Tucker Carlson ex-producer calls Fox News viewers ‘cousin-f**king terrorists’
Several Fox News producers called their audience ‘dumb’ and ‘terrorists.’ (Getty)
A former producer of Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show has hit out at its viewers, describing them as “especially dumb” and “cousin f***ing types”.
As part of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox organisation by Dominion Voting Systems, millions of private messages between associates were published, where the comments were made.
Several Fox News employees reportedly said that Tucker Carlson’s association with election deniers was like “negotiating with terrorists.”
Dominion Voting Systems filed the defamation suit following accusations by members of the Republican party who accused the company of election fraud during the 2020 US presidential race, which Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.
Former Fox Corporation executive Raj Shah, among other employees, criticised the media company’s association with the president’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Following his speech at the Republican National Committee in November 2020, Shah texted employees saying he sounded “so f**king crazy.”
“He objectively looks like he was a dead person voting two weeks ago,” he wrote, referencing the false claim purported that Joe Biden’s campaign was using dead voters to win the election.
The messages suggest that, despite pushing the election fraud conspiracy several times on air, both Carlson and Shah believed they were false.
“Might wanna address this, but this stuff is so f**king insane. Vote rigging to the tune of millions? C’mon,” he wrote.
One of Carlson’s producers, former Fox employee Alex Pfeiffer, wrote back saying that the claims made by lawyer Sydney Powell were “insane” but said it had to be addressed because “our viewers believe it.”
“This whole thing is surreal. Like negotiating with terrorists, but especially dumb ones.
“Cousin-f**king types, not Saudi royalty,” he said.
Pfeiffer also pointed out that Dominion Voting Systems was used in ballot counts for Ohio and Florida – both of which predominantly voted for Donald Trump.
“Did they forget to rig those or all part of the plan?” he joked.
When discussing a baseless claim that Powell was in possession of an affidavit linking Dominion to Venezuela, the group of employees decided to evade mentioning the claim, calling it “stupid,” but because their viewers believed it, it “might insult them.”
Many have argued that Fox’s coverage of the election fraud conspiracy was a major contributor to the atmosphere that would eventually culminate in the 6 January Capitol riots in 2021.
In March 2023, Carlson used surveillance footage from the US Capitol insurrection, downplaying the events as a “peaceful” protest and describing insurrectionists as “sightseers.”
“Taken as a whole, the video record does not support the claim that January 6 was an insurrection,” he claimed.
“in fact, it demolishes that claim.”
He then once again pushed the claim that he believed the 2020 election to have been fraudulent, despite court documents proving Fox News executives believed otherwise.
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