Outside the Beltway

Tucker Carlson In Private: “I Hate [Trump] Passionately.”

Tucker is one of those “elites” he saying hates his audience.

Matt Bernius
53

Comments

A reminder of the contempt that Conservative Media elites have for their audience

Admittedly this is a topic that has been covered a lot, but it’s also a topic that just keeps on giving. Dominion Voting Systems continues to release evidence from the discovery phase of their civil suit against Fox News and Fox Corp. And let’s just say that some of former President Trump’s strongest on-air backers apparently have a lot of feelings about him that they don’t share with their audiences.

Some quotes from noted on-air Trump stan Tucker Carlson:

“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait. I hate him passionately.” — Tucker Carlson text to Fox News producer, January 4, 2021

“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. But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.” — Also Tucker on January 4, 2021

Here’s CNN with a summary of the rest of Carlson’s private communications:

Carlson “passionately” hates Trump: In a number of private text messages, Carlson was harshly critical of Trump. In one November 2020 exchange, Carlson said Trump’s decision to snub Joe Biden’s inauguration was “so destructive.” Carlson added that Trump’s post-election behavior was “disgusting” and that he was “trying to look away.” In another text message conversation, two days before the January 6 attack, Carlson said, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait.” Carlson added of Trump, “I hate him passionately.” The Fox host said of the Trump presidency, “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. But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/media/fox-news-dominion-filings-reliable-sources/index.html

Will this have an impact on Carlson’s career? Who knows. Generally speaking, while people often like being lied to, they don’t want liars to be honest about that. Tucker’s one hope is that his core audience will ignore mainstream media critiques. However, the one problem is there are a lot of people and other networks in the Conservative Media Complex who are looking for an opportunity to come at the king. And this gives them a lot of ammo. So closed media ecosystems may not be enough to keep this news out.

Update 1: The National Review has decided to land one of the first blows against Carlson with “‘I Hate Him Passionately’: Tucker Carlson Unloads on Trump in Text Messages“–now the question is whether others will follow.

Update 2: Former Fox News personality Eric Bolling has mentioned this on his NewsMax program.

https://www.mediamatters.org/eric-bolling/newsmax-host-attacks-tucker-carlson-following-dominion-revelation-carlson-wrote-he

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53 responses to “Tucker Carlson In Private: “I Hate [Trump] Passionately.””

  1. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    Will this have an impact on Carlson’s career?

    I suppose this depends on the portion of his audience that actually gets information outside Fox and the rest of the right wing nut-o-sphere, who won’t report any of this. I suspect that portion is quite small.

    1
  2. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    If you get all your “news” from The Gateway Pundit, The Conservative Tree House, OANN, and Newsmax, you won’t know about any of this.

    4
  3. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    @MarkedMan & @CSK:
    I think both of you underestimate the degree to which OANN and Newsmax want to take viewers from Fox. As with most networks, they are anything but one happy family. And we know from the filings that Fox News was allowing some of this to go on out of fear of losing viewers to them.

    Likewise, the Daily Caller is competition for a number of those sites. I suspect that this could be a case where a lot of people get the chance to demonstrate that, unlike them, Carlson isn’t a true believer.

    I’ve been wrong about a lot of things, so take this with a grain of salt–but I suspect that once one of them starts to go after Carlson, a lot of other folks will follow.

    5
  4. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    Fake news about Faux News.

  5. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    This is good:

    morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/tuckers-firehose-of-lies-and-hypocrisy

  6. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    Here we often debate whether particular conservative figures are “true believers” or just grifters, but I’ve noticed there’s never been any question among us about Carlson. Maybe it’s because some of us remember his days at Crossfire, where he was still a right-wing dipshit, but not someone who regularly made utterly moronic statements like that Jill Biden going by “Dr.” will risk lives during a medical emergency. Or maybe it’s because his whole demeanor carries a sense of falseness, from his forced laughter to his constipated look when listening to a guest rattle on about the vaccine holocaust or the imminent dangers of weed. Actually, he’s hardly alone in this tendency, even compared with other networks (Chris Cuomo has always done that sort of thing). I think it might be partially a consequence of living in the age of memes, so that TV personalities make a habit of holding to certain facial expressions for longer than looks natural because they’re conscious of how they’ll come out in still shots. Whatever the reason, Tucker always looks like he’s playing a part. Which he is, of course, but pundits are usually more subtle. And he’s the most successful TV host by far right now, and has played a big role in amplifying some of the biggest lies on the right. To us he comes off as painfully insincere, but his fans apparently see him very differently. When you’ve got that level of delusion, you’re not likely to be swayed by a few transcripts reported by the fake news press.

