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 discovery of the message contributed to a sequence of occasions that in the end led to Mr. Carlson’s firing.
In 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 kid.”
It was “three against one, at least,” he wrote.
And then he expressed a way of dismay that the attackers, like him, had been white.
“Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously,” he wrote.
“It’s not how white men fight,” he stated. But 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. But 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 Systems earlier than a jury. The board grew involved that the message might turn out to be 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 informed 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 inside 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 response to a number of individuals with data of the choice. In different messages he had referred to girls — together with a senior Fox government — in crude and misogynistic phrases. The message in regards to the combat additionally performed a task within the firm’s determination to settle with Dominion for $787.5 million, the very best recognized payout in a defamation case.
A consultant for Mr. Carlson stated he had no remark.
The textual content is a part of redacted court docket filings and its contents had been beforehand unreported. The contents of the textual content had been disclosed in interviews with a number of individuals near the defamation lawsuit towards Fox. The individuals spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they didn’t wish to be recognized discussing a message that’s protected by a court docket order. In public filings, it stays hidden behind a block of black textual content.
Mr. Carlson’s messages had 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. Many of the messages shared within the case, together with these amongst Fox executives and hosts, had been launched publicly. But 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 befell on the streets of Washington. Mr. Carlson didn’t describe the race of the person being attacked.
“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,” he wrote. “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.”
After all, he wrote, “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?” 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 response to two individuals with data of Fox’s inside deliberations. At the time, Fox’s negotiators had 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 subsequent day, the board informed Fox’s management about its plan to have the legislation agency Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz examine Mr. Carlson. That disclosure arrange the chance that there could possibly be a unbroken investigation into what was behind Mr. Carlson’s messages concurrently 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 part ways” 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 crew 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 had been concerned within the redactions. Mr. Carlson had even been requested about it throughout a deposition, in response to 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 court docket. Dominion’s legal professionals had nonetheless not determined whether or not they would introduce the textual content in entrance of the jury, in response to individuals with data of their plans. The two sides disagreed on whether or not the Dominion legal professionals might have introduced such a redacted message at trial if that they had determined to take action, a choice that will have in the end 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 subject in shareholder lawsuits filed towards the corporate in Delaware.
Though Mr. Carlson’s present, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” was solely a small issue within the Dominion swimsuit, his private texts had been drawing outsize scrutiny.
The textual content in regards to the combat got here on prime of a harmful chain of messages that had been revealed publicly forward of trial, and that had been surprising 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 force” and a “destroyer.”
A recurring theme of his present through the six years that it ran in prime time on Fox News was the displacement of white Americans by individuals of colour. Mr. Carlson typically framed subjects within the news 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 within the United States.
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.”
In the aftermath of a mass taking pictures 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 a real problem,” likening it to a conspiracy concept.
On Monday, The New York Times and different news organizations urged the decide overseeing the Dominion case to launch among the messages that had been redacted.
Source: www.nytimes.com