Tucker Carlson helped broker the deal that made Kevin McCarthy House speaker after 14 failed votes, text messages show

Tucker Carlson won concessions from Kevin McCarthy in a deal that made him House speaker, per his texts.

Carlson said McCarthy agreed to put Rep. Thomas Massie on a committee, as he demanded on his Fox News show.

McCarthy won the speakership the next day.

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Tucker Carlson extracted concessions from Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California that cinched the votes he needed from far-right members to Congress to become Speaker of the House of Representatives, the former Fox News host said in text messages obtained by Insider.

The text messages demonstrate how Carlson shaped the direction of the Republican party behind the scenes, using his powerful primetime perch at Fox News before his firing last month to make one of the most powerful elected Republicans in America do his bidding.

McCarthy had led congressional Republicans to a disappointing midterm election in November 2022, winning just 222 seats in the House of Representatives. McCarthy needed 218 votes to win his bid to become House speaker, giving him a small margin of error.

Around 20 far-right Republicans initially refused to back McCarthy, as well as all 213 elected Democrats. The result was 14 rounds of votes that failed to produce a House speaker, making it the most contested speaker election in more than 150 years.

On his Fox News show on January 3, as McCarthy struggled to corral the votes he needed, Carlson made two demands.

He said McCarthy could win the gavel if he released footage from the deadly January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol — which Carlson falsely maintained was a peaceful protest. He also said McCarthy should appoint far-right lawmaker Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky to lead the new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Republicans created the committee to oversee what they claim is bias against conservatives in executive branch agencies and purportedly modeled it on the Senate "Church Committee" of the 1970s.

On January 6, 2023, Carlson appeared to get one of his wishes. The other would come later.

"McCarthy is taking our recommendation and putting him in charge of the new Church committee," Carlson said of Massie in a text to Abby Grossberg, a former producer on his show who is now suing Fox News alleging a hostile workplace. "That's a win."

Carlson wanted to broker a deal live on his Fox News show

Before Massie was appointed to the committee, Carlson tried to use his show to broker a deal in public.

Among the final Republican holdouts refusing to vote for McCarthy was Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who repeatedly denounced the Californian as untrustworthy. Gaetz led a posse of other members of Congress who repeatedly refused to vote for him.

On January 5, 2023, Carlson sought to have both Gaetz and McCarthy on his 8 p.m. show with the intention of brokering the deal himself. He told his producer, Grossberg, that McCarthy "would be a cowardly idiot not to" appear on "Tucker Carlson Tonight," but still viewed him as "the only option" for House speaker.

Gaetz agreed to appear on Carlson's January 5 program, but McCarthy still held out, even after Carlson promised not to ask questions about McCarthy's close relationship with GOP pollster Frank Luntz, a subject the host had previously attacked him over, the text messages show.

"Please tell them I promise I won't mention Frank Luntz," Carlson told Grossberg, who was tasked with booking McCarthy. "I've done that repeatedly. I don't need to do it again. This interview isn't about that."

McCarthy continued to refuse to appear on Carlson's show after the host had a phone conversation with him that day, according to the text messages as well as a lawsuit Grossberg filed earlier this year against Carlson, Fox News, and several producers. Grossberg's suit, filed in Manhattan federal court in March, alleges she endured a hostile and sexist work environment at Fox News while working as a producer for Carlson and Maria Bartiromo. Grossberg discussed some of the conversations between her and Carlson regarding McCarthy's House Speaker election in an interview with CNN on Tuesday night.

The next day, January 6, 2023, Carlson instructed Grossberg to book Massie. Massie had already pushed for McCarthy as House speaker in previous voting rounds, but Carlson viewed him as a lynchpin who could bring Gaetz and other holdouts over to McCarthy's side.

Carlson told Grossberg that McCarthy agreed to put Massie in charge of the "weaponization" committee" and insisted that the interview be pretaped rather than live.

In a grouptext, Alex McCaskill, a higher-ranked producer on Carlson's show, said the interview had to be conducted in a way that didn't reveal the date, so that any information about Massie's appointment would appear to be new once the show aired at 8 p.m.

On the episode, Massie said that he "will probably be on that committee, but I can't say that I will run it" and speculated whether Carlson was "clairvoyant" for demanding that McCarthy place him on the committee to secure the speakership.

On January 7, the House held its 15th vote for House Speaker. Gaetz voted "present." McCarthy cinched the gavel.

Massie announced he'd be on the powerful "weaponization" committee on January 11.

Representatives for McCarthy, Massie, and Gaetz didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Aside from putting Massie on the committee, Carlson had also demanded that McCarthy release footage from the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol if he wanted to become House speaker.

McCarthy acquiesced to that demand as well, providing Carlson with security camera video in March. Carlson, showing edited footage of the attack, falsely portrayed the deadly, conspiracy theory-fueled insurrection as a peaceful protest.

"You've exposed so many lies tonight with these tapes," Massie claimed in an interview on Carlson's show.

Fox News fired Carlson in April without explanation. Reports indicate that Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News Network CEO Suzanne Scott may have given him the boot because of Grossberg's lawsuit, sexism on his show, his support of insurrectionists, support for Ukraine surrendering to Russia, racism, or some combination of those factors.

Representatives for Fox News didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, nor did an attorney representing Carlson.