New revelations from a recent court filing in Dominion Voting Systems’ ongoing defamation lawsuit against Fox News revealed Tucker Carlson’s true opinion about former President Donald Trump’s decision to not attend the 2021 inauguration of Joe Biden: “so destructive.”

Discussing the decision with an anonymous person in November 2020, Carlson admitted in a written message that Trump’s decision is “hard to believe” and “so destructive.” 

That outrage was a far cry from his commentary on the January 20, 2021, broadcast of Tucker Carlson Tonight, where the host mocked CNN’s Jim Acosta when he noted the significance of Trump’s break from tradition regarding attending the inauguration. Instead of commenting on that decision, Carlson focused his disgust at Acosta for wearing a mask to protect against COVID-19, calling it “performance art” and “very tiresome.”

The messages also seemingly revealed that Carlson agreed with an anonymous recipient that Trump’s actions following his electoral loss were “disgusting.” Carlson’s outrage, however, in the broadcast was directed toward Biden’s inaugural speech promise to address political extremism and white supremacy. 

“Joe Biden controls the largest military and largest law enforcement agencies in the world. He has now declared war. So we should know specifically and precisely who exactly he has declared war on,” Carlson warned as he suggested that because the definition of white supremacist is so “broad” that conservative Americans could be targeted. 

Previous Dominion filings have shown other examples of Carlson hiding his disdain for the former president and his election lies. Carlson was weary of the “demonic force” of Trump, and he subsequently engaged with election conspiracy theories despite his personal belief that the claims were “unbelievably offensive” and “shockingly reckless.”