Well, well. Look what slid into America’s DMs. “Hey Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home…this is hurting all of us…he is destroying his legacy.” That was a text from anchor Laura Ingraham to Mark Meadows on Jan 6. It was shared by committee co-chair Liz Cheney and was one of several texts from the Fox News crowd and other Trump insiders—including Don Jr who, tellingly, aired his concerns to Meadows, not his own father. (Oedipus Text?) NPR: Rep. Liz Cheney read text messages she said Mark Meadows got during the Jan. 6 siege. The texts show us a few things. First, regardless of their public downplaying of events, the insiders knew how serious the insurrection was. It would be interesting to see the real Fox News texts about Russia, Covid, and the Christmas tree now. Second, forget for a second the specific content of the texts and consider that the Fox personalities were contacting the president’s chief of staff at all. It’s confirmation of what we already knew: Fox News acted as state TV for Trump. And third, it’s worth noting the specific concerns of Ingraham’s text. Her first instinct was that the insurrection was “hurting all of us” (Fox News, Trump, and the rest of the political team) and that “he is destroying his legacy.” When you saw the insurrection unfolding on TV, were you thinking about legacies or political damage? I’m guessing your first concern was for the people inside the building followed by the danger to our democracy. Sometimes a text can remove all pretext.