Blockbursts reporting that solves the mystery of The Missing Link in a story that has rocked American Politics and media. For weeks now, a question has loomed over the ouster of top fox host Tucker Carlson. Why did the Murdochs Fire One of their biggest stars . The architect of a platform that unselfconsciously peddles Conspiracy Theories. Why did they fire him based on something that didnt happen on air . What was that missing link . And what if anything did Tucker Carlson do or say off camera that contributed to the nearly unprecedented 11th hour settlement of 787. 5 million in the Defamation Case brought against fox by dominion voting systems. The New York Times answers both those questions and reports on the missing text message that it found in some groundbreaking new reporting. The message was reportedly unearthed during the Discovery Process with dominion. Heres how the times reports that out. Quote, in the message sent to one of his producers in the hours after violent Trump Supporters stormed the u. S. Capitol on january 6th, 2021, mr. Carlson described how he had recently watched a video of a group of men, Trump Supporters, he said, violently attack, quote, An Antifa Kid. It was, quote, three against one, he wrote. And then he expressed a sense of dismay that the attackers like him were white. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously, he wrote. Quote, its not how white men fight, he said. But he said he found himself for a moment wanting the group to kill the person he had destroyed as the antifa kid. Heres that part. Quote, i found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they would hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it, he wrote. Quote, then somewhere deep in my brain an alarm went off. This isnt good for me. Im becoming something i dont want to be. After all, he wrote, quote, somebody probably loves this kid and would be crushed if he was killed. It was the single thing, the single text message that gave Fox Executives something they couldnt look away from, right, an undeniable glimpse into a deeply depraved human being who was now their biggest star. It may have ultimately been this nail in the coffin for carlsons career at fox. Times reports this, quote, the day after the discovery, the board told Fox Executives it was bringing in an outside law firm to conduct an investigation into mr. Carlsons conduct. The text message added to a growing number of internal issues involving mr. Carlson that led the companys leadership to conclude he was more of a problem than an asset and had to go. Carlson did not comment on the reporting by the New York Times, concerned that the message would be revealed in a trial with dominion with carlson on the Witness Stand, was a factor in foxs decision to settle with the voting machine company. The text message that led to the downfall of fox news host Tucker Carlson is where we begin today with some of our favorite reporters and friends including two of the reporters bilined. New york times reporter jeremy peters, and New York Times washington correspondent mike schmidt is here. Were joined by my colleagues, msnbc host and legal analyst katy fang and msnbc host mety hasan. Let me start with you, jeremy. Take me through what you and your colleagues have reported. Well, we knew there had to be a big reason for Tucker Carlsons firing. Fox doesnt just suddenly decide to jettison their most popular Primetime Host without a good reason. Every time they have fired someone so abruptly, think bill oreilly, roger ailes, theres been a big smoking gun. And what we tried to pursue theyve come at the end of an investigation. This seems to come at the beginning of one, right . Exactly. And on the eve of this trial, so you knew like if theyre paying 787. 5 million and firing their biggest host in primetime, something isnt quite adding up. Theres more to this story. And so what mike and i set out to do over the last week with Jim Rutenburg is what was that. And it didnt make sense to us that there was hr complaints, abby grossburg lawsuit, the toxic workplace. Tucker had been a constant management headache. We knew all of this, but there had to have been something really, really big that went on Behind The Scenes that we just didnt know about. And here it is. This is it. As someone who knows the fox culture, i mean, it is now answerable you know, wheres the red line. It is this depraved indifference to violence. Uhhuh. Well, i mean, look, this is like he is voicing homicidal rage. Lets not and enthusiasm. And enthusiasm for that. Its really striking. And you know, ive seen some commentary here and there that like, oh, we always knew Tucker Carlson was racist, this isnt surprising. Anyone whos watched his show should know hes said stuff like this. No, this is different. This is an explicit acknowledgment of racial superiority. His belief that white people are somehow better and less inclined to behave in a bad and dishonorable manner. Hes said a lot of stuff on his show in coded language that echoes the White Nationalist philosophy. Hes never said anything this explicitly racist. There is the the stop and think for a second piece. I read the text message when i read the story, when it was first alerted, and i went back and read it again. Mike, its hard to get through. I mean, take Tucker Carlson and fox news out of