According to newly-revealed text messages obtained by The Daily Beast, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was willing to go to great lengths to protect the Fox brand by threatening lower-level company employees who he felt were hurting the network’s image with critical stories about former President Donald Trump.
In November 2020, Carlson exchanged text messages with his producer Justin Wells, who was terminated by Fox News last month, expressing their disappointment about what they perceived to be unfavorable coverage of Trump at Fox. The election had just been called for Joe Biden, but Trump continued to claim that the election was rigged. Several Fox hosts, including Carlson, promoted this falsehood.
Despite Carlson’s repeated suggestions on air that the election was bogus, he was irked by coverage suggesting that the contest wasn’t rigged and commentary that portrayed Trump in an unflattering light. Wells had flagged a FoxNews.com story about how Trump, then a lame-duck president, would proceed with the annual presidential turkey pardon ahead of Thanksgiving, and regarded the article as an affront to Fox readers and viewers.
In response, Carlson suggested that they should jump on a couple of examples just to send a clear message, starting with the Fox employee who wrote the turkey pardon article. He was even willing to intimidate low-level Fox employees to ensure that they did not harm the Fox brand any further. “I’m happy to start threatening people individually,” he added. “It’s too much. And again, it will hurt us badly if we let it continue.”
“Literally 4-5 separate swipes at Trump for doing the Turkey pardon,’” Wells wrote to Carlson. “’It’s actually unbelievable. We’re trying to piss people off for no reason.’”
“We’re not going to succeed if this continues,” Carlson replied. “The brand will be too damaged. We should jump on a couple of examples just to send a clear message. Let’s start with this one. Can we find out who did this?”
It was no secret that Carlson loathed coverage that portrayed Trump in a negative light, especially after the election. Fox News consumers were angry because they believed Trump’s lies about the election, and they expected Fox to give them what they wanted. In fact, in February 2021, it was revealed in a court filing that Carlson had wanted Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich fired after she tweeted a fact-check of Fox host Lou Dobbs’s claims about the election being rigged. He also appeared to want the network to show host Neil Cavuto the door as well.
Carlson’s concern was that this type of coverage would damage the Fox brand and even hurt the company’s stock price. He was willing to take action to prevent this from happening, even if it meant threatening lower-level employees. His behavior reflects the intense pressure that conservative media outlets like Fox News were under to support Trump’s lies about the election and to promote his agenda at all costs.