    7
  7. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    Personally, I think that Democrats and others should flood the Fox News airwaves for a whole variety of issues and while discussing their issues, make loud and clear references to the Dominion case, to the texts and memos and generally call out Fox News to their faces. In other words, don’t be polite guests. And when the wailing and gnashing of teeth occur, laugh in their faces, mock them, and when they don’t receive invitations anymore, accuse them of cancelling and silencing.

    13
  8. steve Avatar
    steve

    When a cult says the aliens will land March 1st and they dont what happens? They reset the date, they dont leave the cult. Maybe the guy loses a few viewers but most will find a way to believe this is not true. They will believe all of the stuff released about the Dominion suit is a lie.

    Steve

    15
  9. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    From the wingnut perspective, he’s done nothing so bad that kissing the Orange Ass’ ass in pubic won’t fix.

  10. daryl and his brother darryl Avatar
    daryl and his brother darryl

    Dominion clearly has a strong case…I doubt they need to keep putting this stuff out there…But I have no doubt that they are enjoying it.

    3
  11. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    @Kathy: That typo and the picture it conjures is hard to unsee.

    3
  12. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    @Joe:

    What typo?

    I sometimes fail with apostrophes appended to words ending in “s”. Should it have been the “Orange Ass’s ass?”

  13. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    Me in private, “I try not to hate… but I loathe Trump and Carlson, because they both lie to make money and accumulate power.” In fact, that is also my public stance.

    4
  14. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @Matt Bernius:

    Sure, but what I wrote was that OANN etc. kept silent about Carlson. If they wanted to steal viewers from Fox, they would have broadcast Carlson’s malfeasance far and wide.

    1
  15. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    @Matt Bernius:

    I wonder how much employees of news networks talk to those of other news networks.

    Back when we presented proposals and attended meetings in person, there was a lot of socializing with the competition. One had to be guarded when talking business, which invariably came up. Occasionally someone slipped and let out some useful tidbit or two.

    One semi-safe subject was to complain about the government agencies methods and procedures. If a dislike for Benito and his so-called administration is widespread, even among the GQP propaganda organs, then Tucker and his coworkers must know how the others really feel, and some of what they have said. Given the prevalence of smartphones, not to mention actual running TV cameras at press conferences and other events, they may even have audio and video of such things.

    So, if one starts to beat Fox over their true feelings for the Orange Clown, Fox may beat back in return.

    That would be fun.

  16. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @Kathy: An “s” after an apostrophe in a word ending in “s” is optional. I used to tell my students that if apostrophe s/s apostrophe was confusing to them to just always use apostrophe s.
    […]

    I would care more about Carlson’s loathing of FG if it corresponded to a loathing of the things the GOP accomplished under FG, but it would appear that his take on accomplishments is that there weren’t enough, so aparently, there are still rights to trample, people to shun, transes to detrans, and so on.

    1
  17. al Ameda Avatar
    al Ameda

    @Scott:

    Personally, I think that Democrats and others should flood the Fox News airwaves for a whole variety of issues and while discussing their issues, make loud and clear references to the Dominion case, to the texts and memos and generally call out Fox News to their faces. In other words, don’t be polite guests. And when the wailing and gnashing of teeth occur, laugh in their faces, mock them, and when they don’t receive invitations anymore, accuse them of cancelling and silencing.

    This times 1,000
    This is an offshoot of ‘When they go low … we do what we have to do’

    4
  18. inhumans99 Avatar
    inhumans99

    Unfortunately, I do not think this will hurt Tucker, at least in the immediate future. Yesterday, it was revealed that he started to release cherry-picked footage from the 01/06 info given to him by McCarthy (very irresponsibly provided to him by Kevin McCarthy), and of course he added his commentary to the footage. It earned him a rare mini-blast of criticism from other Republican Members of Congress.

