Carlson admitted in the message that he realized he was becoming someone he did not want to be, adding that he shouldn’t gloat over the suffering of another human being. The text message also revealed that Fox News executives were made aware of the messages before the trial began last month and were concerned that it could come to light in the proceedings. The settlement, which was the largest ever in a defamation case, allowed Carlson and other Fox staff to avoid answering questions about those texts while under oath.
Critics of Carlson have repeatedly accused him of promoting white nationalist talking points and downplaying white nationalist violence on his show. Carlson was abruptly ousted from the network last week, and people familiar with his firing told The Los Angeles Times that Rupert Murdoch himself made the call to fire Carlson, partly due to the host’s conspiracy theories about the 2021 riots at the Capitol, which he regularly amplified on his show.
