Tucker Carlson wrote “I hate him passionately” in newly released text messages about former President Donald Trump as bipartisan outrage continued to build over the Fox News host’s effort to whitewash the Jan. 6 attack.
Even as he cozied up to Trump in public, the messages show the conservative host actually despises the former president and considers him to be an epic failure.
“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson said in a text on Jan. 4, 2021, as Trump supporters geared up for the violent attack on the Capitol. “I truly can’t wait.”
Carlson suggested that Trump would destroy Fox News and the conservative movement if given the chance.
“I hate him passionately. … What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”
In another text, Carlson conceded that conservative figures were “all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for” Trump’s tumultuous four years in the White House.
“Admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest,” he wrote. “But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”
The damning new texts were released in court filings from the defamation lawsuit Fox is facing from voting machine maker Dominion that claims it knowingly spouted Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
Even as the texts emerged, Carlson went ahead Tuesday with a second night of airing exclusive security footage from the Jan. 6 attack that he asserted proves the bloody attack on Congress was actually a peaceful protest.
After lawmakers from both sides of the partisan aisle fact-checked his bogus claims, Carlson Tuesday blamed Democrats for displaying “hysteria, overstatement, crazed hyperbole, red-in-the-face anger” over his use of the footage that showed some peaceful moments during the hours-long insurrection effort.
He didn’t address the text messages showing that his on-air praise-singing for Trump was a charade.
For his part, Trump also ignored the critical texts.
He instead patted Carlson on the back again for the second night of revisionist history about the Jan. 6 attack, which aimed to keep Trump in power after he lost to President Joe Biden.
The former president demanded the release of convicted rioters, many of whom admitted attacking police officers, and blasted the congressional Jan. 6 committee that he says “knowingly refused to show the videos that mattered.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday blamed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for handing over more than 40,000 hours of Capitol security footage to Carlson.
“McCarthy ... has done more than any party leader in Congress to enable the spread of Donald Trump’s Big Lie,” Schumer said.
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