On Saturday, Tucker Carlson, the right-wing Fox News personality, appeared at the funeral of Ralph “Sonny” Barger, the long-time president of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, in Stockton, California.
The Fox News anchor was among 7,000 people who gathered at the Stockton 99 Speedway, roughly 80 kilometers south of Sacramento, to not only pay their condolences but also to speak about the man who died in June at the age of 83 after a fight with throat cancer.
Carlson had previously made known his admiration for Barger and the biker’s patriotic, no-nonsense principles.
In March 1948, Barger was elected national president of the club. He is credited with establishing the first Hells Angels chapter in Oakland nine years later.
He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1983 as a result of his heavy smoking, and he had his vocal chords removed.
The Fox Host then slammed critics of Barger’s rough-and-tumble image, while blaming the left and the Biden Administration for undermining the salt of the earth principles represented by Barger and other likeminded Americans.
BREAKING: Tucker Carlson make surprise appears to deliver tribute at funeral of Hells Angels biker gang founder in California pic.twitter.com/nsI66uGlGc
— Jack Posobiec XLV (@JackPosobiec) September 26, 2022
“When he died, his letter to his wife and friends was released, and my college roommate who was also a Harley-Davidson fan sent it to me,” Carlson said ““We’d always been fans of Sonny Barger, but I didn’t know what his personal views were apart from representing the club,” he said. “And the letter, if I can summarize it from memory, was, ‘Always stand tall, stay loyal… remain free, and always value honour’” he continued.
Carlson went on about his admiration for the values he claimed Barger expressed: “And I thought to myself, if there is a phrase that sums up more perfectly what I want to be, what I aspire to be, and the kind of man I respect,” he said. “I can’t think of a phrase that sums it up more perfectly than that.”
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