Fox News host Tucker Carlson warned his producer in November 2020 that then-President Donald Trump could “easily destroy” the network if it “played it wrong.” The warning, which was revealed in a new court filing on Thursday, came two days after Election Day and was prompted by Fox News’ decision to call the state of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night.
The filing, a 200-page motion for summary judgment in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News, featured multiple deposition excerpts and texts from top Fox News figures, including Carlson, Sean Hannity, Rupert Murdoch, and others.
“We worked really hard to build what we have,” Carlson texted his producer, Alex Pfeiffer, on November 5, 2020, according to the filing. Referring to colleagues who projected the results, Carlson texted: “Those fuckers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me.”
Carlson added that he had spoken with fellow prime-time commentators Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity minutes earlier and that they were “highly upset.”
“At this point we’re getting hurt no matter what,” he wrote, according to the filing.
Pfeiffer replied that “many on ‘our side’ are being reckless demagogues right now.”
“Of course they are,” Carlson wrote. “We’re not going to follow them.”
Carlson went on to say that Trump was good at “destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”
At another point the same day, Carlson texted that “we’ve got to be incredibly careful right now. We could get hurt.” It’s unclear who the recipient of the message was.
Dominion became a focal point for Trumpworld’s election-related conspiracy theories shortly after Election Day 2020. “By November 11, Sean Hannity recognized the critical role the Dominion fraud narrative would play in winning back viewers,” Thursday’s filing said.
“In one week and one debate they destroyed a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable,” Hannity told Carlson and Ingraham on November 12, a week after the Arizona call.
“It’s vandalism,” Carlson replied, according to the filing.
The host also grew angry when a Fox News reporter fact-checked a Trump tweet accusing Dominion of election fraud. The reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, wrote in response to Trump’s tweet that top election officials had determined “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
Carlson dropped Heinrich’s tweet into a group chat with Ingraham and Hannity, per the filing, and told Hannity: “Please get her fired. Seriously….What the fuck?…It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”
One of Ingraham’s producers, Tommy Firth, struck a more blunt tone.
“This dominion shit is going to give me a fucking aneurysm — as many times as I’ve told Laura it’s bs, she sees shit posters and trump tweeting about it,” Firth wrote to Ron Mitchell, a Fox executive overseeing Ingraham’s show, according to a partially redacted text featured in the filing.
Dominion sued Fox News for defamation in March 2021, alleging that the network pushed conspiracy theories about the company in an effort to win back dissatisfied viewers following Trump’s loss in the election.
“As a result of the false accusations broadcast by Fox into millions of American homes, Dominion has suffered unprecedented harm and its employees’ lives have been put in danger,” Dominion’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said Dominion’s case is a threat to free speech and that the company misrepresented the evidence it collected.
The case of Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News is a sobering reminder of the power of media to shape public opinion. It shows how Fox News, with its powerful hosts and its significant influence over the Republican base, was able to sway public opinion in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election.
It also demonstrates the importance of holding media outlets accountable for their reporting and their responsibilities to their viewers. The fact that Fox News was willing to entertain conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems shows that the network was willing to sacrifice its credibility in the pursuit of higher ratings and profits.
Ultimately, this case shows how powerful media can be in influencing public opinion and how important it is to ensure that media outlets are held to a high standard of truth and accuracy.
