Fox News star Tucker Carlson really wants his MAGA-loving viewers to forget that he said that he hates Donald Trump “passionately” and believes “there isn't really an upside” to the former president because he’s a “demonic force.”
Appearing on conservative radio host Bo Snerdley’s show on Monday, Carlson lamented over the fact that a slew of his private texts and emails surrounding the 2020 election were made public in the Dominion lawsuit. The voting software firm has accused Fox News of knowingly airing baseless election fraud claims to boost sagging ratings after disgruntled Trump supporters abandoned the channel following its election night call of Arizona for President Joe Biden.
“Tucker, listen, I’ve had a number of people saying they read all these things in the paper—‘You hate Trump blah, blah, blah.’ Does Tucker like Trump’s policies, any policies of his?” Snerdely wondered in a clip flagged by Media Matters. “What’s the deal with you and Donald Trump?”
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Claiming that he’d just spent “four years defending his policies” and that he would be doing the same on his program that evening, the Fox News host declared that he unequivocally adores the twice-impeached ex-president.
“I’m pretty straightforward; I love Trump,” Carlson gushed. “Like, as a person, I think Trump is funny and insightful. And I said this to Trump when he called me, you know, all wounded about those texts. That was a moment in time where I was absolutely infuriated.”
After insisting he was “enraged” that his private messages “were all grabbed completely illegitimately,” and adding “I guess I'm not allowed to talk about” it, Carlson claimed the text exchange revealing his Trump hate centered on his frustration with the former president’s campaign following the election loss.
“Those particular texts were pulled at exactly the moment where I was texting with one of my producers because some idiot on the Trump campaign had sent us the name of these dead voters who had voted,” the far-right host exclaimed. “And we went and I repeated them on air, and it turns out some of them were alive. So, I was just—I felt humiliated.”
The primetime star added that he “thought then” and still believes that the “election was not on the level,” so he approached Trump’s team to provide him proof that “the election was rigged.” This resulted in the ex-president’s campaign sending Carlson’s show a list of dead people who supposedly voted in the 2020 election. However, the Fox host’s report on “dead voters” soon blew up in his face, as most of the examples he listed on air proved to be alive.
“Well, it turned out some of them were still alive,” Carlson continued. “And I was so mad by the incompetence of that campaign, which was completely incompetent. I mean, completely you know, I’m like the one guy who’s open-minded about the election being unfair. And that’s what they send me? Anyway. Whatever. I was mad. That was a moment in time.”
Carlson went on to claim that his “views are pretty transparent” while agreeing with Snerdley that his moment of anger “does not represent the whole body of our thoughts.”
Trump, for his part, has already publicly brushed off Carlson’s texts while asserting that he holds no grudges over the primetime star’s supposed hatred towards him. “He doesn’t hate me, or at least, not anymore!” Trump posted on his Truth Social site this month while praising Carlson’s attempts to whitewash the Jan. 6 insurrection.
