Fox News was under attack from liberals and its former chief executive Roger Ailes would have “never put up with this shit”, Tucker Carlson told his producer in new leaked video of the fired Fox star.
Describing a conversation with an unnamed female executive at the rightwing network, Carlson said: “I was like, she’s got a lot of liberals working over there. And, you know, they see this as war and we’re the main force on the other side.
“That’s crazy. If you’ve got pronouns in your Twitter bio, you shouldn’t work here because we can’t trust you because you’re on the other side.
“Just because you’re liberal doesn’t mean you did this. It does mean you shouldn’t work here. And Roger would never put up with this shit.”
Ailes built Fox News into a conservative political powerhouse but was fired in July 2016 after allegations of extensive sexual harassment. He died less than a year later.
Fox News has now been sued for gender discrimination by Abby Grossberg, a former producer who alleges that Carlson ran a workplace rife with misogyny, sexism, antisemitism and bullying. Fox has called the claims “unmeritorious” and “riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees”.
The video of Carlson discussing leaks and liberals was the latest published by Media Matters for America, a progressive watchdog, since the anchor was fired last month.
Carlson’s termination came in the aftermath of the $787.5m settlement of a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, over the broadcast of Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud in his 2020 presidential race defeat by Joe Biden.
Other leaked videos have shown Carlson making misogynistic and insinuating remarks; saying the Fox Nation streaming channel “sucks”; and calling a Dominion lawyer a “slimy motherfucker”.
Fox News has not commented on the reason for Carlson’s firing. Multiple outlets have reported that abusive comments about executives contributed to the decision. Sources close to Carlson have disputed that.
The New York Times revealed a text message, redacted in court filings where many abusive and crude messages were not, in which Carlson described Trump supporters attacking a counter-protester and said it was “not how white men fight”.
In an investigation last year, the Times called Carlson’s prime-time opinion show “what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news – and also … the most successful”.
The video released on Tuesday showed Carlson’s discussing the leak of material cut from an October 2022 interview with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West who expressed antisemitic views with little pushback.
The producer, Justin Wells, said: “I knew it was going to leak when we taped that interview. I told everyone on the team in New York: ‘Get that on the hard drives immediately, get that out of Fox’s file system, off its servers immediately. If you need it to cut for the show, rename it to something that sort of they can’t find. Do that now.’ We did all that and it still leaked.
“Nobody’s been leaked that I know of besides us,” he adds, “so whoever’s leaking is targeting us.”
Carlson said he would not “name names” about which liberals were leaking but also described “Judge Jeanine’s guy” as “horrible” and “a screaming leftwing lunatic”.
Jeanine Pirro, another opinion host, remains at Fox News despite being entangled in the Dominion case.
Media Matters said: “Jerry Andrews, Pirro’s executive producer, repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought to prevent her from airing false claims about fraud rigging the 2020 presidential election, according to documents uncovered in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit.”
Carlson said the Pirro staffer “totally dicked over his anchor, and then we expect he’s not going to dick over the network. Like, I don’t have specific information on it, but … … it’s crazy … It’s like I’m always telling people, I’m telling my children, like, ‘You know what the truth is? You can feel it. Don’t lie to yourself.’”
Last week, Media Matters said it had rejected a demand that it stop publishing leaked videos.
The group’s president, Angelo Carusone, said: “Reporting on newsworthy leaked material is a cornerstone of journalism. For Fox to argue otherwise is absurd and further dispels any pretense that they’re a news operation.”
