- Tucker Carlson once sent a text saying he wanted a group of white men to kill an "Antifa kid."
- Carlson texted a producer about the moment he felt blood lust seeing a "kid" being hurt.
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson once sent a disturbing text to a producer, where he described in stark detail how he found himself wanting a group of white men to hurt and kill an "Antifa kid," per a new report from The New York Times.
The redacted text obtained by The Times showed Carlson reflecting on a moment where "a group of Trump guys" were "pounding the living shit" out of someone who shared different political views from them.
In the text — sent on January 7, 2021, one day after the Capitol riot — Carlson said that he found himself "rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they'd hit him harder, kill him."
"I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it," Carlson told the producer.
In an apparent moment of self-reflection, Carlson then tells the unnamed producer: "Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn't good for me. I'm becoming something I don't want to be."
He goes on to describe how he realized that he "shouldn't gloat" over the suffering of another human being.
"I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed," Carlson told the producer. "If I don't care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?"
The text message was included — but redacted — as evidence in Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Dominion accused the network of harming its business by pushing baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. The Times obtained the redacted Carlson text message from several unnamed sources who were granted anonymity to share the message. The text remains redacted in public court filings, per The New York Times.
In April, the Fox network agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million to settle the defamation lawsuit. Carlson was abruptly ousted from his primetime spot a week after the settlement.
For his part, Carlson in January 2022 downplayed the Capitol riot during his show on Fox News.
"But actually if you take three steps back as historical events go, if we are being honest now, January 6 barely rates as a footnote," Carlson said on Fox News on January 6, 2022, the first anniversary of the Capitol riot. "Really, not a lot happened that day if you think about it."
And in 2023, the Fox News host aired selectively edited January 6 footage on his show, making the argument that the riot was not violent. His cherry-picked footage of the riot drew scorn and criticism from the members of the GOP and the Democratic Party.
A lawyer for Carlson did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment sent outside regular business hours.