Tucker Carlson’s ‘White Men Fight’ Text Sparks Outrage—But Critics Say It’s ‘Embedded In Fox’s DNA’

Topline

Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News in part because a text message about how “white men fight” prompted an investigation into his conduct, the New York Times reported Tuesday, a revelation that sparked accusations of racism and conspiracies about Fox News—and a lack of surprise—from the conservative anchor’s critics and defenders.

Tucker Carlson, host of Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” on March 2, 2017, in New York.

Key Facts

In a text message sent to a producer on January 7, 2021—after the attack on the Capitol building—Carlson said he had watched a video in which a group of Trump supporters attacked an “Antifa kid,” calling the incident “dishonorable” and “not how white people fight,” the Times reports.

Carlson said in the text—which was uncovered as part of a defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems—he “found himself rooting” for the Trump supporters and “hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him,” a thought that set off an “alarm bell” in his head and made him realize, “I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering.”

The message “set off a panic” at Fox and “contributed to a chain of events” that ultimately led to Carlson being fired on April 24, the Times reports, noting the Fox Corp. board told Fox executives the day after discovering the text message that it was hiring an outside law firm to investigate Carlson’s conduct.

Chief Critics

Carlson’s tweet has drawn widespread criticism, as well as a sense of unsurprise from his critics, who suggested Carlson’s text was in line with his program and history of racially insensitive remarks.

Author Stephen King called the message “despicable” in a tweet.
Former Trump White House advisor Alyssa Farah Griffin said the text shows he “wasn’t playing a character on TV,” saying the message “starts w/blatant racism, turns to him being gleeful over violence, then descends into him questioning his humanity—or lack thereof—for cheering someone’s assault because they don’t share his politics.”
The text’s racism is “embedded in Fox’s DNA,” journalist John Harwood tweeted, sharing a Fox News clip from Tuesday in which host Jesse Watters said he could “tell” a family he saw who was “digging through the trash” was an “illegal immigration family.”
“What’s not news is the fact that Tucker Carlson is a white nationalist,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted, adding, “What is news is the fact that this somehow is surprising to anyone.”
“Fox execs apparently alarmed by the naked White supremacism… though if you’ve ever watched his show, would not be a surprise,” CNN anchor Abby Phillip, a sentiment shared by other journalists from outlets including Politico, HuffPost and NBC News.

Contra

Others have painted the Times report as a part of a coordinated effort by Fox News to tarnish the ex-anchor’s reputation—though it’s not clear how the Times got Carlson’s text, or whether it was part of a deliberate leak by Fox.

Fox “leaking” to the Times “isn’t just an attack on Tucker, it’s an attack on all of his fans and conservatives everywhere!” Donald Trump, Jr., tweeted.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald—a frequent guest on Carlson’s show—said the report was “obviously a decision by Fox to wage a massive war on Tucker Carlson’s character,” a decision that he called “extremely odd for many reasons,” including because Carlson “hasn’t uttered a negative word about them.”
Influencer Tristan Tate, brother of Andrew Tate, said on Twitter the reports about Carlson “have me confused” because they “make him seem human and relatable,” adding, “This attempt to defame him couldn’t have been pulled off worse” and saying it looks like “a genius PR stunt by his team.”

Key Background

Carlson was suddenly fired last week from Fox News with reportedly no notice, a shocking blow to the network’s top anchor that came days after Fox agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle Dominion’s defamation case against it. The “white men fight” message was not released publicly in court documents, but the Times reports the Fox board was worried it could become public at the case’s trial—which was ultimately averted with the last-minute settlement. His ouster has been blamed on a variety of factors, including other texts uncovered in the Dominion lawsuit and Fox producer Abby Grossberg’s lawsuits against the network, which allege Carlson’s show is “a work environment that subjugates women based on vile sexist stereotypes, typecasts religious minorities and belittles their traditions, and demonstrates little to no regard for those suffering from mental illness.” In addition to the text published by the Times Tuesday, redacted text messages in the Dominion case also reportedly include him calling a Fox executive a “c–t,” and publicly released texts in the lawsuit show him repeatedly complaining about Fox higher-ups and the networks’ news division. Fox has already taken a hit from Carlson’s departure: The news of his firing sent Fox’s stock price reeling, and ratings for Carlson’s former time slot have slumped since he left, suggesting viewers aren’t tuning in without him.

Tangent

Carlson released a video a few days after his firing, which did not respond directly to his departure but said political parties “actively collude to shut down” conversations about important topics in the media and people in charge are “afraid” and “resorting to force” to protect the current media “orthodoxies.”