    If shit like the above does not finally get certain members of the GOP Base to turn on Tucker, nothing will.

    I always wonder what will happen if the GOP Base catches the dog, so to speak, so many members of the Base seem to be okay with GOP members who want to give themselves Hussein or Castro like control over this country, a country where I could be walking from my car to enter Safeway, and someone could abruptly stop me and ask me for my papers or ask some questions that I better have the answer they are looking for or else I could end up in prison or worse.

    DeSantis seems to getting away with becoming a dictator of Florida, but I just can’t help but think that with so many don’t tread on me type individuals in this country, those folks would loathe this country being ruled by an Authoritarian like figure with a white hot passion. The problem is that this way of running the country may have to actually happen in order for them to turn on the modern GOP party and burn it down to start anew.

    5
  19. daryl and his brother darryl Avatar
    daryl and his brother darryl

    Kevin McCarthy justified trading 40,000 of security footage of Jan. 6 to Carlson in exchange for the Speakership by saying;

    “What I want to do exactly is give transparency to everybody, and everybody can make up their own conclusion”

    WT actual F?
    This isn’t a matter of opinion.
    There was a violent insurrection that was the last ditch effort of a months long attempt to overthrow the Government.
    Period.

    7
  20. Mikey Avatar
    Mikey

    @Kathy:

    What typo?

    Not anything to do with an apostrophe…lol

    kissing the Orange Ass’ ass in pubic

    5
  21. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    @just nutha: If you would normally pronounce the s after the apostrophe, put it there. If you would not, don’t. No, Kathy, that was not it.

    1
  22. gVOR08 Avatar
    gVOR08

    @Mikey: Whoops. I have to admit I read right past that. I have on occasion carefully proof read something I wrote a couple times. Then I pick it up the next morning and some glaring typo jumps right out.

    @Joe: I think Strunk and White said something to the effect of write it like you’d say it.

  23. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    What @steve: said. Though I would have managed to turn it into six paragraphs.

    3
  24. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Though I would have managed to turn it into six paragraphs.

    It me.

    2
  25. Skookum Avatar
    Skookum

    @Kathy: Yes. My maiden name is Burns. So I often have to type Burns’s. For some reason, I grimace when I do so.

  26. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @Michael Reynolds: It’s easier for him to be brief though. He didn’t have to add all the baggage about cults and white supremacist evangelicals and imaginary sky daddies and understanding plot and character.

    3
  27. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @just nutha:
    I know! Plus he didn’t find a way to make it all about himself. Amateur.

    11
  28. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    Generally speaking, while people often like being lied to, they don’t want liars to be honest about that.

    From Sin City:

    Power don’t come from a badge or a gun. Power comes from lying. Lying big, and gettin’ the whole damn world to play along with you.

    I’ve found this statement from a comic book (and then a movie) explains the right-wing’s relationship with truth better than anything else.

    They will welcome him back, because they want him to lie for them. The movement is stronger than him, and stronger than his viewers. The viewers want Tucker to bend his knee, just as they bend their knee. There is no “truth,” just a performance that oks their hate.

    5
  29. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    @Mikey:
    @Joe:

    I see.

    I tend to miss such things more each day. I need a smarter spell checker. One that knows what I mean to say.

  30. Mu Yixiao Avatar
    Mu Yixiao

    @just nutha:

    An “s” after an apostrophe in a word ending in “s” is optional. I used to tell my students that if apostrophe s/s apostrophe was confusing to them to just always use apostrophe s.

    I’m reminded of a line from “Castle” about a family named Cacias.

    “Oh! That’s hard to make plural possessive. ‘The Caciases’s party was well attended’.”

    (Note to moderators: The site let me attempt to post without name & e-mail entered, and didn’t throw up an error.)

  31. dazedandconfused Avatar
    dazedandconfused

    @steve:

    Precisely.

