Racist text about Trump supporters spurred Fox News to sack Tucker Carlson
By: NZ Herald
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
AP3 May, 2023 06:21 PM2 mins to readA text uncovered as part of a recent defamation lawsuit by the former Fox host Tucker Carlson sealed his fate, according to the New York Times. Photo / Richard Drew, AP, File
A text uncovered as part of a recent defamation lawsuit by the former Fox host Tucker Carlson sealed his fate, according to the New York Times. Photo / Richard Drew, AP, File
Text messages that helped lead Fox News to part ways with star host Tucker Carlson included one in which he declared that Trump supporters beating a protester was "not how white men fight", according to The New York Times.
The text was one of a trove of messages from Carlson and other Fox News hosts uncovered in a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against the network for airing false allegations that the company's machines were used to steal the 2020 election from former President Donald Trump.
The sides settled just as the trial was getting under way, with Fox agreeing to pay Dominion nearly $800 million.
While some of Carlson's texts have been publicly released, the one quoted by the Times remains redacted by the court, as do numerous other exhibits. Media organisations, including The Associated Press, continue to try to lift the redactions.
The Times reports that Carlson sent the text to a producer hours after Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. He describes a video he had seen a couple of weeks earlier of Trump supporters beating someone he described as "an Antifa kid".
Fox News agreed to part ways with Tucker Carlson, less than a week after settling a lawsuit over the network's 2020 election reporting. Photo / Seth Wenig, AP, File
Carlson wrote about his conflicting emotions in watching the fight, which he described as "three against one, at least".
"Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously," he wrote, according to the Times. "It's not how white men fight."
"I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed," Carlson wrote after admitting part of him was rooting for the attackers. "If I don't care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?"
drew controversy for supporting theories such as the idea that immigrants are being admitted to the US to "replace" people born here. Critics have called that white supremacy, an accusation he has denied.
Messages sent Wednesday to Carlson and his attorney seeking comment were not immediately returned.
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I'm sure some people will say his comment was not racist, but what he is saying is that non-white people do fight this way.
How much one on one hand to hand combat with the police took place at the Capitol building?
And then there is this sort of thing
What a wonderful guy. A real humanitarian.
Yeah, he was trying to humanize an opponent. I can see how that is repellent to a left winger.
Quote from Tucker Carlson:
I can see how a right winger would love that.
What's repellent are stupid-ass reactionary trolls. There are a few of them around.
wilifred x Reilly had an interesting response:
A real issue in American race relations is that only whites are actually expected to follow what is presented as the universal normative standard: no ethnic-over-national identification, no slurs or mild ethnic jokes ever, no admitting to some preference for your group, etc.
Like, as re the Tucker Carlson "white dudes don't fight like that" e-mail 'scandal,' I can both think "Eh - that line's kinda weak"......and also realize no one would have cared at all had I or a more famous brother said the exact same thing and subbed in "Black" for "white."
People in mobs fight that way. Criminals fight that way. It is only a racial issue for those who look for it to be. Such as Tucker Carlson.
What does that have to do with what Reilly wrote?
His twitter page is filled with white grievance.
is twitter page is filled with white grievance.
He's black. That still doesn't address what he wrote.
thats kind of sad
I looked at about 20 of his tweets. almost all of them were related to either race or "wokeness" , entirely from a Tucker Carlson like point of view.
Interesting comment ''not how white men fight''. History certainly tells a much different story.
Is this what got him fired, probabaly it would certainly be part of it, there is still much of this that has been redacted and if it went to trial everyone from Rupert on down would be cross examined and they did not want to see that happen. Additionally, there are still a couple of huge lawsuits against Fox so I think that Fox is doing everything that it can to distance itself from this and Carlson.