A series of racist text messages sent by unemployed frozen food heir and general asshole Tucker Carlson around January 6th and uncovered during the Dominion Voting Machine defamation case contributed to the ultimate downfall of Fox’s highest-rated host, the New York Times reports. The Fox board reportedly first saw the messages the day before the trial was supposed to start, pushing Fox to agree to a $787 million settlement after a jury had been seated.
Texts from the day of the Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol show Carlson describing watching a video of at least three white Trump supporters ambushing and beating up a person Carlson determined, without evidence, to be “antifa.”
A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. 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. 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. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere 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?
The day after they saw the text messages, the board informed Fox executives it was bringing in an outside law firm to investigate Carlson’s activities and to describe any possible legal exposure they could bring the company. While the text messages were part of the discovery process in the case, somehow the content of these messages did not garner the attention of the board until the Sunday before the trial’s opening.