The day before Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation trial against Fox News was due to begin in a Delaware courthouse, Fox’s board of directors and top executives made a startling discovery that led to the breaking point between the network and Tucker Carlson, one of its top stars.
In private messages from Mr. Carlson that had been redacted in legal documents revealed that he made highly offensive and crude remarks that went beyond the inflammatory, often racist remarks of his primetime show and anything that was revealed leading up to the trial.
Despite the fact that Fox’s litigators had had these reports for months, the board of directors and some senior executives now learned their details for the first time, which two experts say sparked a crisis at the highest level of the company. discussions.
The discovery put further pressure on Fox’s leadership as it tried to find a way to avoid a trial that would see Mr Carlson – not to mention so many others on the network – questioned about the content of the private messages they exchanged in the aftermath of the attack. the 2020 presidential election.
Two days after the board’s discovery, Fox settled that case for $787.5 million, believed to be the highest amount for a libel suit.
Several people with knowledge of Fox’s discussions said the redacted posts were a catalyst for one of the most momentous decisions Fox and its leaders – the father-son team of Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch – had made in years: to cut ties with the host of their highest-rated and highly profitable primetime program and a face of the network in the Trump era.
The company fired him Monday with a call from Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott.
Ultimately, according to one of those with knowledge of the internal discussions, Lachlan Murdoch viewed Mr. Carlson’s forced departure as a “business decision,” just as he did with the Dominion settlement.
Fox had no comment beyond the initial statement announcing that “Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways.”
Mr Carlson and Bryan Freedman, a lawyer representing him, did not respond to requests for comment. On Wednesday night, Mr Carlson posted a video to Twitter, showing him speaking publicly for the first time since he was pushed out. Mr Carlson did not comment on his departure from Fox, but spoke out against “completely irrelevant” debates on TV, saying: “Both political parties and their donors have agreed on what benefits them and they are actively working together to stop talking about it.”
He added: “When honest people calmly and without embarrassment say what is true, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who have tried to silence them are shrinking. They are getting weaker.”
It is unclear why the Fox board and other executives were not aware of the content of the redacted posts until just before the trial, which focused on whether Fox News was knowingly making false claims about Dominion and had broadcasted his voting machines. Unredacted portions of the documents, including some in which Mr. Carlson mocked former President Donald J. Trump, were widely reported in the weeks leading up to the trial.
The board considered bringing in an outside law firm to investigate the top-rated host, concerned about the damage Mr. Carlson’s conduct could do even beyond the Dominion case, the two people said.
By the time the board saw the redacted material, Lachlan Murdoch was already moving to find an out-of-court settlement with Dominion after giving his negotiators the go-ahead to increase Fox’s offer to the company, according to a of the people. briefed on the talks.
Company executives have indicated that a variety of factors contributed to the decision to appoint Mr. Carlson after Fox stood by him for years as he sparked protests and advertiser boycotts for trafficking conspiracy theories and stories of white complaints. But they acknowledge that the discovery of what was in the redacted text messages was a major factor in his eventual firing.
The role the messages – produced in the Dominion discovery process – played in ending Mr. Carlson at Fox demonstrates the seriousness of the damage the lawsuit has done to the company. Fox was repeatedly battered by damaging revelations during the trial. Had it settled much earlier in the process, the company could have avoided handing over Mr. Carlson’s messages and those of others, including the personal accounts of both Murdochs.
Over the past two years, the Murdochs’ patience has begun to run thin, people familiar with their complaints said. Mr. Carlson emerged as an almost inexplicable figure who caused new headaches with conspiracy theory programming, including falsely portraying the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol as possibly orchestrated by the federal government. As the Dominion case headed to trial, he told audiences last month that the rioting was in fact a peaceful exercise, using security footage that Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy had provided exclusively to Mr. Carlson. datum.
While statements on his show represented only a small portion of the Dominion lawsuit, the revelations related to his posts took on an outsized role and contributed to the company’s public relations woes.
It is remarkable that even compared to the extreme rhetoric Mr. Carlson was allowed to use on the air, the messages that were made public had the capacity to shock. In one, he referenced attorney Sidney Powell, a strong proponent of the debunked theory that the Dominion machines switched votes, with a crude and misogynistic reproach. Among the cache of redacted messages was one in which he used similar vulgarity to describe a senior Fox News executive, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
A person familiar with the contents of the redacted material said one of the posts was particularly offensive, adding to the concerns of the company’s top management. The Times has not seen the contents of the message.
Dominion attorneys planned to pressure the judge to use the contents of the redacted messages in their questioning of Mr. Carlson. The lawyers prepared dozens of possible questions for the host, along with hypothetical retorts they believed Mr. Carlson could use to distract the toughest of them. And they intended to pin him down to those who were most demeaning to women. The two sides had differing views on whether many or some of Mr. Carlson’s unredacted posts would be seen in court — a difference that would have been resolved at trial by the Delaware’s chairman, Eric M. Davis Superior Court.
However, the settlement of the Dominion case has not put an end to the threat posed by the messages. The New York Times, The Associated Press and National Public Radio have challenged the redaction, meaning they could still go public.
And Mr. Carlson’s rashness has further exposed him. Given how polarizing he’s been both inside and outside of Fox News, more evidence of embarrassing and inappropriate behavior could emerge. In video obtained by The Times, for example, Mr. Carlson is shown off-camera discussing his “post-menopausal fans” and whether they’ll be okay with the way he looks on air. In another video, he is overheard describing a woman he likes.
His lyrics could also play a role in a pending defamation lawsuit brought against Fox by the software company Smartmatic — often paired with Dominion in the wildest versions of the stolen election conspiracy theory — as well as a lawsuit filed by a former Carlson. producer, Abby Grossberg, about a hostile and discriminatory work environment.
All of this was in the mix when the network finally axed Mr. Carlson’s program this week, according to several people familiar with the internal discussions. And the end of its run followed a pattern.
His unannounced departure made Mr. Carlson to the latest in a list of prominent hosts and executives Fox has decided to open the door once the Murdochs concluded they were no longer worth bothering: Glenn Beck (2011), Sarah Palin (2013), Roger Ailes, the fellow network founder (2016) and Bill O’Reilly (2017).
Despite the political clout he was able to wield and the money his top-rated show brought in for the network, Mr. Carlson eventually said he was serving the Murdochs.
Their decision was ultimately as quick and unsentimental as the two-paragraph statement the network sent announcing his resignation: “We thank him for his service.”
Kate Robertson, Nicholas Confessor And Michael M. Grynbaum reporting contributed.
