Tucker Carlson Texts Reportedly Alarmed Fox News Executives: 'It's Not How White Men Fight'

The New York Times reports that one message in particular — in which Carlson admitted to rooting for a "group of Trump guys" to kill "an Antifa kid" — alarmed executives at Fox News when it came to light as part of a lawsuit

A little over a week after Tucker Carlson's abrupt departure from Fox News, a new report details how some of the right-wing media personality's text messages may have played a role in the exit.

The New York Times reports that one message in particular — in which Carlson admitted to rooting for a "group of Trump guys" to kill "an Antifa kid" — alarmed executives at Fox News when it came to light as part of a lawsuit.

The Times reports that the message was sent to a producer at the network on January 2021, shortly after the Capitol riots. "A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington," Carlson wrote, the Times details. "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."

The text message continued: "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."

Carlson went on to write that he realized he was "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," he wrote. "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?"

According to the Times, the message alarmed the media outlet's board of directors when it was unearthed as part of a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought against Fox News by voting equipment company Dominion Voting Systems, which was the subject of conspiracies of widespread election fraud and other wrongdoing in the wake of the November 2020 presidential election.

One day after the Fox board saw the message, the Times reports they told executives at the company they were hiring an outside law firm to investigate Carlson's conduct.

The voting company recently settled with the network, but not before text messages and emails by Carlson and other network personalities were made public as part of court filings.

Related:Tucker Carlson Departs Fox News, Effective Immediately

In addition to privately complaining about Donald Trump, even as he publicly courted his supporters, Carlson's text messages show that he lambasted Fox's management after the network accurately called the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden.

"Do the executives understand how much trust and credibility we've lost with our audience? We're playing with fire, for real," Carlson wrote in one message to fellow employees in the days following the election.

In another text exchange with fellow Fox News personalities Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, Carlson called the network's news department "pathetic," writing that it had "destroyed a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable."

While many of Carlson's messages were made public, hundreds of pages of documents from the Dominion lawsuit were not — raising questions about what else the now-former Fox News host may have said about his colleagues and managers.

Related:Why Did Tucker Carlson Leave Fox News? What We Know So Far About His Tension with the Network

Fox News' only public comment so far about Carlson has been that the network and the anchor "have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor."

In the statement, Fox News added that Carlson's last program was Friday. The network has since been airing Fox News Tonight as an interim show helmed by rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is determined.

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