Trump expresses shock over Tucker Carlson's ouster: 'Especially over the last year or so, he's been terrific to me'
- Trump said he was "shocked" and "surprised" by Carlson's ouster at Fox News.
- "Especially over the last year or so, he's been terrific to me," Trump said of Carlson.
Former President Donald Trump said he was shocked by Fox News host Tucker Carlson's high-profile ouster from the network.
"Well, I'm shocked, I'm surprised. He's a very good person and a very good man," Trump told Newsmax host Greg Kelly on Monday. "And very talented, as you know. He had very high ratings."
"That was something. That's a big one," Trump added.
Trump told Kelly he was unsure if Carlson left voluntarily, or if Fox News had fired Carlson.
"But I think Tucker's been terrific," Trump said. "Especially over the last year or so, he's been terrific to me."
The former president's comments about Carlson come even after some of the TV host's private texts were made public in court documents. The texts were released in March as evidence in Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit against Fox.
In one text exchange dated January 4, 2021, Carlson told an unnamed confidant that he was looking forward to not having to cover Trump after the 2020 election, per Dominion's court filing.
"We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights," Carlson wrote, per Dominion's filing. "I truly can't wait."
In the same exchange, Carlson wrote that he hates Trump "passionately."
"That's the last four years. 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," Carlson wrote in the texts, per Dominion's court documents. "But come on. There isn't really an upside to Trump."
On April 18, Dominion settled its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit with Fox News for $787.5 million.
And a week later, on Monday, Carlson — one of the hosts accused by Dominion of parroting Trump's baseless election fraud claims and damaging the voting company's business — was ousted from his primetime spot at Fox News.
The ouster could have been a surprise to Carlson, too. Carlson appeared to have no idea he was hosting his last show on the network on Friday — he was seen eating a sausage and pineapple pizza on set before going off air. Sources told The Wall Street Journal that Carlson was blindsided by the news.
Trump's kind words — and the roiling chaos that Carlson's departure from Fox caused in MAGA world — might bode well for Carlson's next steps.
A lawyer for Carlson and a representative for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.