the story, and this is a sick person Speaking Joyfully and enthusiastically about a desire for people to beat up another person until he dies. Tell me about how this landed with the board and how keeping an examination of Tucker Carlson on the Witness Stand factored into both the settlement and his firing. So the Text Message Set off to, you know, many different important things inside of fox. One of them was that the board, as you were saying, told fox that they were basically going to investigate this not basically, they were going to investigate this, they were going to bring out the outside law firm. That created the prospect that as this trial was heading forward and Tucker Carlson could be called to the stand and might even be asked about this text message if it became unredacted, that there would be an Ongoing Investigation being done by the board into whether their top star was a racist and what the circumstances were behind that. And that put the company in a highly unusual and difficult position where they had to realize there could be an Ongoing Investigation into carlson. The second thing that the text message did was it raised the issue of what could happen at the trial in a new and different light. And by that, what im saying is that Tucker Carlson was to be called as a witness. And if dominion moved to have the message unredacted and was able to use it, you would have had this incredibly dramatic and damning moment at the trial where a Dominion Lawyer was asking Tucker Carlson to explain this text message. And that was look, fox had taken on an enormous amount of bad press and publicity around this. I think it was starting to wear more and more on the company. And this would have been even you know, this would have been even worse in that area. On top of that, there are all these other suits that have been brought against fox in which there will be discovery, and this text message could come out. So the company, top executives did not know about it until the day before the trial started, nor did the board, and they were finding out about this, and it all comes at this time that theyre trying to settle the lawsuit. And it lead to this decision to settle it for this extraordinary amount of money. I mean, mike, tuckers coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse is probably his onair performances that come the closest to rooting for what he articulates in the text. But i im going to read it one more time. I want to ask you to expand on what in your reporting crosses the line in this for fox news. Let me read it one more time. Tucker carlson writes this, on january 7th, couple weeks ago i was watching video of people fighting on the street in washington. A couple of trump guys surrounded An Antifa Kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one at at least. Jumpation guy like that is dishonorable obviously, it is not how white men fight. Suddenly i found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they would hit him harder, kill him. Ireland wanted them to i really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. An alarm went off, this isnt good, im becoming something i dont want to be. The antifa creep is a human being as much as i despise what he says and does, much as id hate him personally in i knew him. I shouldnt gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody loves this kid and would be crushed if he was killed. If i dont care about those things, if i reduce people to their politics, how am i better than he is . Tell me how reading that in your understanding gave them a piece of information about Tucker Carlson they didnt have from this program. Well, so im not exactly sure about look, how much this like im not exactly sure how much of that is like differentiating between what the board thought about what he said publicly in that, im not exactly sure. What i do know is that the idea that this could become public was flight frightening for the company because you were going to have a jury at a trial that was going to be able to decide a dollar figure. And they fox had underestimated the way that the public was going to react to the initial messages that came out in february. And this was going to make it all the worse with the jury if they saw this message and it could increase. I look at it, and its been described this way, what fox did with Tucker Carlson, as a Business Decision. They made a Business Decision to get rid of him. I realize that may not be very satisfying to people that have long thought, you know, that Tucker Carlson was a racist. But i i really think this comes down to business more than anything. Meti hasan, you have put together the definitive compilation. Youve watched hours and hours of Tucker Carlson so that none of the rest of us have to. Let me play what you put together for the purposes of what mike has led us to, this part of the conversation. White supremacy, thats the problem. This is a hoax. Theres no evidence that White Supremacists were responsible for what happened on january 6th. Thats a lie. We have a moral obligation to admit the worlds poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided. Demographics demographics demographics demographics remember the Great Replacement Theory was a conspiracy theory. Sound more like a fact. Ilhan omar has shown the failed immigration system k. A