Fox News host Tucker Carlson took aim at incoming first lady Jill Biden on Monday evening, downplaying her doctoral degree in education amid the escalating controversy over whether she should use the prefix “Dr.”
“Jill Biden is not a doctor, no,” Carlson said on his nightly program. “Maybe in the same sense Dr. Pepper is.”
He added Biden has the “same degree as Dr. Bill Cosby.”
Biden, a community college teacher, earned a doctorate of education from the University of Delaware in 2007.
An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal last week sparked backlash after it suggested Biden drop the “Dr.” from her name, questioning her credentials.
“A wise man once said that no one should call himself ‘Dr.’ unless he has delivered a child,” Joseph Epstein wrote.
Critics slammed the piece as sexist and tone deaf, while the Journal’s editors defended its publication. Biden herself responded to the article in a tweet on Sunday evening saying: “Together, we will build a world where the accomplishments of our daughters will be celebrated, rather than diminished.”
Carlson, a frequent critic of President-elect Joe Biden, mocked the incoming first lady, saying she is suffering from a “very serious case of status anxiety.”
Other conservative pundits and critics of the Bidens made similar comments over the weekend and on Monday, suggesting Biden is engaged in “selective outrage” or was being egotistical when it comes to her title.
Several of Biden’s close allies came to her defense following the editorial’s publishing, including former first lady Michelle Obama and the husband of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