    The cult will surely remain but Tucker may not. Recall the case of Glenn Beck. He was big stuff until he committed the cardinal sin of asking his mobs to stop carrying racist signs. FOX had no choice but to ditch him. There is a distinct possibility Tucker has committed one in the revelation he was privately bad-mouthing the Dear Leader. Have to wait and see.

    1
  32. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @Mu Yixiao:No, it’s not. (ETA:) Castle is clearly wrong on this. “The Cacias family party was well attended.” Using “family” signals both possession and plurality. I realize that no one actually says this, but lack of used and difficulty are separate issues. 😀

  33. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @Joe: That’s another approach that works, but my remedial English college students used to tell me that rule is just as confusing as apostrophe s/s apostrophe. Remedial students may well be driving the change in grammar a lot of the time.

    1
  34. JohnSF Avatar
    JohnSF

    @Gustopher:
    Like the culture of the Power of the Lie in Sovietised Europe; enforced belief in a known lie.
    Or, on the other hand, a recent article (probably link from here) by a US political commentator:
    the power of the “shared tribal lie”.
    His thesis: a lot of the wingosphere audience know full well it’s all BS, but don’t care so long as it pwns the libs.
    Either way, tribal and/or compulsion, it’s ultimately about power, about FORCE.
    And if you want my bit of worthless cod political psychology, the embrace of force is driven by a core of sheer soul-eating fear.

    3
  35. dazedandconfused Avatar
    dazedandconfused

    @Michael Reynolds:

    A question. I once read from an old psy-ops manual from the 50s (looked for it again but can’t find it…trust me on this) that had a surprising (to me) part cautioning against using true believers to craft propaganda. The shrinks who wrote it described the problem thus (nutshell version): True believers lack the necessary creativity to make the really good stuff…and will demand you use their really bad stuff.

    Aside from being a possible explanation forf Tucker feeling free to express his true thoughts to his bosses, I wondered how that thought strikes a professional writer.

    4
  36. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @JohnSF:

    Like the culture of the Power of the Lie in Sovietised Europe; enforced belief in a known lie.

    It’s far more fun to quote Sin City than Czeslaw Milos’s The Captive Mind, plus Frank Miller just said it better.

    I’m convinced that some people have a very different relationship to the notion of truth than others, and that this is a cultural thing in the US that sorts along educational and ideological lines. Or as Michael Reynolds has sometimes said (paraphrasing) “we aren’t teaching people how to think (blah, blah, blah, religion, blah)”

    “Truth” in some circles is closer to a shared myth. If you pay homage to the myth, if you are subservient to the myth, you are one of them. Actual belief in the myth… eh, that’s optional.

    And then you have the ones who start believing the myth literally…

    4
  37. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @Skookum: My actual last name does not have an s at the end, but the most common form of it does, and I spend half my time saying, “XXXXXXX. No, without the “s”. No, no “s”. Just like this other thing that doesn’t have an s at the end. Really. I’m sure.” So it almost kills me when I have to talk about my family in the plural. I write it as XXXXXXX’s even though I know that is incorrect.

  38. JohnSF Avatar
    JohnSF

    @Gustopher:

    And then you have the ones who start believing the myth literally…

    Well anyone can make a mythtake.
    😉

    5
  39. JohnSF Avatar
    JohnSF

    @just nutha:
    The Corleone family party was even more well attended: he sent them an invite they couldn’t refuse.
    🙂

    2
  40. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @dazedandconfused:

    True believers lack the necessary creativity to make the really good stuff…and will demand you use their really bad stuff.

    I’ve been trying to find a way to summarize many of my concerns on messaging, and this hits the nail. A good propagandist has to be free to appear to have some distance. The gettables can’t be gotten by people who are going to parse every word and vette every statement against some inerrant headcanon defined by Twitter.

    3
  41. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @Gustopher:

    blah, blah, blah, religion, blah

    Now, why say you’re paraphrasing, and then quote me verbatim?

    5
  42. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    @dazedandconfused:

    Recall the case of Glenn Beck.

    What’s really funny is Glenn Beck originally started as a local radio guy in my area as basically as Howard Stern knock-off before he came up with his current “character”. I remember the day he went national and it was legit like he’d been replaced by a completely different person over the weekend.

