WASHINGTON (AP) — The $787.5 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems spared executives and on-air expertise from taking the stand in a defamation lawsuit that centered on Fox airing false claims of a stolen election within the weeks after former President Donald Trump’s 2020 loss.
The lawsuit nonetheless revealed loads of what Fox personalities had been saying concerning the bogus election claims, together with Tucker Carlson, the community’s top-rated host who was let go Monday. His unexplained departure has turned a highlight on what he stated in depositions, emails and textual content messages among the many 1000’s of pages Dominion launched within the leadup to jury choice within the case.
Carlson’s messages lambasted the information division and administration, revealed how he felt about Donald Trump and demonstrated his skepticism of the election lies — a lot in order that Fox attorneys and firm founder Rupert Murdoch held him up as a part of their protection of the corporate. The choose who oversaw the case dominated that it was “ CRYSTAL clear ” not one of the election claims associated to Dominion was true.
THOSE SPREADING ELECTION LIES
“Sidney Powell is lying,” Carlson advised a Fox News producer in a Nov. 16, 2020, trade earlier than utilizing expletives to explain Powell, an legal professional representing Trump.
“You keep telling our viewers that millions of votes were changed by the software. I hope you will prove that very soon,” Carlson wrote to Powell a day later. “You’ve convinced them that Trump will win. If you don’t have conclusive evidence of fraud at that scale, it’s a cruel and reckless thing to keep saying.” There was no indication that Powell replied.
Fox attorneys famous that Carlson repeatedly questioned Powell’s claims in his broadcasts: “When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her,” Carlson advised viewers on Nov. 19, 2020.
Carlson advised his viewers that he had taken Powell significantly, however that she had by no means offered any proof or demonstrated that the software program Dominion used siphoned votes from Trump to Biden.
Carlson continued to trash Powell and Trump’s authorized group in a Nov. 23, 2020, textual content trade with fellow Fox host Laura Ingraham and likewise bemoaned what he thought-about the president’s passivity within the face of the 2 Georgia runoffs.
After saying it was “pretty disgusting” that extra attorneys hadn’t pushed again on the claims of Trump’s attorneys who had been attempting to overturn the election outcomes, Carlson wrote: “And now Trump, I learned this morning, is sitting back and letting them lose the senate. He doesn’t care. I care. I’ve got four kids and plan to live here.”
FOX’S 2020 ELECTION COVERAGE
Fox viewers had been outraged when the community known as Arizona for Joe Biden on election evening, a race name that was correct. Fox executives and hosts started to fret about rankings as a lot of these viewers fled to different conservative shops.
“We worked really hard to build what we have. Those (expletive) are destroying our credibility. It enrages me,” Carlson stated in a Nov. 6, 2020, trade with an unidentified individual.
On Nov. 8, after Biden was declared the winner, Carlson texted a few different staff: “Do the executives understand how much trust and credibility we’ve lost with our audience? We’re playing with fire, for real.”
Later within the chain, as others carry up Newsmax as an rising competitor, Carlson stated, “With Trump behind it, an alternative like Newsmax could be devastating to us.”
In textual content messages to a producer on Nov 13, 2020, Carlson braced for a Trump press convention: “He’s only good at destroying,” Carlson stated of the then-president.
He later added, in regard to the fraud allegations being made by Trump and his allies, “He’s playing with fire.”
In a textual content trade with an unknown individual on Jan. 4, 2021, Carlson expressed anger towards Trump. He stated that “we are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights” and that “I truly can’t wait.”
Carlson stated he had little question there was fraud within the 2020 election, however stated Trump and his attorneys had so discredited their case — and media figures like himself — “that it’s infuriating. Absolutely enrages me.”
Addressing Trump’s 4 years as president, Carlson stated: “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 really isn’t an upside to Trump.”
In texts early on the morning of Jan. 7, 2021, a day after the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, Carlson and his longtime producer, Alex Pfeiffer, bemoaned how the rioters had believed Trump’s election lies.
“They take the president literally,” Pfeiffer stated. “He is to blame for everything that happened today.”
“The problem is a little deeper than that I’d say,” Carlson replied.
“Obviously the problems are deep but at the core of it is Trump saying it was stolen,” Pfeiffer wrote.
“Not the core,” Carlson wrote. “Awful but a symptom.”
Later, Carlson writes of Trump: “He’s a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not going to destroy us. I’ve been thinking about this every day for four years.”
Some of essentially the most heated vitriol was reserved for colleagues within the information division and included conversations with fellow on-air personalities Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity.
On Nov. 13, the week after the 2020 election, Ingraham, Carlson and Hannity bought right into a textual content message trade by which they lambasted the information division. It started with Ingraham declaring a tweet by correspondent Bryan Llenas, saying he had seen no proof of widespread voter fraud in Pennsylvania.
Carlson replied that Llenas had contacted him to apologize, then added “when has he ever ‘reported’ on anything.”
Ingraham then names one other colleague who indicated there was no fraud, with Hannity responding: “Guys I’ve been telling them for 4 years. News depart that breaks no news ever.” In a subsequent Twitter message seconds later, Hannity says, “They hate hate hate all three of us.”
Ingraham responds she doesn’t “want to be liked by them” and Carlson chimes in, “They’re pathetic.” The dialog continues with Hannity bemoaning the injury that has been finished to the model: “In one week and one debate they destroyed a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable.”
Another textual content dialog by the trio three days later had Ingraham telling her colleagues that her anger on the information channel was “pronounced,” adopted by an “lol.” In response, Carlson attacked two Fox anchors: “It should be. We devote our lives to building an audience and they let Chris Wallace and Leland (expletive) Vittert wreck it. Too much.” Wallace and Vittert have since left the community.
The three hosts then began musing a couple of path ahead after Ingraham says they’ve “enormous power,” and that they need to take into consideration how, collectively, they’ll power a change. Carlson’s response: “For sure. The first thing we need to do exactly what we want to do. That’s the key. Leland Vittert seems to have the authority to do whatever he wants. We should too.”
Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Randall Chase in Dover, Del., and Gary Fields in Washington contributed to this report.
