In early March 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic began its onslaught across the country, Fox News host Tucker Carlson drove to then-President Donald Trump s Florida resort to warn him to take the virus seriously.

People you know will get sick, Carlson said on his show later that night after visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Some may die. This is real. Thats the point of this script to tell you that.

The surprising warning was noticed by Alex Jones, a far-right conspiracy theorist best known for spreading lies about the parents of dead children and hawking overpriced supplements on his platform, Infowars. Jones texted Carlson a link on March 16, 2020, to a now-deleted Infowars article titled Tucker Carlson Drove To Mar-A-Lago To Warn Trump Coronavirus Was A Real Threat.

The subhead read Fox News host saves America.

I tried man, Carlson texted Jones back, according to a record of their conversation obtained by HuffPost.

Yet by the following month, as Trump continued to minimize the seriousness of the virus, the two right-wing media personalities appeared to follow the presidents lead, texting conspiracy theories with each other that downplayed the threat even as thousands of Americans were dying daily.