Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ star anchor, on Trump in 2021: “I hate him” | International

A defamation lawsuit against the Republicans’ top media mouthpiece, Fox News, is shedding light on the reality of workers at the prime-time television network’s baseless election fraud allegations promoted by Donald Trump. In 2020. The ex-Republican president’s devastating loss dragged the right-wing media banner beyond good and evil, or at least, beyond fact-checking. From statements by magnate Rupert Murdoch, the chain’s owner, it has been inferred that several Fox News spokespeople knowingly spread Trump’s lies, although they later privately lamented him, such as star televangelist Tucker Carlson, who offered negative comments on five occasions. News about the Republican Party (“I hate him,” he once wrote in a message). Murdoch even wondered if the network had gone too far in its election coverage.

Trump splashes across the communication chain, in a controversy that was exacerbated by the exclusivity that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican, gave to Carlson, to whom he provided more than 41,000 hours of unreleased footage from Capitol cameras. Attack by a crowd of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021. The airing of the first videos earlier in the week has fired up Carlson again.

Court documents from the 2021 lawsuit filed by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems describe nerves in the newsroom struggling to deal with Trump’s claims that the election was stolen. The result is a deep divide between providers ideologues -In many cases the two profiles correspond to the same person- and employees are deeply suspicious of the misinformation the chain has caused by Trump’s accusations and some dubious facts.

In a private text message exchange two weeks after Election Day, Tucker Carlson and his fellow TV anchors Critical time Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity expressed their dismay that the network was the first to concede victory to Joe Biden in Arizona on the same election night, angering a segment of the more conservative audience. “We dedicated our lives to building an audience, and they were Chris Wallace and The Drunk Leland Witter would tear it up,” Carlson wrote, referring to information provided by two colleagues who were not part of the company that same night. Another former worker who headed the Washington office on election day described what happened in those days as an “existential crisis” for the chain. “In the 22 years I’ve been associated with Fox, this is the closest thing to an existential crisis, at least journalistically,” the journalist said during the hearing.

According to another email included in exhibits in the defamation lawsuit Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in, Murdoch appraised himself by wondering aloud whether Ingraham and Hannity had “gone too far” in voter fraud. The voter registration company’s reputation was called into question by Fox News’ reports that it manipulated its devices in favor of Biden.

Unpublished images

“There is Undeniable Leading voices at Fox fed the story that the election was rigged, and on January 6, a significant opportunity to change the outcome? Maybe they are [Hannity] And Laura [Ingraham] They went too far. It’s great that Sean told you that he wanted Trump, but what did he tell his audience?” Murdoch asked rhetorically in an email.

The 6,600 pages of court documents released Tuesday show how the Fox News engine room boiled over on election night on Nov. 8, 2020: for example, the rush to award states to one of the candidates, like the decisive Arizona that Biden ultimately took. By a margin of about 10,000 votes. The documents show a chorus of voices, from top executives to producers, sharing doubts about the credibility of voter fraud allegations. The same assumption has an effect on the chain’s reputation.

Further fueling the controversy, Fox News earlier this week released some previously unreleased footage of the Capitol attack to spokesman McCarthy Carlson. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the Fox News star anchor was a “credible” news source, drawing criticism from Capitol Police over the “false and misleading” footage that Fox aired on Jan. 6. , 2021. The leaks have also warned of problems for the security of Congressional headquarters.

Jean-Pierre also echoed earlier criticism from within the news network, which pointed out that Carlson’s programs were “not reliable sources of information.” The Democrats went further, accusing him of wading into “conspiracy waters” to convince the public that the Capitol storming was not violent, and targeting McCarthy for sharing the images, which were sought in vain. Number of American media. Fox will continue to air unreleased content over the next few days.

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