The Most Shocking Revelation From Tucker Carlson’s Text

The New York Times obtained a text from Tucker Carlson that they say set off a “panic” within Fox News on the eve of the blockbuster Dominion defamation trial and eventually contributed to his firing from the network.

The text is a voyage. Carlson starts off recalling a video of a “group of Trump guys” in Washington “pounding the living shit” out of “an Antifa kid.”

He then veers into racism: “Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight.”

Takes a sharp turn into murder fantasy: “Yet suddenly 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.”

Before landing on introspection: “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. The Antifa creep is a human being.”

Amidst the mania over the text, I think its context is being overlooked, and that context is the most shocking part of this new revelation: Carlson’s comment was about Donald Trump.

The comment came during a conversation with his producer, the day of the Jan. 6 attack, in which both express horror about how Trump turns people to violence. (While the time stamp of the exhibit says Jan. 7, the exchange actually happened on Jan. 6).

Carlson’s producer warns that Trump’s supporters “take the president literally. He said [the election] was stolen. They believe him. He is to blame for everything that happened today.”

Later in the exchange, Carlson agrees with his producer that Trump will inspire more violence in his remaining two weeks as president. “He’s a demonic force, a destroyer,” Carlson said. “But he’s not going to destroy us.”

“The Trump anger spiral is vicious,” the producer says, to which Carlson replies with his text admitting how that anger spiral made him want to see the “Antifa kid” be beaten to death.

Those private concerns about the violent and destructive power of Trump’s movement present a shockingly candid admission from the Fox News host, an admission that was never shared with his audience.

Quite the opposite: In the years since the Jan. 6 attack, Carlson has worked tirelessly to rehabilitate Trump and cast the riot as a mostly “peaceful” visit by “sightseers.” He has even suggested it was a false flag attack.

One more thing on this: As many on Twitter have noted, Tucker Carlson expressing racist rhetoric should not have come as a surprise to anyone who watched his show or followed his long career. It defies reason, they say, that Fox News would have fired Carlson for something so in tune with his public commentary.

But this would not be the first time Fox News ousted an employee for expressing racist views in private. Blake Neff, once a top writer on Carlson’s show, was forced to resign in 2020 after CNN discovered a trove of bigoted comments he had made online. At the time, many voiced disbelief that Fox News would fire a staffer for uttering in private the same kind of things Carlson said regularly to millions of viewers on his nightly show.

For whatever reason, Fox saw these private comments differently.

I would also point out these details from the Times reporting:

The text alarmed the Fox board, which saw the message a day before Fox was set to defend itself against Dominion Voting Systems before a jury. The board grew concerned that the message could become public at trial when Mr. Carlson was on the stand, creating a sensational and damaging moment that would raise broader questions about the company.

The day after the discovery, the board told Fox executives it was bringing in an outside law firm to conduct an investigation into Mr. Carlson’s conduct.

I find it plausible that the Fox board — which includes Rupert Murdoch and Paul Ryan, a vehement Carlson critic — saw his racist murder fantasy text on the eve of the Dominion trial and, fearing it could come out in a courtroom packed with hundreds of reporters, saw it as a particularly acute threat to the brand, which has taken an unprecedented beating in recent months.

The network settled the case and fired the host, not for this text alone, but for the text falling on top of the mountain of other liabilities he presented.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.