A new bombshell text sent by ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson was published by The New York Times on Tuesday that reportedly was the catalyst to his ouster from the network in which he spewed more of his racist vitriol. But “The View” host Sunny Hostin just isn’t buying that idea, considering “Fox knew” about his racism.
In the text, which was written the day after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Carlson wrote about an apparent desire to support a group of Trump supporters, who “surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living s–t out of him.”
“Suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him,” Carlson wrote. “I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be.”
He noted that “jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously,” and is “not how white men fight.” According to the Times, the text alarmed Fox executives so severely that they launched an immediate investigation into Carlson’s conduct, which in turn led to his firing. But Hostin thinks that’s an outright lie.
“For me, I think what was most interesting is that Fox knew this about him,” Hostin said. “When people show you who they are, you believe them the first time. He spoke about this replacement theory, which is a bigoted, racist theory about people being replaced by immigrants in this country — and it’s a fear mongering tactic — over 400 times. And Fox was perfectly fine with that.”
She continued, “All of a sudden, you mean to tell me that this one text comes out where he says, ‘It’s not how white men fight,’ and then they go, ‘Oh no, he’s a racist! We can have him on our television show.’ I don’t think that’s true. I think it was the almost $800 million that spoke to them. I don’t think they’re good corporate citizens.”
Meanwhile, host Alyssa Farah Griffin thought the text illuminated something different about Carlson.
“You see his conscience barely kicking in,” she said. “And I think it just reveals that the most powerful man in cable news for the last however many years is somebody who’s deeply grappling with both racism and an internal battle for his soul, and how many people he was able to influence and radicalize is scary.”
You can watch the full segment from “The View” in the video above.