  43. JohnSF Avatar
    JohnSF

    @Michael Reynolds:
    Just a thoughtlet, sparked by looking at both this convo and the one on “Democrats and the Center”: at the mo’ seems to me the Republicans are far more insistent on “thou shalt worship at the shrine of Trump”, at least in public.
    Democrats OTOH are rather more flexible, up to “like herding cats” values of flexible.
    Can be a problem, but can also be an asset, both in term of “thinking room”, and in order to convincingly say to a doubtful voter, “nah, we ain’t ALL of that opinion”.

    1
  44. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    @Stormy Dragon:

    I remember the day he went national and it was legit like he’d been replaced by a completely different person over the weekend.

    In his case, he was an example of someone who found religion after struggling with drug and alcohol problems and a divorce, and his conversion to Mormonism led him to some of the more conspiratorial, apocalyptic writers, especially W. Cleon Skousen. Beck has always made a point of being something of a performance artist (he once self-described as a “rodeo clown”), which might give the impression he’s just playing a character. But I think there’s some genuine looniness there. I don’t believe it’s just an act in his case.

    1
  45. Flat Earth Luddite Avatar
    Flat Earth Luddite

    @Gustopher:

    And then you have the ones who start believing the myth literally…

    Mindlessly cruising the tube very early a.m. and was struck by a commercial for another show I won’t be watching, which had the catchphrase at the end based on a true myth.

    Which of course immediately took my rabbiting mind back to “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” But then again, ethanol, morphine, and late night tv make an interesting combination.

    So Tuck-Tuck may bemoan the mythic hero he worships in public… but is still his humble servant.

    4
  46. daryl and his brother darryl Avatar
    daryl and his brother darryl

    @Gustopher:
    There are over 4,000 religions in the world today. They all have their own “truth.”
    Indiana Jones: [Lecturing in class]

    Archeology is the search for fact, not truth. If it’s truth you’re interested in, Dr. Tyree’s Philosophy class is right down the hall.

    1
  47. gVOR08 Avatar
    gVOR08

    @daryl and his brother darryl: There is that thing about falsifiability. Try explaining to some people that science is more trustworthy than religion because religion can’t be wrong.

    1
  48. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Gustopher:

    “Truth” in some circles is closer to a shared myth. If you pay homage to the myth, if you are subservient to the myth, you are one of them. Actual belief in the myth… eh, that’s optional.

    And then by random chance I listen to the first episode of Be Podding You, the John Hodgman / Some Other Dude podcast about The Prisoner, where they spend a good chunk of the episode discussing whether the goal was to get information from Number 6, or to just get Number 6 “in formation”. Do they want something from him, or do they just want compliance?

    There have been a number of people who say of the performative cruelty of the Republican Party that the cruelty is the point, but I think the performance might be the point. Get people to degrade themselves for the party — embracing an obvious lie, paying fealty to an obvious fraud, abusing people for no good reason… a collective, public debasement.

    I really wish people would work out their kinks without trying to drag everyone else into it.

    I mean, I get it, Republican have daddy issues because they have the idea that men should be strong and unemotional and the head of the family and never say they love you to their kids… but just hire a dominatrix or something. (Why are men with daddy issues into dominatrices?)

    ObamaCare should mandate coverage for dominatrices as part of the mental health coverage.

    3
  49. Just nutha Avatar
    Just nutha

    @Michael Reynolds: I think that the fact that “true believers” are working from actual belief adds to the problem, propaganda wise. They’re not making anything up; they’re dealing in truth.

    1
  50. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    @gVOR08: Yet another reason to love Strunk & White.

    2
  51. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @gVOR08:

    I think Strunk and White said something to the effect of write it like you’d say it.

    Punctuated with far too many “motherfucker”s?

    2
  52. Chip Daniels Avatar
    Chip Daniels

    In a repressive society, the lie functions as a fig leaf to conceal the anger and cruelty fueling the repression.

    They don’t need to believe it, just to tell themselves they believe it, so as to justify their actions.

  53. Flat Earth Luddite Avatar
    Flat Earth Luddite

    @Gustopher:

    Why are men with daddy issues into dominatrices?

    Yet another doctoral thesis that I refuse to write.

    6

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