Five times top Fox News host Tucker Carlson privately reviled Donald Trump: ‘I hate him’

Former president Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland on March 4, 2023. Photo / Haiyun Jiang, The New York Times

Documents released in recent weeks as part of a US$1.6 billion (NZ$2.6b) defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems have revealed extraordinary private communications and depositions from the network’s star hosts and executives. In those statements, many of them expressed disbelief about former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though the network continued to promote many of those lies on the air.

Regardless of the outcome of the case, which is scheduled to go to trial in April, one host in particular — Tucker Carlson — appears to have a tricky road to navigate with his audience. In his private messages, Carlson, who generally provides strong support of Republicans on the air, repeatedly showed contempt for Trump and some of his closest aides.

Here are five examples from the documents:

Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, July 31, 2022. Photo / Doug Mills, The New York Times

November 6, 2020

1. On Trump’s business history

As votes were being counted in the 2020 presidential election, Carlson texted with his producer, Alex Pfeiffer, fretting about viewers turning away from Fox News after the network called Arizona for President Joe Biden.

Pfeiffer:

Trump has a pretty low rate at success in his business ventures.

Carlson:

That’s for sure. All of them fail. What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that.

November 10, 2020

2. On Trump’s plan to skip Biden’s inauguration

A staff member texted Carlson to say they’d heard Trump was planning not to attend the inauguration, an important symbol of the peaceful transfer of power.

Carlson:

I’d heard that about the inauguration. Hard to believe. So destructive.

Carlson:

It’s disgusting. I’m trying to look away.

November 23, 2020

3. On his interactions with Trump’s team over Sidney Powell, a Trump lawyer

Carlson texts with Fox News host Laura Ingraham about Sidney Powell, a lawyer for Trump and one of the biggest promoters of the unfounded election fraud claims.

Carlson:

I had to try to make the WH disavow her, which they obviously should have done long before.

Laura Ingraham:

No serious lawyer could believe what they were saying.

Carlson:

But they said nothing in public. Pretty disgusting. And now Trump, I learned this morning, is sitting back and letting them lose the senate. He doesn’t care. I care.

January 4, 2021

4. On his desire to move on from Trump

Carlson texts with members of his staff, two months after the 2020 election and two days before the insurrection at the Capitol building, about looking forward to not having to cover Trump.

Carlson:

We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait.

Carlson:

I hate him passionately.

January 7, 2021

5. On the aftermath of the Capitol riots

After the riot at the Capitol on January 6, Carlson texts with Pfeiffer about Trump’s culpability in the insurrection and how to deal with viewers who still support him. It was two weeks before the inauguration of Biden.

Carlson:

Trump has two weeks left. Once he’s out, he becomes incalculably less powerful, even in the minds of his supporters.

Carlson:

He’s a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not going to destroy us. I’ve been thinking about this every day for four years.

Pfeiffer:

You’re right. I don’t want to let him destroy me either. [REDACTED]

The Trump anger spiral is vicious.

Carlson:

That’s for sure. Deadly. It almost consumed me in November when Sidney Powell attacked us. It was very difficult to regain emotional control, but I knew I had to. We’ve got two weeks left. We can do this.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Katie Robertson

Photographs by: Haiyun Jiang and Doug Mills

©2023 THE NEW YORK TIMES