Mr. Carlson warned his viewers that they have been beneath assault from liberal elites and unchecked immigration, borrowing a few of his central themes from the white nationalist and far-right net and sharpening them up for a extra mainstream viewers. When he feared that Mr. Trump was wavering on his marketing campaign guarantees — to enact harsh insurance policies to discourage and expel migrants and scale back American entanglements in overseas conflicts, as an illustration — he made his considerations recognized on his present, which usually drew about three million viewers an evening.
When Fox launched a streaming community, Fox Nation, to attract extra income from its most loyal followers, it was Mr. Carlson who grew to become the brand new platform’s high character, with a thrice-weekly speak present and periodic documentaries that doubled down on his themes of duplicitous elites and race-obsessed liberals.
At his peak inside Fox, he defied the community’s senior management whereas cultivating the impression amongst colleagues that he was cozy with the Murdoch household, significantly the Fox chief, Lachlan Murdoch. However in his sworn deposition as a part of the Dominion go well with, Mr. Carlson mentioned the 2 males weren’t particularly shut. Requested how usually he communicated with Lachlan Murdoch, Mr. Carlson replied, “Hardly ever.” He added, “It’s not on a weekly foundation or perhaps a month-to-month foundation.”
The Dominion case uncovered Mr. Carlson as somebody whose polemical pro-Trump persona didn’t all the time match what he mentioned privately. As he instructed his viewers after the 2020 election that they have been proper to have doubts concerning the credibility of the vote counting, he was telling his producers the alternative.
His personal messages with members of his workers — by which they denigrated Mr. Trump and his authorized advisers after the 2020 election in vulgar and sexist phrases — have been disclosed as a part of Dominion’s defamation lawsuit in opposition to Fox. In a single alternate with workers, Mr. Carlson texted about Mr. Trump, “I hate him passionately.” In one other, he labeled Mr. Trump — whom he usually praised on his present — “a demonic power, a destroyer.”