Christopher Cantwell is a neo-Nazi and one of the defendants named in a civil rights lawsuit over the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally.- A former fellow inmate told BuzzFeed News how Cantwell has prepped for the Charlottesville trial.
Christopher Cantwell, a neo-Nazi who rose to infamy after his participation in the 2017 "Unite The Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, prepared for a civil trial that opened this week by watching Tucker Carlson's Fox News show, a fellow inmate told BuzzFeed News.
Fellow white supremacist Jarrett William Smith spent five months with Cantwell - dubbed "The Crying Nazi" - at the federal prison in Marion, Illinois, before Smith was released earlier this month.
Smith told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview that he became close with Cantwell and other white supremacists at the prison.
Smith said Cantwell would spend his days prepping for the lawsuit, which was brought by people injured in the 2017 rally who accuse Cantwell and others of inciting violence. Cantwell would finishing the day watching Carlson's show with other white supremacists in the TV room, Smith said.
Smith told BuzzFeed that Cantwell was emboldened by the polarizing messages on Fox News and saw Carlson as someone who shared the same views as him.
Fox News did not immediately respond Thursday to Insider's request for comment.
Cantwell had also mentioned Carlson in a September court filing, BuzzFeed News pointed out.
In the filing, Cantwell, who is representing himself in the case, said the complainants are trying to "silence not only me and my associates, but anyone who might dare to agree with us even on peripheral issues."
"This is evidenced by the President of the United States, and the 2nd most popular show in cable news (Tucker Carlson) being branded as 'White Nationalists' on account of sharing a small number of our views on the pressing issues of our time," Cantwell wrote.
Carlson is known for his hardline anti-immigration views and has even promoted the white supremacist "great replacement" conspiracy theory, which says whites are being replaced by people of color.
Carlson said during a guest appearance on "Fox News Primetime" in April that "the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term 'replacement,' if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate of voters now casting ballots with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World."
In April, the Anti-Defamation League called on Fox News to fire Carlson after he defended the theory.
Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the ADL, said in an letter to Fox News that Carlson's "rhetoric was not just a dog whistle to racists - it was a bullhorn."