The fallout from Tucker Carlson’s dismissal from Fox News continues as a new set of unredacted texts from the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case were made available. They feature communications between Carlson and 7 p.m. host Jesse Watters.
In texts from Nov. 13, 2020, Watters suggests to Carlson that the network should replace certain Fox News personalities with people from Donald Trump‘s circles.
“Wallace, Cavuto and other [sic] have got to go. Need some fresh blood. Should hire some trump people,” he wrote.
Chris Wallace and Neil Cavuto were (and in Cavuto’s case continue to be) part of the news side of Fox News’ operations. To Carlson and Watters, having them on air was considered a liability, especially during the period right after the 2020 election, as Fox News viewers were leaving the network after having correctly reported the election outcome, which showed Joe Biden was to be the next U.S. president.
Having people from the “Trump world,” as Watters suggested, would have been seen as a way of making nice with those viewers.
Carlson, meanwhile, was letting his feelings known about Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, telling Watters, “This girl apparently works for us in the ‘news’ division, though I’d be stunned if she’s ever broken a story.”
Upset by Heinrich’s social media postings, Carlson added, “She was on Twitter last night calling out Hannity, and accusing Trump of planning to ‘steal’ the election. Can’t continue.”
The latest set of unredacted texts that The Daily Beast’s Confider revealed also contain communication between Carlson and political anchor Bret Baier, where the two discuss how Fox News’ accurate call of the Arizona results could potentially destroy the network.
Another set of texts reveals Carlson and fellow primetime anchor Laura Ingraham communicating about former reporter Leland Vittert‘s election coverage, with Carlson’s controversial take on it, saying that it was “like a BLM riot: the people who add nothing get to destroy everything.”
Fox News, for its part, is not specifically commenting on these latest unredacted text messages but is instead working to uncover the source of the leaks. Last week, the network’s legal team sent letters to lawyers for Dominion asking them to probe whether the leaked communications were coming from them.