Tucker Carlson’s Racist Text Message Probably Wasn’t Why He Was Fired

His text message doesn’t contain anything that he hasn’t said or at least insinuated on his former Fox News telecast.

by Bob Cesca

WASHINGTON, DC – I have a theory about the text message that allegedly got Tucker Carlson fired from Fox News. I’ll get to that in a second. 

In case you haven’t heard, Tucker was fired from Fox News (I still love typing that) apparently due to a text message acquired by Dominion Voting Systems during the discovery phase of its now-settled lawsuit against the network. The text message was redacted but some observers speculated that, in the text, Tucker was bashing a Fox executive.

On Tuesday, however, the New York Times acquired the content of the message, and it had nothing to do with a Fox executive.

The message in question was sent by Tucker at around 4:18 pm eastern, the day after the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

“A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?”

Regardless of how much Tucker claimed to regret wishing for the so-called “Antifa creep” to be murdered in the street, it doesn’t forgive his ludicrous racism.

Apparently, Tucker believes white men fight with honor, while non-whites fight dishonorably. I’m not even sure what that means. Is he suggesting that white people pull their punches? Do they hang back when their opponent is down? Of course this is all white supremacist horseshit. Fights are fights. Assaults are assaults. Judging by the myriad white police officers who’ve murdered Black people in cold blood, I’m having a hard time imagining this honorable brand of white guy violence.

Besides, what does Tucker know about fist fights? I don’t imagine many fights breaking out among the DC media docksiders-and-khakis cocktail party circuit. Although Peggy Noonan has been known to destroy bartenders who cut her off too soon. I mean, it’s possible Tucker got the shit kicked out of him a few times, but given his background and acquaintances, how many fights has he observed? Not nearly enough to make such a comparison. But experience is unimportant to obvious racists like Tucker.

Nevertheless, Tucker’s text message doesn’t really contain anything that he hasn’t said or at least insinuated on his former Fox News telecast…which leads me to my theory.

Go back and re-read the text message, but imagine it being delivered in Tucker’s whiny plaintive voice, complete with that vacant stare of his. Sounds like a script, doesn’t it? I believe this might’ve been the first draft of something he planned to say on his show. Perhaps his showrunner or other Fox News staffers objected to its overt racism and so it was never fed to the prompters for his show that night.

I also don’t think this was the text that got Tucker fired. Guys like Tucker don’t get fired for blurting racist things privately, especially when those things are redacted from public view. And, again, it’s nothing he hadn’t already implied on his show. Perhaps there was a behind-the-scenes argument over him reading this on his show, leading to Tucker referring to someone on his team as c**t, one of his favorite obscenities, or similar in a separate text exchange and that’s why he was fired. 

It’s difficult to tell, obviously, but this particular text message doesn’t seem like the thing we’re looking for.

Tucker will probably end up landing on Newsmax or Rumble where he’ll once again walk right up to the n-word line, perhaps even crossing it. In other words, whether he was fired for this text or not, he still has a metric ton of racism in him – or at least enough that can be fed into his prompter – to last a lifetime.

NOTE FROM BEN: My take in the Banter Members section this week is the exact opposite of Bob’s. Get a free trial and read it below (there’s also an interesting debate kicking off in the comments section too!):

Tucker Carlson's Racism Was Always Real

Shocking text messages reveal Tucker Carlson really is an abhorrent racist, and it might have cost Fox News $787 million.

by Ben Cohen

I’ve always wondered whether Tucker Carlson’s nightly racism was real or just performance art to keep his audience entertained. I suspected it probably was legitimate, but not anywhere near as pronounced as Carlson pretended.

I’ve always pegged the former Fox host as more manipulative sociopath than heartfelt White Nationalist, but a new shocking text from the Dominion/Fox News lawsuit proves otherwise.

Tucker Carlson, it turns out, is a deeply malevolent narcissist and a genuine racist.

The story that was broken by the New York Times yesterday is stunning on a number of levels. Not only does it expose Carlson’s appalling racism, it provides a compelling explanation for why Fox settled with Dominion so quickly, and reveals why Carlson was axed almost immediately after. It also begs the important question: who is leaking these extremely damaging text messages, and why?

According to the Times, a text message Carlson sent to an unknown producer “set off a panic at the highest levels of Fox on the eve of its billion-dollar defamation trial”. For Fox to be worried about something Tucker Carlson said going public means it must have been really, really bad. And oh boy, it was.

Read the rest here.