Tucker Carlson opened up (sort of) about his leaked text messages which were critical of former President Donald Trump and his lies about the 2020 election in a call-in to Tuesday’s edition of Bo Snerdly’s Rush Hour.
When asked if he liked any of Trump’s policies, Carlson replied, “Bahahahahahahah! Oh, let’s see. I spent four years defending his policies and I – I’m going to defend them again tonight. And actually, and I’m pretty straightforward, I’m – I love Trump. Like, as a person, I think Trump is funny and insightful.”
He went on to say that he was enraged when a staff member on the Trump campaign sent him the names of dead voters who had supposedly voted in the election, and he repeated them on air. He said, “I thought then and I think now that that election was not on the level, it was not a free and fair election. I thought that then. I think it now. And so, I was trying to – I wanted, you know, evidence. I mean, there’s no way the guy got 81 – he got more votes than Barack Obama.”
Snerdly defended Carlson, saying, “People forget this, that we say things. We’re human beings and we can say things in a peak of anger. And at that very moment we’re saying things in a peak of anger, but it does not represent the whole body of our thoughts.”
“Well, that’s exactly right,” Carlson agreed. “And I was – I was actually even thinking about it. Makes me mad now. I reached out to this one Trump aide who’s – I’m not going to name, he’s a nice guy, but he’s totally incompetent – and I said, ‘I agree with you. There was something really wrong with this election. Send me evidence.’ And then to have the voters call in and be like, ‘no, I’m still alive?’ Buhuhuhuhuhuhuh, I mean it was like, I’m so embarrassed and mad.”
Let’s step back and look at what Carlson and Snerdly are claiming.
He is claiming that he loves Trump and always has.
“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson said in a text on 4 January 2021, two days before the riot. “I truly can’t wait.”
He also wrote: “I hate him passionately … What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”
That doesn’t sound like he always loved him. That doesn’t sound like he is upset at a Trump aide, but at Trump himself. He doesn’t mention the dead voters, he only mentions finally being relieved of having to cover him on Fox and a passionate hate of him.
Carlson also said to Snerdly, “My views are pretty transparent. I always say what I think. I can’t keep track of too many lies, you know what I mean? So anyway.”
He went on to say that he was humiliated by the Trump campaign’s incompetence and that he hates being factually wrong. He said, “I hate being factually wrong. I mean, I’ve got a lot of opinions that you may think are stupid and maybe they are stupid and maybe I changed them at some point and I’m always transparent about that. If, you know, the facts change, my opinion changes. I think that’s the way you’re supposed to live. But I can’t stand getting the facts wrong. That’s just – there’s no excuse for that. And we got it wrong.”
Yet, when he got it wrong about dead voters, voting machines being manipulated, and other provable falsehoods about the 2020 election, Carlson has not backed off. Instead, and even here, he is still defending the big lie, in spite of the facts that disprove it.
That doesn’t sound like someone who’s opinions change when new facts are discovered. It sounds more like someone who will say anything if there is a buck in it or to cover his own rear end when caught putting out lies to make a buck.
