Tucker Carlson on Friday called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “destroyer” — the same word the Fox News host used in private to describe Donald Trump after he sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Carlson, whose private exchanges about election deniers have recently been made public, appeared upset over Zelenskyy’s public image, stating that the foreign leader has done his best to “get your sons to Ukraine to die on behalf his country.”
“He’s not a hero. He’s an antihero. He’s a destroyer,” Carlson said.
The term “destroyer” had reportedly been used by the host in a text message to producer Alex Pfeiffer after the deadly Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
The Fox News host had also described Trump as “a demonic force” — before adding, “But he’s not going to destroy us.”
That exchange was included in a 192-page court filing regarding Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News, whose stars privately criticized people promoting voter fraud lies about the 2020 election yet continued to spread falsehoods on the air.
The network, in a statement to The New York Times, claimed Dominion had “mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.”
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