternoon of March 1 posted the partial video clip with the headline: “Schumer Will Vote ‘No’ On Judicial Nominee Because He Is White.” Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire also joined in the smear, citing The Daily Caller and amping up the accusation in its headline: “RACISM IN ACTION: Schumer: I Won't Vote For This Judge Because He's White.”
But as ThinkProgress justice editor Ian Millhiser pointed out, these smears are built around selectively edited video. Both right-wing websites and all three Fox News shows omitted the first half of Schumer’s remarks, in which he berated Republican senators for hypocritically abandoning a Senate tradition for judicial nominees known as “blue slips” now that they are in power, which would have served as an effective check on Trump's judicial nominations. Schumer noted that Democrats had honored the practice previously with respect to this very seat, which is why Trump had a chance to nominate someone to fill it. Millhiser also noted that Schumer’s voting record further debunks the accusation of racism: He voted for 10 out of 11 of Trump’s previous federal district court nominees, and those 10 were all white. On the March 2 edition of CNN's Wolf, Schumer explained how “right-wing radio who never really tells the truth distort[ed] what I had said.”
The full video of Schumer’s explanation for voting against Quattlebaum, which wasn’t played on Fox News, can be viewed below: