Tucker Carlson’s abrupt termination from Fox News startled millions. No reason was given for the sudden dismissal of the highest-rated cable news host, and Fox’s exact motivation for getting him off the air. Everybody is left with the question – why was he fired?
According to Wall Street Journal, Carlson heard the news only ten minutes before Fox announced it publicly, and that the network plans to pay out the remainder of his current contract (renewed in 2021), which amounts to about $20 million per year.
A “person close to Fox leadership” commented to Semafor, “This is just classic Murdoch assassination — you’re their closest friend, their favorite child, and now you’re dead.”
Theories of the ouster
Misogynistic Tucker
Carlson’s departure comes less than a week after Fox News settled a defamation suit with Dominion Voting Systems, but also in the middle of an ongoing lawsuit filed by former producer Abby Grossberg, who worked on Carlson’s show. Both episodes showcased Carlson and his staff’s penchant for misogyny — a tendency that reportedly didn’t go over well with top brass.
In a statement responding to Tucker Carlson’s firing, Grossberg called the move “a step towards accountability for the election lies and baseless conspiracy theories spread by Fox News, as well as for the abuse and harassment I endured.”
Extreme programming
Tucker Carlson’s personal conduct wasn’t the only factor in his firing. Though the network largely stood by him as he espoused increasingly radical, white-nationalist views over the years, top brass was not always onboard with his more extreme programming. The New York Times reports that his conspiratorial take on the January 6 Capitol riot was one such example:
The Times noted that when Tucker released deceptively edited footage of the riot — footage that had been handed to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — he drew criticism from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a personal friend of Rupert Murdoch.
Carlson’s January 6 views had created legal problems with a third Carlson-linked lawsuit looming for the network: a potential defamation lawsuit by former U.S. Marine Ray Epps, an attendee of the January 6 insurrection.
Rupert Murdoch
In a follow-up report, Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman wrote that none of the existing theories for Carlson’s firing quite add up, and that according a Fox source, Rupert Murdoch did not react well to a recent, religion-heavy address Carlson gave:
In that speech, Carlson told the Heritage audience that national politics has become a manichean battle between “good” and “evil.”
Carlson said that people advocating for transgender rights and DEI programs want to destroy America and they could not be persuaded with facts. “We should say that and stop engaging in these totally fraudulent debates…I’ve tried. That doesn’t work,” he said.
The answer, Carlson suggested, was prayer. “I have concluded it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will,” he said.
“That stuff freaks Rupert out. He doesn’t like all the spiritual talk,” the source said.
Whichever of the theories is right, one thing is certain, Tucker Carlson is already out of Fox News and nobody knows exactly the reason why.
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