Tucker Carlson has broken his silence over his firing by Fox News in a video posted on his Twitter account.
In a rambling conspiracy-driven monologue he suggests he was the victim of efforts to suppress discussion of “big topics, the ones that will determine our futures”, but does not address the reasons for his exit directly.
Carlson said one of the things he noticed “when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are”.
Earlier, lawyers for Fox News reportedly persuaded a Delaware court to redact legal filings that showed Carlson calling a senior executive at the network the “c-word” as Fox prepared for a defamation trial over Dominion Voting Systems’s blockbuster lawsuit last week, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The messages are among hundreds of emails and texts from the case, which also revealed Carlson ridiculing guests and colleagues and saying that he hates Donald Trump “passionately”.
Carlson’s surprise exit from the network also follows a lawsuit from Abby Grossberg, a former producer whose complaint alleges Grossberg and other women were routinely undermined and verbally violated “by a poisonous and entrenched patriarchy.”
Tucker Carlson yesterday evening broke his silence over his firing by Fox News two days earlier in a video released on his Twitter account and headlined “Good evening”.
The rambling 2.16 video of Carlson speaking directly to the camera did not directly address the reasons for his abrupt exit from the right-wing channel, where he was the most popular host, regularly drawing more than three million viewers a night.
After speaking about finding out how many “kind and decent people” there are in America having “stepped outside the noise for a few days”, Carlson goes on to outline a conspiracy which he seems to hint may have been behind the events of the week.
He claims that debates about “big topics, the ones that will define our futures” like “war, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, natural resources” are “not permitted in American media”.
Graeme Massie has the story:
Tucker Carlson has broken his silence over his firing from Fox News in a defiant and conspiracy-laced video he posted to Twitter.
Tucker Carlson’s offensive messages about a Fox News colleague ‘sealed his fate’ at the network, report finds
Lawyers for Fox News reportedly persuaded a Delaware court to redact legal filings that showed Tucker Carlson calling a senior executive at the network the “c-word” as Fox prepared for a defamation trial following Dominion Voting Systems’s lawsuit, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Carlson, however, was reportedly not impressed, and did not care that his remarks would be made public.
The messages are among hundreds of emails and texts from a discovery process in Dominion’s case, which also revealed Carlson ridiculing guests and colleagues on the network and saying that he hates Donald Trump “passionately” while bolstering the former president on his most-watched programme.
The messages also follow a lawsuit from Abby Grossberg, a former producer on Tucker Carlson Tonight whose complaint alleges widespread toxicity at the Fox News workplace, where Grossberg and other women were routinely verbally violated “by a poisonous and entrenched patriarchy.”
“Within Fox’s management, reservations had been mounting about risks Mr Carlson presented for the network, people familiar with the matter said,” according to The WSJ. “Some of the people pointed to concerns that the populist firebrand had come to believe himself bigger than the network – a cardinal sin in Fox [Corporation].”
Earlier this week, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik said he heard Carlson describe another one using the same vulgar language.
Carlson also called election conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell as a “f*** b*,” according to messages obtained by Dominion.
Why is Russian state media courting Tucker Carlson?
It didn’t take long for Tucker Carlson to land a job offer after losing his primetime slot on the most-watched cable news network in the country.
Within hours after Fox News announced that the network agreed to “part ways” with the far-right nationalist pundit on Monday morning, Russian state media personalities and propaganda outlets opened their doors.
Putin-linked propagandists trolled American media with their bid for his attention, courting Carlson on television and in an email pleading for the now-former Fox News host to join Russia-1.
Putin-linked propagandists troll American media with their bid for the ousted far-right pundit’s attention
The departure of Tucker Carlson, once the most-watched host on Fox News, has led to a decline in primetime viewership on the network.
The former host of Tucker Carlson Tonight pulled in more than 3.3m viewers nightly, according to Nielsen. But after Fox announced Mr Carlson would be stepping away from the network, that number dropped by more than 20 per cent.
Fox News Tonight, the show replacing Tucker Carlson Tonight, only drew in just under 2.6m viewers during its debut at the coveted 8 pm time slot on Monday, according to The Hollywood Reporter.