MSNBC’s Ari Melber pointed out the “smoking gun” in Tucker Carlson’s private texts, which were revealed in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News this week. (See his segment below.)
The host on Wednesday tore into Carlson, whose texts came to light in the voting machine company’s defamation case claiming Fox News knowingly spread lies about Dominion to prop up Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The texts revealed Carlson passionately expressed “hate” for the former president despite saying the opposite on air.
“They are a smoking gun if I’ve ever seen one in a defamation case,” said Melber, who then played clips of Carlson praising Trump on his Fox News show.
Melber called out Carlson for “basically admitting” in writing that his show is a lie.
“[He’s] confessing to both the fraud of ‘pretending’ he backs Trump in public and the failure of that endeavor, whether that’s measured for himself or Fox News or the whole conservative movement,” Melber said.
He continued: “Tucker Carlson’s secret private view is a reminder of the craven and dangerous lying alliance which props up Trump and whatever happens to him, which can prop up people like Trump in a time of rising authoritarian instincts in our country.”
The MSNBC host continued that Trump’s attack on the election “was so discredited” that it rubbed Carlson the wrong way in private.
“But then he and other hosts, who also showed similar requisite legal knowledge, pushed it on air anyway,” Melber said. “That’s a textbook definition of the charge here, of the civil allegation. It’s a textbook definition of defamation.”
Melber noted that only a jury can find Fox News legally liable for defamation, but gave his 2 cents on text transcripts from Fox stars released thus far.
“This is some of the most overwhelming evidence of legal defamation ever assembled in modern First Amendment law,” Melber said.