By DAVID BAUDER and NICHOLAS RICCARDI (Associated Press Writers)
NEW YORK (AP) — A defamation lawsuit is revealing scornful behind-the-scenes opinions by Fox News figures about Donald Trump, together with a Tucker Carlson textual content message declaring, “I hate him passionately.”
Carlson’s non-public textual content feedback had been revealed in court docket papers at just about the identical time the previous president was hailing the Fox News host on social media. Trump stated he was doing a “great job” in presenting excerpts of U.S. Capitol safety video of the Jan. 6, 2021, revolt — although Carlson used the video to supply a false narrative of the assault.
The paperwork are coming to gentle at a time of elevated stress between Trump and Fox, the dominant media pressure interesting to conservatives, as he campaigns to regain the presidency.
Voting machine producer Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion, claiming the community broadcast false claims that the corporate was answerable for fraud within the 2020 presidential election. The case is to go to trial this spring, and a trove of paperwork associated to Fox’s actions after the election are being publicly launched upfront.
A typical theme rising from the inner paperwork and depositions is that Fox executives and hosts doubted the election claims being peddled by Trump and his allies, however aired and emphasised them anyway. Fox was rising involved a few decline in viewership as Trump supporters turned away from the community after it — appropriately — referred to as Joe Biden the presidential winner in Arizona on election evening.
The exchanges embrace Carlson’s textual content dialog on Jan. 4, 2021, with an unknown particular person, by which the prime-time host expressed anger towards Trump.
Carlson stated that “we are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights” and that “I truly can’t wait.”
Carlson stated he had little question there was fraud within the 2020 election, however that Trump and his attorneys had so discredited their case — and media figures like himself — “that it’s infuriating. Absolutely enrages me.”
Federal and state officers, courts, exhaustive opinions in battleground states and Trump’s lawyer basic discovered no widespread fraud that would have modified the end result of the 2020 election, though Trump continues to falsely state that the presidency was stolen from him.
Addressing Trump’s 4 years as president, Carlson stated, “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 really isn’t an upside to Trump.”
In one other textual content alternate greater than a month earlier, Carlson denigrated Trump’s enterprise skills: Trump’s expertise, he stated, is to “destroy things. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”
Publicly, Fox viewers heard very totally different views, comparable to a 2017 alternate with colleague Greg Gutfeld by which Carlson agreed that Trump was “the greatest president that ever will be.” On his present in 2019, Carlson stated Trump had fought as onerous as he may to ensure everybody in America was handled equally underneath the regulation.
“You can say what you really believe in public,” Carlson stated then. “You’re an American citizen. That is your right.” Trump may lose in 2020, he added, “but he’ll be a genuinely great president.”
Fox, in response to the court docket displays quoting Carlson that had been launched late Tuesday, stated that “Dominion has been caught red handed using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear Fox News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press. We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale.”
Carlson has continued rolling out safety video from the Capitol assault, footage handed to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. For that, Trump stated on his social media platform, “congratulations to Tucker Carlson on one of the biggest ‘scoops’ as a reporter in U.S. history.”
The selective launch of the footage to sway the historic account has drawn criticism, together with from Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday referred to as on Fox to cease spreading election lies, which he stated was eroding belief in American democracy.
Fox’s founder, Rupert Murdoch, has a fancy relationship with Trump: “I was not close to him,” Murdoch stated in a deposition within the libel lawsuit.
Indeed, although Murdoch acknowledged speaking to Trump sometimes, he stated he additionally sought inside data from Sean Hannity, one in every of his community’s primetime hosts, as a result of Hannity was the closest particular person at Fox to Trump.
Following Trump’s loss in November 2020, Murdoch despaired of the president’s conduct.
“The real danger is what he might do as president,” Murdoch wrote in an e mail to a buddy that month. “Apparently not sleeping and bouncing off walls! Don’t know about Melania, but kids no help.”
But Murdoch instructed his community’s officers that he additionally didn’t wish to “antagonize” Trump: “He had a very large following, and they were probably mostly viewers of Fox, so it would have been stupid,” Murdoch stated in a deposition within the Dominion case.
In separate questioning within the case, Murdoch acknowledged that he believed the 2020 presidential election “ was not stolen.”
On social media just lately, Trump was crucial of Fox when different court docket papers launched within the Dominion case made clear that various the community’s executives and personalities privately believed the election fraud claims had been bunk.
Trump and his workforce even have accused Fox of giving his newest marketing campaign for the presidency little consideration and favoring a possible challenger for the GOP nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Fox and Trump have lengthy had a sophisticated relationship. While he often has used the community to succeed in its viewers, he additionally has been livid at a perceived lack of loyalty, most prominently after the 2020 election.
In a fiery speech on the Conservative Political Action Committee final week, Trump ally Steve Bannon complained that Fox had disrespected the previous president.
“You’ve deemed Trump’s not going to be president,” Bannon stated. “Well, we deem you’re not going to have a network.”
On Saturday afternoon, Fox News aired Trump’s speech to CPAC in its entirety.
___
Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix, Gary Fields and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report, as did information researcher Randy Herschaft in New York.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”