Tucker Carlson’s producer describes his audience as ‘stupid’ and ‘terrorists’

More than a million pages of internal Fox news has revealed that a producer for Fox News host Tucker Carlson described the show’s audience as “particularly stupid” and “terrorists” who sleep with their cousins.

The filings, released in connection with the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the Dominion Voting Systems company, also revealed that Fox Corporation executive Raj Shah, who served as White House spokesman before the jump of Trump, blew up the then-President’s personal attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani while speaking at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee on November 19, 2020.

Mr Giuliani appeared to have black hair dye down the side of his face as he made increasingly ridiculous allegations of voter fraud.

“That sounds SO F****** CRAZY btw,” Mr Shah wrote during the diatribe, a few weeks after the 2020 election.

“Rudy looks awful,” one person replied to Mr Shah.

“He looks objectively like he was a dead person voting two weeks ago,” Mr Shah said. One of the false claims about the election was that dead voters helped President Joe Biden win.

But when a Fox reporter went on the air shortly afterwards and said some of what Mr Giuliani had said was “just not true,” Mr Shah said, “that’s the kind of shit that’s gonna kill us”.

“We cover it wall to wall and then burn it down with all the skepticism,” he added.

Fox News anchors, including Carlson, said privately that they believed the cheating allegations were false, even as they reinforced them on the air, the news shows.

Mr Shah was far from the only Trump aide to move back and forth between Mr Trump’s circle and Fox. The Washington Post written down.

After Carlson publicly denied some of attorney Sydney Powell’s outlandish claims, prompting rebuffs from her and other right-wing figures, Mr Shah texted a producer for Carlson to find a middle ground and possibly take his time on the show to address her unsubstantiated claim that she had an affidavit linking Dominion and Venezuela.

“Maybe I want to address that, but this stuff is so freaking crazy. Election manipulation in the millions? Come on,” he wrote.

Alex Pfeiffer, a producer working for Mr Carlson, wrote back that “It’s so crazy but our viewers think it might offend them so much to bring up again that their stupid Venezuelan affidavit isn’t proof.” .

Mr Shah suggested Carlson mention the affidavit, saying it was “no new information, no evidence” and then “deferential”.

Mr Pfeiffer, who has now left Fox, said the tightrope act was “surreal”.

“Like negotiating with terrorists,” he said, adding, “but particularly stupid ones. Cousin f****** guys, not Saudi royalty.”

Three days before the Capitol riot, Mr. Shah texted ex-White House Speaker Josh Raffel.

Mr Raffel remarked to Mr Shah that the White House’s public schedule was vague, simply saying that Mr Trump would “make a lot of calls and have a lot of meetings” and “work from early morning to late at night”.

“I think what they meant is that the President will wake up early and commit many, many crimes including but not limited to obstruction of justice, attempted fraud and treason in order to carry out a coup. Then he will fly to a rally to promote the same thing,” Mr Raffel wrote.

“It’s really discouraging,” Mr Shah said. “The only clear evidence of voter fraud is Trump’s failed attempts.”

The Independent has attempted to reach Mr Shah, Mr Pfeiffer, Mr Raffel and Fox News for comment.