‘My God, How Craven Can You Get?’ Chris Hayes Pillories Tucker Carlson’s Election Denialism Driven by ‘Groveling Fear’ of Viewers

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes shredded Tucker Carlson’s “abject pathetic-ness” after it was revealed the Fox News host misled viewers about Donald Trump’s dubious 2020 election claims, even as he privately doubted them.

Two weeks ago, a filing by Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation lawsuit against Fox News contained communications from several network hosts and other employees.

On a group text thread with fellow hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, Carlson flagged an election fact check of Trump by Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich in the days after the election was called for Joe Biden.

“Please get her fired. Seriously,” Carlson told Hannity. “The stock price is down. Not a joke.”

His text came at a time when Trump was making wildly false claims about the election, and far-right networks such as Newsmax and OAN were running with those claims while increasing their viewerships.

Just hours after Dominion’s filing was made public, Carlson again reiterated baseless innuendo about the election, though he did not mention Dominion.

“Was the 2020 election a miracle?” Carlson told his audience. “Honestly, we don’t know and we don’t expect to get an answer to it tonight.”

Hayes said Carlson and other Fox hosts are deathly afraid of losing viewers:

So, what is their motive in all of this? Well, they’re terrified of losing viewers, and that means losing money and power and status and position… In some ways, the most revealing part of this story is the sheer, abject pathetic-ness of these people, their cowardice, their groveling fear, a groveling fear that means they will do anything at all to keep their audience, to keep the money coming, to keep the power of prestige coming.

The MSNBC host pointed to a text from Carlson to his producer in which he called Trump “a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not going to destroy us.” Hayes said Carlson’s actions demonstrate he is worried about “washing out” at a third cable network:

It is important to remember who Tucker Carlson is. While he comes from an almost comically privileged background, he has washed out at multiple networks, had his show canceled, had to go back to doing weekend mornings on Fox. That was tough. He is clearly terrified of failing yet again, of washing out [at] the third cable network, and apparently willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen.

And we have this deeply pathetic fear when Mr. Brave, voice-of-the-everyman, stick-it-to-the-woke-establishment, is arguing for the firing of his junior colleague – a reporter who fact-checked a Donald Trump tweet. And what is Tucker really worried about? “The stock price is down. Not a joke.”

Referring to MSNBC’s parent company, Hayes added:

I’ll tell you something right now. I swear that I have never, ever in my entire life given a single second’s thought to Comcast’s stock price and sure as hell have never sent a text about it, or demanded the firing of a colleague because the truth they were spewing might lower that stock price. My God, how craven can you get?

Watch above via MSNBC.

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