Wemple: Did you ever read Chuck Ross’s writings before you hired him at the Daily Caller?

Carlson: No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Wemple: Well, I asked you this, too, a few weeks ago. I wrote about Chuck Ross. He had these racist writings —

Carlson: Yeah, but it wasn’t in the paper.

Wemple: — in the blog, in his blog, and then he was hired at the Daily Caller when you were there. Did you ever read any of that? Did those writings serve as a qualification for him in any way?

Carlson: Yeah, I mean, I think you know as well as I that a) I don’t supervise the Daily Caller or have any role in his management whatsoever and haven’t in over a year, per my contract here at Fox. So I had no role in the response to those blog posts that he apparently wrote. I have no knowledge beyond what you just said. My understanding is that all of those were unearthed later, and I think that you would know that, too. And so your question isn’t so much a question; it’s an attempt to tar me once again —

Wemple: No, it’s an actual question.

Carlson: — with views I don’t hold. So why don’t we just skip the middleman here and get right to it? Why don’t you ask me a series of actual questions about what I think or don’t think and I’ll tell you? Would that be easier? Because you’re trying to suggest that I’m a secret racist who like, is friends with David Duke, or, he likes me, therefore it’s my fault somehow. Or someone I once hired — who by the way is an excellent reporter — wrote awful things on an anonymous blog post years ago. And that, as you put it, might have been a qualification for me hiring him? You know what I mean?

Wemple: Well, he went straight from writing white supremacy posts to going to full-time employment at the Daily Caller.

Carlson: I think it kind of goes without saying that I didn’t know anything about that. Maybe it doesn’t go without saying. Let me just say: I had no idea that Chuck Ross had written anything like that. Chuck Ross is a totally straight and excellent reporter — or was when he worked for me.

Wemple: Right. Well that’s all I wanted to know, whether you knew about it.

Carlson: I guess what bothers me is, you’re again trying to use something that I knew nothing about to try and tar me. And I’m inviting you, for the fourth time, to ask me direct questions about what I think. You’re looking for witches, and I’m telling you, if I’m practicing witchcraft, I’ll admit it. So why don’t you just ask me? Pick five topics and I’ll answer the question as honestly as I possibly can. Wouldn’t that just be easier? Instead of going through this whole like childish, “Someone who worked for you once wrote something naughty online — did you know?” It’s like, I don’t know, why you just ask me what I think?