A textual content message despatched by Tucker Carlson that set off a panic on the highest ranges of Fox on the eve of its billion-dollar defamation trial confirmed its hottest host sharing his personal, inflammatory views about violence and race.
The invention of the message contributed to a series of occasions that finally led to Mr. Carlson’s firing.
Within the message, despatched to considered one of his producers within the hours after violent Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Carlson described how he had not too long ago watched a video of a bunch of males — Trump supporters, he stated — violently attacking “an Antifa child.”
It was “three towards one, not less than,” he wrote.
After which he expressed a way of dismay that the attackers, like him, have been white.
“Leaping a man like that’s dishonorable clearly,” he wrote.
“It’s not how white males battle,” he stated. However he stated he discovered himself for a second wanting the group to kill the particular person he had described because the Antifa child.
For years, Mr. Carlson espoused views on his present that amplified the ideology of white nationalism. However the textual content message revealed extra about his views on racial superiority.
The textual content alarmed the Fox board, which noticed the message a day earlier than Fox was set to defend itself towards Dominion Voting Methods earlier than a jury. The board grew involved that the message may change into public at trial when Mr. Carlson was on the stand, making a sensational and damaging second that will elevate broader questions in regards to the firm.
The day after the invention, the board instructed Fox executives it was bringing in an out of doors legislation agency to conduct an investigation into Mr. Carlson’s conduct.
The textual content message added to a rising variety of inner points involving Mr. Carlson that led the corporate’s management to conclude he was extra of an issue than an asset and needed to go, in keeping with a number of folks with data of the choice. In different messages he had referred to ladies — together with a senior Fox govt — in crude and misogynistic phrases. The message in regards to the battle additionally performed a job within the firm’s resolution to settle with Dominion for $787.5 million, the very best identified payout in a defamation case.
A consultant for Mr. Carlson stated he had no remark.
The textual content is a part of redacted courtroom filings and its contents have been beforehand unreported. The contents of the textual content have been disclosed in interviews with a number of folks near the defamation lawsuit towards Fox. The folks spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they didn’t need to be recognized discussing a message that’s protected by a courtroom order. In public filings, it stays hidden behind a block of black textual content.
Mr. Carlson’s messages have been collected as a part of the defamation lawsuit filed towards Fox by Dominion, which accused the community of knowingly airing falsehoods about election fraud. Lots of the messages shared within the case, together with these amongst Fox executives and hosts, have been launched publicly. However others, just like the one between Mr. Carlson and considered one of his producers within the hours after Jan. 6, 2021, stay redacted.
In that textual content, Mr. Carlson described his personal feelings as he watched the video of the violent conflict, which he stated occurred on the streets of Washington. Mr. Carlson didn’t describe the race of the person being attacked.
“I discovered myself rooting for the mob towards the person, hoping they’d hit him more durable, kill him. I actually wished them to harm the child. I may style it,” he wrote. “Then someplace deep in my mind, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m changing into one thing I don’t need to be.”
In spite of everything, he wrote, “Someone in all probability loves this child, and could be crushed if he was killed.”
“If I don’t care about these issues, if I scale back folks to their politics, how am I higher than he’s?” he wrote.
The textual content message got here to the eye of Fox’s board of administrators and even some senior executives solely final month, on the Sunday earlier than the trial was set to start, in keeping with two folks with data of Fox’s inner deliberations. On the time, Fox’s negotiators have been coming into discussions about an out-of-court settlement forward of the swearing in of what was shaping as much as be a various jury.
The following day, the board instructed Fox’s management about its plan to have the legislation agency Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz examine Mr. Carlson. That disclosure arrange the likelihood that there could possibly be a unbroken investigation into what was behind Mr. Carlson’s messages similtaneously a trial, and as he was serving as its prime host in prime time.
Fox has not commented about Mr. Carlson’s ouster final week past an preliminary assertion asserting that they “agreed to half methods” and thanking “him for his service.” It didn’t reply to a request for touch upon Tuesday on the contents of Mr. Carlson’s redacted message.
It stays unclear how the textual content escaped extra discover earlier, provided that the Fox authorized staff was conscious of it and different offensive texts written by Mr. Carlson. Fox’s legal professionals had produced the textual content as a part of the invention course of and have been concerned within the redactions. Mr. Carlson had even been requested about it throughout a deposition, in keeping with a number of individuals who have learn the unredacted transcripts of his deposition.
It was not assured that the textual content would have been revealed in open courtroom. Dominion’s legal professionals had nonetheless not determined whether or not they would introduce the textual content in entrance of the jury, in keeping with folks with data of their plans. The 2 sides disagreed on whether or not the Dominion legal professionals may have introduced such a redacted message at trial if that they had determined to take action, a choice that will have finally fallen to the decide. The distinction turned moot after Fox struck an Eleventh-hour deal on April 18 to pay Dominion $787.5 million and keep away from trial.
How Fox’s executives and board dealt with the case within the months earlier than the trial was scheduled to start is predicted to be at difficulty in shareholder lawsuits filed towards the corporate in Delaware.
Although Mr. Carlson’s present, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” was solely a small issue within the Dominion go well with, his private texts have been drawing outsize scrutiny.
The textual content in regards to the battle got here on prime of a harmful chain of messages that had been revealed publicly forward of trial, and that have been stunning in their very own proper. Writing to considered one of his producers after the assault on the Capitol, Mr. Carlson describes the president he championed on his present as a “demonic power” and a “destroyer.”
A recurring theme of his present in the course of the six years that it ran in prime time on Fox Information was the displacement of white People by folks of coloration. Mr. Carlson typically framed subjects within the information as half of a bigger battle between “us” and “them,” with immigrants and different marginalized teams steadily and absolutely taking from whites what had lengthy been theirs: political and cultural energy in the USA.
He attacked Black social justice activists and portrayed immigrants from Central America as a blight on the nation. He stated in 2018 that immigrants make the nation “dirtier.”
Within the aftermath of a mass capturing in El Paso by the hands of a gunman who cited white supremacist beliefs in his manifesto, Mr. Carlson declared on his present that white supremacy was “not an actual downside,” likening it to a conspiracy concept.
On Monday, The New York Instances and different information organizations urged the decide overseeing the Dominion case to launch among the messages that have been redacted.
