In news that I think will shock no one, the Tucker Carlson texts that got him fired keep leaking and, well, they’re bad. Each time a new one comes out I think to myself “Yup, that will do it” like when he called a colleague a c*nt, and then something else leaks which is equally bad if not worse and then I wonder how he had a job for as long as he did without multiple harassment suits. Anyway, it’s fun to laugh at bad people getting dragged through the mud in public, so let’s enjoy this mild comeuppance Tucker’s having, and laugh at the newest text that alone would have gotten him immediately fired at any job but Fox News.
This time instead of sexism, we’re going with racism, so you’ve been warned. It’s a long one and a doozy, so here it is in its full “this cost you your job” glory, per CNN:
In a newly revealed text message, ousted Fox News host Tucker Carlson made a racist comment and said he found himself briefly rooting for a mob of Trump supporters to kill a person.
“A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington,” Carlson texted a producer. “A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living s**t out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it.”
[…]
“Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be,” Carlson continued. “The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?”
“It’s not how white men fight.” Excuse me, what?! First off, it seems like Tucker inadvertently stumbled onto an understanding of the concept of empathy via a healthy dose of racism courtesy of this text, which he sent “in the hours after the violent January 6, 2021, insurrection“—meaning, it was late so no one really knows, was it the 6th? Early on the 7th? Not that it matters. This man was born in 1969 and it took him that long to realize that everyone (hopefully) is loved by someone else so maybe rooting them on getting beaten to death by a fascist mob is bad. Secondly, how are white men supposed to fight, Tucker?! Do I even want to know the answer to that?! (I do not!!!)
Tucker sent this text to one of his producers, and it was collected as part of the discovery process of the Dominion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which Dominion settled for $787.5 million right before they were set to begin their trial. Apparently, the Fox Board didn’t see this white supremacy text until right before the trial was set to take place, which is pretty funny if you think about it because they’re a massive corporation and they’ve been sitting on a ticking liability time bomb of their own making. Per The New York Times:
The text alarmed the Fox board, which saw the message a day before Fox was set to defend itself against Dominion Voting Systems before a jury. The board grew concerned that the message could become public at trial when Mr. Carlson was on the stand, creating a sensational and damaging moment that would raise broader questions about the company.
The day after the discovery, the board told Fox executives it was bringing in an outside law firm to conduct an investigation into Mr. Carlson’s conduct.
You know you done goofed when Fox News, who happily spread The Big Lie for months to the point they got sued, saw your dumb texts and immediately hired outside counsel to cover their own hides. It makes you wonder what else has yet to leak, and a little sad that they settled before Tucker could take the stand and further dig his and Fox’s graves. Even Lionel Hutz (who is the fake cartoon attorney on The Simpsons and doesn’t actually exist but still has more sense than this network’s lawyers, apparently) would have asked Tucker Carlson what he meant by “how white men fight” because 1) it’s very obviously racist and 2) it’s just a really weird thing to say so why not get him on the record, explaining himself away? Racists love to make fools of themselves. That’s an empirical fact.
(featured image: Jason Koerner/Getty Images)
