Far-right grifter Alex Jones spoke with Fox News host Tucker Carlson on the phone in 2020 after the Infowars conspiracy theorist texted Carlson over fears that Democrats were trying to have him arrested.
“I have some very grave news concerning the Democrats working to get me arrested,” Jones texted Carlson on May 1, 2020. “Hope we can talk today.”
“Arrested? My gosh,” Carlson responded to Jones in a follow-up text. “That’s out of control. Are you free this afternoon?”
The text messages are part of a larger chain of conversations between Jones and Carlson obtained by HuffPost. The texts, which span from Sept. 19, 2019, to May 1, 2020, were provided to HuffPost by Texas attorney Mark Bankston of the Houston law firm Farrar & Ball. Bankston obtained the contents of Jones’ cellphone during the Infowars founder’s first defamation trial in August over the lies he spread about the families of Sandy Hook victims.
“Mr. Jones, did you know that 12 days ago, your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cellphone, with every text message you’ve sent for the past two years?” Bankston asked Jones on the stand. “And when informed did not take any steps to identify those texts as privileged?”
HuffPost has published the full contents of Jones and Carlson’s texts here, which further illuminate the burgeoning relationship between a radical conspiracy theorist who participated in planning the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and a juggernaut media mouthpiece for the right.
“I’m not influencing Tucker Carlson,” Jones told HuffPost in a phone conversation. “The world is understanding that my worldview is closer to reality than mainstream media, so I don’t need to radicalize Tucker Carlson. He sees what’s going on in the world.”
Carlson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Days before speaking to Carlson over the phone, Jones went on a violent tangent on his program that made national headlines ― discussing how he would eat his neighbors amid coronavirus lockdowns ― just three days before his text to Carlson.
“I will eat your leftist ass like corn on the cob, I’m ready,” Jones yelled in a long-winded rant on April 28 of that year. “I’ll barbecue your ass flat. I will eat you. I’ll drink your blood. You understand that? I will hang your ass up and cut you into cutlets like a filet mignon and grill your ass before I watch my daughters starve to death.”
Before he spoke to Carlson on the phone on May 1, Jones went to his Infowars studio where he interrupted the broadcast of hosts Owen Shroyer and Harrison Smith to clarify that his comments were “satire.”
“The left’s like, ‘Jones wants to burn babies.’ You’re the ones that want to do it!” Jones shouted on his program.
Later that afternoon, Jones spoke to Carlson over the phone. Jones told HuffPost the conversation was “probably about the eat-the-neighbor thing, but I really don’t remember.”
“Great to talk to you,” Carlson texted following their conversation.