I never thought I would see the day when something would make me, even for an instant, feel a kinship with the likes of Fox News host and nationally renowned conservative asshole Tucker Carlson. But that day came today. Earlier this week, private texts between Carlson and other Fox News employees became public as part of a release of legal court documents in the defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems. Within these texts are some very telling exchanges that prove not even former President Trump’s biggest on-air supporters actually like him, and only show support under political or financial pressure. In fact, Carlson texted his staff, “I hate him passionately.” Me too, guy. Me too.
That particular big diss text was sent by Carlson to staff on January 4, 2021, a few months after the 2020 presidential election, and just two days before the Capitol insurrection. At this point, I seem to remember Fox News had been dutifully supporting their orange emperor with no clothes in their post-election coverage by really hammering the “election fraud” idea, even though there was no actual evidence of that. That same day he texted, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait.”
Trump as a “destroyer”
Even months before that, on and just after election day 2020, Carlson was privately seething about the destruction he perceived Trump to be causing all around himself. Texts between him and his producer, Alex Pfeiffer, show a deep distrust and dislike of the lame-duck president. On election night, after Fox News called the state of Arizona for Biden, in response to a text from Pfeiffer saying, “Trump has a pretty low rate at success in his business ventures,” Carlson replied, “That’s for sure. All of them fail. What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that.”
And just a few days after the election was called for Biden, Carlson was texting with a coworker about the rumor (later proven fact) that Trump was planning to skip attending the president-elect’s inauguration, which is generally thought of as a show of the peaceful transfer of power in our democracy. “I’d heard that about the inauguration,” Carlson texted. “Hard to believe. So destructive. It’s disgusting. I’m trying to look away.”
Then the day after the insurrection, while communicating with his producer, Carlson wrote, “He’s a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not going to destroy us. I’ve been thinking about this every day for four years.” And that is some very strong anti-Trump language! Yet every day on air, Carlson gave his viewers a very different pro-Trump, pro-anything conservative rhetoric that they craved. It’s almost as if he’ll say anything his voters want to hear, even if he doesn’t believe it’s true. Hmm.
Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the far-right new network is claiming that on-air personalities continually supported Trump’s “rigged” voting machine story even though they themselves knew it wasn’t true. Dominion is asking for $1.6 billion in damages.
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