Fox News host Tucker Carlson attempted Tuesday to reverse his private messages. He stated that he was tired with then-President Donald Trump following the 2020 election. These messages were revealed in documents this week as part of a $1.6 million Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against the network.
Carlson stated that he was angry at the revelations of his private texts during an appearance on WABC Radio.
He said, “And I believe this is in the Text, and those were all completely illegitimately grabbed in my opinion in this court Case, which I guess you’re not allowed to discuss, but I’m furious that my private messages were pulled.”
Fox News’ host claimed that the texts were pulled while he was texting one of his producers. This refers to his false reporting about dead voters in Georgia after the 2020 election. A local Georgia newspaper debunked Carlson’s claim and found that two of the deceased voters were still alive and had been legally registered to vote. CNN reported days later that another third of the supposedly deceased voters was .
Carlson referred to the campaign’s accusations by saying, “And we went, and I repeated them on-air, and it turned out some of them weren’t alive.” “So I was just –I felt humiliated.”
Carlson’s interview was scheduled for the same day that Dominion sued Fox News. In this hearing, a Delaware judge considered whether to decide on any portion of the case before a jury trial.
Carlson was one of the network’s executives and hosts who decried Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 election being stolen in private texts messages and emails. This, despite the network’s promotion of false claims on air.
Carlson stated that he had spoken out against Trump’s unfounded claims of a rigged vote in private messages on Jan. 4, 2021.
“We are very close to being in a position to ignore Trump most nights. He texted unidentified people, “I truly can’t wait.”
“I hate him passionately. … He said, “I can’t handle more of this.”
Carlson’s private messages were starkly different from what he was telling viewers on his primetime show.
He wrote, “We’re all pretending that we have a lot to prove it,” referring to the “last 4 years” text message. Trump doesn’t have an upside.
Fox News was criticized by its core audience for reporting the accurate 2020 election results.
As part of Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News, a judge released the documents containing private messages.
Fox News stated that Dominion used “more distractions” and misinformation to try and “smear FOX News, and trample upon freedom speech and freedom the press.”
