Tucker Carlson on Trump: ‘I Hate Him Passionately’

Two days before the violent Jan. 6 insurrection that he’s currently whitewashing as a “peaceful” gathering, Fox News host Tucker Carlson privately said that he hated former President Donald Trump “passionately.” This text exchange and hundreds of pages of other private messages involving Fox News stars and executives were released Tuesday night as part of the latest tranche of documents in Dominion Voting System’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit. “I hate him passionately,” Carlson texted an unknown staffer. “I blew up at [ex-Trump official] Peter Navarro today in frustration. I actually like Peter. But I can’t handle much more of this.” He then added: “We’re all pretending we've got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it's been is too tough to digest. But come on. There isn't really an upside to Trump.” This is far from the only time Carlson, a Trump-sympathetic host on the air, has raged against the ex-president behind the scenes. In a text to one of his show’s producers as the Capitol riots raged, Carlson called Trump a “demonic force” and a “destroyer.” He also worried just after the 2020 election that the then-president “could easily destroy” the network, saying that’s “what he’s good at.”