single human being be as loathsome . Its hard to believe. Montel williams, you know, is something thats within her range of experience. Is she good at it . We cant say. But shes done it. Just for maskistic reasons, one more time. So it might be time for joe biden to let us know what Ketanji Brown jacksons lsat score was. Why was she doing the lsats . They think you should be el vaccinated on what you do, not your dna. Thats rwanda. Rwanda. Rwanda. Rwanda. Rwanda. Were not sure how george floyd died. Very few unarmed black men are killed by white cops these days, wheres george floyd when you need him . The only Job Training Program the administration has gotten is to get more black people to is sell more weed in the cities. You never see politicians say malcolm x, why is that . He didnt talk like a sharecropper. Xenophobia, seems look antique. Theres colorblind equality and against racism. I i wanted to talk to you today. Youve been youve had the courage to sort of go toe to toe with him. Youve underscored and highlighted what its hard to figure out what is most odious that he broadcast. The thing thats intriguing to me about the message is its a video he was watching weeks before. So i my brain was wondering if it was something from December 19th where we know at least a couple of of the proud boys werent allowed to be in washington on the we dont know. That isnt known yet. That isnt part of this reporting. But i think it is probably the sad truth that this was a Business Decision. Tell me your reaction to reading these words from Tucker Carlson and what he thought was a private moment. On the one hand you cant not be shocked by this stuff. On the other hand, it is kind of, well, its not that surprising, its Tucker Carlson. And jeremy said a moment ago and first off, hats off to jeremy and mike and jim for this reporting and getting hold of this text. Jeremy said a moment ago it didnt add up, so they went to look for the text. After reading the text, it still doesnt add up to me. I half agree and half disagree with what jeremy was saying. In the sense, this is worse than other things, the text, because it is an expression of homicidal rage. On the other hand i wouldnt downplay what he says on his show. I wouldnt say it was all that coded as we played. He pushed the Great Replacement Theory which is a neonazi antisemitic conspiracy theory. The adl wrote to fox two years ago and said this is antisemitism, you should get rid of Tucker Carlson. And murdoch said no, dont believe your eyeing eyes or ears, well is fine. Over the past two years hes pushed the great replacement again and again. Hes called immigrants people who make this country dirtier, as you saw in the clip. He asked for Ketanji Brown jacksons lsat scores, never asked for gorsuchs or kavanaughs. Theres plenty he said on air that you wonder was the fox board not watching Tucker Carlson tonight for the last few years. Its been five years, nicole, since the daily stormer, the neonazi website that said Tucker Carlson is our greatest ally and the daily storm of the tv show. Not sure if the fox board were paying attention when they said that five years ago. And if the fox board were worried about the text last night jesse waters, touted as a replacement on live fax air, referred to illegal immigrants, people he can tell are illegal just by looking at them. Ive got to ask are they waiting for a jesse waters text before they statewide not to give him the 8 00 p. M. Slot . I dont think this was the full story yet. I think this is part of the story. But i just cant believe that the fox board decided, oh, wow, this is the line that Tucker Carlson crossed in terms of his racism and offensiveliness. Dont get me started on 1 6 and the Conspiracy Theories which Chris Wallace left the network over. Dont remember the fox board saying anything then. Lets talk about that, mehti. The reporting includes a sense that it was the dynamic of a straw breaking a camels back. It was all these things, it wasnt any win, it was perhaps all of them. I want to bring katie in to find out how two parties negotiate knowing that one of them is desperate to keep this text that the times now has reported on and published out of the public view. But you know, the violence i want to play this for you. This is some we went back and looked at a lot of it, im only going Play A Smidgeon of it. Some of Tucker Carlsons singular coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse. So we really surprised that looting and an arson accelerated to murder . How shocked are we that 17yearolds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would . 17yearold Kyle Rittenhouse wound up in the street in kenosha in the first place with a gun for one reason he was there because in the summer of 2020, the leadership of the Democratic Party endorsed mob violence for political ends. During the course of our conversation, Kyle Rittenhouse was bright, sincere, dutiful, and hard working. Exactly the kind of person you would want many more of in your country. Tucker carlson puts rittenhouse on the map who ends up spending time with donald trump i think at maralago and at the white house. Jeremy, my colleague peter baker once described trump as a match in the powder keg that is america. Tucker carlson is the gasoline. Every grievance that emanates both the Republican Partys most ani