To the surprise of fans and regular viewers, Fox revealed on April 24th that Carlson would be departing the network immediately.
Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways, Fox News declared in an official statement. They thank him for his contributions to the network as a host and, before that, as a contributor.
Mr. Carlson’s farewell show aired on Friday, April 21st. Starting this evening at 8 p.m. ET, Fox News Tonight will run live as an interim programme hosted by rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is appointed.
The cause for his resignation turned out to be the finding of a ‘very inflammatory’ text message received by Carlson, which was a significant red signal for the Fox network’s top executives the night before its billion-dollar defamation lawsuit.
The text was received to one of his producers only hours after violent supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building in protest of President Joe Biden’s election victory on January 6, 2021.
Carlon’s text is now accessible to the general audience.
A couple of weeks ago, he was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington, the text message said. A mob of Trump supporters encircled an Antifa member and began punching the living s**t out of him. At the very least, it was three to one.
Obviously, jumping a person like that is dishonourable. This is not the way white males fight. But all of a sudden, he found himself rooting for the mob against the man, believing they’d hit him harder and kill him. He really wished them to injure the child. He could almost taste it.
Then an alarm went off somewhere deep in his brain: this isn’t good for him, he added. He is turning into someone he does not wish to be. The Antifa troll is a person. He dislike what he says and does, and he is sure he’d despise him personally if he met him.
He shouldn’t gloat over his suffering, Carlson concluded. It should irritate him. He should remember that someone loves this kid and would be devastated if he were killed. How is he better than him if he don’t care about such things, if he limit individuals to their politics?
The language was originally censored until being uncovered in anonymous interviews by multiple persons connected to the defamation litigation.
While Carlson did not specifically mention race on his show, he did support views on white nationalism – however the text message demonstrated an even darker side to his views on racial superiority.
The value of Fox Corporation has dropped by $962 million, and Fox News Tonight has lost almost 700,000 viewers since the host’s departure.
Carlson responded on social media by posting a video in which he discussed the notion of a healthy debate, claiming he’s frustrated by how ‘stupid’ some of the arguments he’s seen on television are.
The 53-year-old says it’s only now that he’s been able to take a break from being in front of the camera that he’s been able to assess how these debates are conducted.
Good evening pic.twitter.com/SPrsYKWKCE
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 27, 2023
They’re completely irrelevant, he told the camera. They are meaningless and he won’t even remember having them in five years.
He claimed that undeniably big topics such as war, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, and natural resources get virtually no discussion time at all.
He questioned that when was the last time one heard a legitimate debate about any of those issues?
He said that debates like that are not permitted on American media.
Last week, the defamation case was settled for a whopping $787.5 million after lawyers allegedly convinced a Delaware judge to remove the explicit text message from any public filings.
