“I hate him passionately … What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong,” Carlson texted a colleague on January 4, days prior to the riot at the U.S. Capitol. He added, “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”

I'd put in a third option: they released the texts showing that he hated Trump, which put Fox in the crosshairs going into 2024. Anything positive he says about DeSantis or Haley or anyone else in the race will be viewed as untrustworthy because he's on record as hating Trump and will antagonize Trump voters. That's not what you want from a primetime host on the network Trump voters watch.