‘I Hate Him Passionately’: What Tucker Carlson Says About Trump in Private
AP Photo/Richard Drew
More private comments made by Fox News host Tucker Carlson about former President Donald Trump were revealed as part of a trove of new documents released Tuesday in Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.
In one text conversation between Carlson and an unknown staffer on Jan. 4, 2021, just days before the riot at the U.S. Capitol, the prime time star wrote, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights.”
“I truly can’t wait,” he added.
When the unknown staffer replied that they believed the madness would cool down by mid-February, Carlson decried Trump.
“I hate him passionately,” Carlson said. “I blew up at [former Trump official] Peter Navarro today in frustration. I actually like Peter. But I can’t handle much more of this.”
The unknown staffer replied that Trump “might never leave” and that it would be hard to ignore any prosecutions of Trump after he left office.
Carlson added that Trump and his lawyers “have so discredited their own case, and the rest of us to some extent, that it’s infuriating. Absolutely enrages me.”
“That’s the last four years,” Carlson continued. “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”
These weren’t the only private comments in which Carlson, a Trump booster on the air, expressed disgust with Trump in private.
Days later, on the night of Jan. 6 after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, Carlson called the then-president “a demonic force” in a text to his producer.
Previously, in the days after the 2020 election, Carlson expressed fear to a producer that Trump could “destroy” the network if it did not handle its coverage in a certain way.
“What [Trump]’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong,” Carlson said.
The new documents, made public for the first time Tuesday night, include exhibits mentioned in legal filings made public over the last few weeks and have pulled back the curtain on how Fox News and its parent company Fox Corporation sought to contain the fallout and viewer exodus that followed former President Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Dominion is one of two election tech companies suing Fox News for defamation. The company alleged that Fox News hosts and the guests they invited on air promoted Trump’s claims that the election was stolen, despite knowing that those conspiracy theories were false.
Fox News has defended itself against the Dominion suit, which is careening towards an April trial, by arguing it was simply reporting on newsworthy allegations from the president of the United States and his surrogates.
Fox News issued a statement on the new release of exhibits, arguing the full context of the comments being cited by Dominion undermines their claims.
“Thanks to today’s filings, Dominion has been caught red handed again using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear FOX News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press. We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale,” a spokesperson said.
