Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he is angry that his private text messages about former President Trump to fellow network employees were made public as part of an ongoing defamation lawsuit facing the company.
“And I think this is in the text, and those were all grabbed completely illegitimately, in my opinion um in this court case, which I guess I’m not allowed to talk about, but I’m enraged that my private texts were pulled,” Carlson said Tuesday during an appearance on WABC Radio.
The top-rated conservative host’s text messages were made public earlier this month as part of a lawsuit brought against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing the conservative media giant for $1.6 billion alleging the media company knowingly aired false claims being made by Trump and his aides following the 2020 election.
In one text exchange with a fellow Fox employee, Carlson said of Trump “I hate him passionately.”
“We are very very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights, I truly can’t wait,” Carlson wrote in a text to an unidentified Fox employee on Jan. 4, 2021, according to a recent court filing by Dominion.
However, Carlson sought to cast the president in a different light during the radio interview this week.
“Oh, let’s see. I spent four years defending his policies and I, I’m going to defend them again tonight,” Carlson said. “And actually, and I’m pretty straight forward, I’m um I love Trump. Like, as a person, I think Trump is funny and insightful.”
“And I said this to Trump when he called me, you know, all wounded about those texts,” he continued. “That was a moment in time where I was absolutely infuriated.”
Fox has argued the text messages between its employees brought to light in the various filings have been “cherry picked” by Dominion to drum up media coverage of the case and it has so far unsuccessfully moved to have the case dismissed on First Amendment grounds.
The hosts comment’s come the same day a judge in Delaware is set to rule on summary judgement ahead of an expected jury trial next month.