The firing of Tucker Carlson from Fox News was triggered in part by a shocking text message unearthed during the broadcaster’s legal battle with Dominion Voting Systems, a new report has claimed.
According to The New York Times, Fox News bosses were unsettled on the eve of the trial by a text from Mr Carlson claiming that ganging up on an opponent was “not how white men fight”.
Sources told the Times that the discovery began a chain of events that ultimately led to Mr Carlson's ousting, as the conservative cable juggernaut scrambled to prevent his words being made public.
Last month, Fox News agreed to pay $787m to settle its lawsuit with Dominion, which had accused the right-wing network of defaming the company by pushing claims about election fraud that its own journalists knew were untrue.
Although the channel did not say why it fired Mr Carlson, Dominion hinted that the answers may lie within the redacted sections of documents made public by the court process.
One such redacted section was a text message from Mr Carlson to one of his producers on the day after the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
“A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington [DC],” the far right firebrand allegedly said.
“A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living s*** 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 alleged message sheds light on Mr Carlson's private views about race, after years of making incendiary claims and echoing white supremacist conspiracy theories on his TV show.
The Independent has contacted Fox News and Mr Carlson for comment.
