Reaction to the text from Tucker Carlson that many have called racist continues to come in, with MSNBC host Mehdi Hassan questioning the narrative that this is what ultimately led to the firing.
Speculation that the message sent by Carlson to a producer on January 7th, 2021 about his joy of watching Trump supporters beat an Antifa member, before self-reflecting on why the video gave him happiness, is the latest in a long line of possibilities for Carlson’s ouster, but Hassan says he wasn’t surprised by the message.
“So, on the one hand, you can’t not be shocked by this stuff,” Hassan said. “On the other end, it is kind of, well, not that surprising. It’s Tucker Carlson.”
However, he said the message from Carlson wasn’t worse than things he said during his primetime show and therefore doesn’t believe that’s the reason for his firing.
“Even after reading the text, it still doesn’t add up for me,” Hassan said after mentioning that he doesn’t believe the text that supposedly “set off a panic” inside Fox News was the reason for Carlson’s firing.
“He pushed the great replacement theory, which is a neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, which two years ago, the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) wrote to Fox and said, ‘This is anti-Semitism. You really should get rid of Tucker Carlson’. And Lachlan Murdoch said ‘No, no, no, no. Don’t believe your lying eyes or lying ears. This is all fine’.”
Hassan concluded that we’re still waiting on the entire saga to play out.
“I don’t think this is the full story yet. I think this is part of the story.”
