Tucker explains incident that caused rift between him and Trump in exclusive radio interview

Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s unflattering remarks about former President Donald J. Trump drew headlines after the content of private texts were exploited by media competitors to create a rift between him and the 2024 Republican party frontrunner and he sought to set the record straight during an interview on “Bo Snerdley’s Rush Hour” radio show with host James Golden, the longtime producer for legendary conservative radio king Rush Limbaugh.

“I hate him passionately,” Carlson said in one text that is a part of the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems. “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”

The texts and the brutally frank words about Trump were embarassing to Carlson who was given a chance to clear the air over his unkind take on the former POTUS during the discussion which also covered his airing of previously unseen video footage of the January 6, 2021 protests at the U.S. Capitol.

“Tucker, listen, I’ve had a number of people saying they read all these things in the paper, you hate Trump, blah, blah, blah, they said, does Tucker like Trump’s policies, any policies of his? What’s the deal with you and Donald Trump?” Golden asked, putting Carlson on the spot as the two of them laughed.

“Let’s see, I spent four years defending his policies and I’m gonna defend them again tonight,” Carlson responded. “And actually, and I’m pretty straitforward, I’m, um, I love Trump, like as a person. I think Trump is funny and inciteful and, and I said this to Trump when he called me, you know, all wounded about those texts… um, that was a moment in time where I was absolutely infuriated and I think this is in the texts…and those were all grabbed completely illegitimately in my opinion in this court case which I guess that I’m not allowed to talk about, but I’m enraged that my private texts were pulled but those particular texts were pulled at extactly, at the moment when I was texting with one of my producers cause some idiot on the Trump campaign had sent us the name of these dead voters who had voted and we went and I repeated them on air and it turns out that some of them were alive,” he explained.

“So I was just, I felt humiliated… and 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,” Tucker continued. “I mean there’s no way the guy got 81… he got more votes than Barack Obama, really?” Referring to the historic total of votes credited to Joe Biden in an election that many still believe wasn’t legitimate, including Trump.

“You know… whatever you think of Obama, I never really liked Obama but he’s a really talented… very talented poltiician and Joe Biden is senile and in his basement, tell me how he got 81 million votes,” he said. “So I’ve always thought that was not on the level.”

“And so I said to the Trump people, you know, you’re saying that election was rigged, send me some examples of it and I’ll put it on the air, and one of them was these dead voters,” he said. “Well it turned out that some of them were still alive and I was so mad by the incompetence of that campaign, which was completely incompetent, I mean completely… you know, I’m like the one guy who’s open minded about the election being unfair and, and that’s what they send me?”

“Anyway, whatever. I was mad. That was a moment in time,” Carlson said, chalking up the controversial remarks as being made out of frustration.

Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE