This reporting is featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the newsletter pulling back the curtain on the media. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.
Late last week, we revealed previously unreported text exchanges between Tucker Carlson and “straight news” anchor Bret Baier shortly after the 2020 election, in which the pair schemed on how to win back pissed-off MAGA viewers.
Fox News doesn’t want anyone seeing such texts, apparently, as they’ve now sent irate letters to Dominion lawyers demanding they put an end to the leaks of previously unreleased or redacted discovery material.
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But we’ve got some more of those texts to share.
In the Tucker-Baier texts Confider reported, the pair worried Fox could be “destroyed” by the network’s early but accurate Arizona call, with Carlson adding: “I’ve got four more years here. I’m stuck with Fox. Got to do whatever I can to keep our numbers up and our viewers happy.”
Being chained to Fox was apparently a common theme for Carlson, as newly revealed texts from less than a month later show him complaining about Trump’s election-fraud lies hurting the right-wing cause: “It’s so sad. He’s going to break some shit. He already is. Wish I knew where to run. But I’ll die here.”
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Elsewhere in these unredacted texts, which Confider obtained and reviewed, Fox News star Jesse Watters expressed some very Tucker-like thoughts to Carlson about firing some news vets and replacing them with MAGA-friendly voices.
“Wallace Cavuto and other [sic] have got to go. Need some fresh blood. Should hire some trump people,” Watters, who is seen as a likely heir apparent to Carlson’s primetime throne, texted Tucker on Nov. 13. Watters’ demand to fire veteran anchors Chris Wallace and Neil Cavuto mirror Carlson’s similar, previously reported grousing to fellow primetime stars Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity.
Carlson also let Watters know his anger towards correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, whom Carlson and Hannity also wanted fired for fact-checking a Trump tweet. “This girl apparently works for us in the ‘news’ division, though I'd be stunned if she's ever broken a story,” Carlson texted. “She was on Twitter last night calling out Hannity, and accusing Trump of planning to ‘steal’ the election. Can’t continue.”
The then-primetime Fox star also maligned now-former Fox journalist Leland Vittert, telling Ingraham that the reporter’s election coverage was “like a BLM riot: the people who add nothing get to destroy everything.” Despite the opinion hosts’ desires at the time, Heinrich was promoted shortly after the 2020 election and Cavuto continues to anchor three programs across two networks.
Carlson did not respond to a request for comment, while Fox News pointed to the letters it sent to Dominion last week complaining about media outlets obtaining more unredacted documents.
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