Tucker Carlson finally speaks

Fox News hasn’t said much. Carlson has started to talk.

In a stunning announcement, Fox News said on Monday that it has ended Tucker Carlson’s reign as the host of the network’s highest-rated primetime show (and one of the highest-rated shows on basic cable, period), effective immediately.

The news comes less than a week after Fox’s massive settlement with Dominion over its spread of misinformation about Dominion voting machines. Though Carlson’s role in the lawsuit was relatively small, some of his texts that were uncovered in the discovery process for the suit made headlines, and many reports are citing them as the reason why Carlson got the boot.

Fox News’s statement said very little, merely that the two parties “have agreed to part ways” and “we thank him for his service to the network.” After two days of silence, Carlson finally tweeted a video that didn’t directly address the situation. In the absence of an explanation, there’s some understandable speculation that another, bigger scandal is behind it waiting to be uncovered.

But it’s also looking more and more likely that Carlson’s ouster was the result of a combination of factors, including disparaging remarks about Fox News executives, a toxic workplace culture, and Carlson’s view that he was untouchable at Fox News and that the network needed him more than he needed it.

Whatever the real reason(s), they were enough that Fox News felt it needed to cut off its biggest star without even giving him a chance to say goodbye. It’s still unclear what’s next for Carlson or what Fox News looks like without Carlson at its center.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened?

Tucker Carlson is no longer working for Fox News Media. His show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, which ran on the network for over six years, is over. Fox News Tonight will replace it on an interim basis. Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade hosted Monday’s episode, the first without Carlson. He briefly mentioned Carlson’s departure, saying: “As you probably have heard, Fox News and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. I wish Tucker the best. I’m great friends with Tucker and always will be. But right now, it’s time for Fox News Tonight. So let’s get started.”

Carlson also had a prominent place on Fox News’s streaming channel, Fox Nation, where he hosted a daytime talk show and several documentaries. Fox News’s statement did not specifically mention the future of his Fox Nation shows, and Fox News did not respond to request for comment on what will happen to the streaming channel’s library of Carlson content.

Carlson was with Fox News since 2009, though his presence was relatively minor until the premiere of Tucker Carlson Tonight in November 2016. Carlson’s last episode aired Friday, April 21, 2023.

What does Tucker Carlson have to say?

Initially, nothing. Carlson was uncharacteristically quiet for two days, emerging on Wednesday night at 8 pm — the time his show would have been on the air — with a video. It was a two-minute-long diatribe about how powerful people and the media are lying to the American public, and how there are few places left to find the truth. It was almost indistinguishable from the monologues Carlson used to open his show with, down to the fact that it didn’t really say anything or directly answer any questions.

“Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some, and that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon,” he said.

Carlson has reportedly hired lawyer Bryan Freedman, who seems to specialize in getting significant settlements from media companies when they fire their stars. His past clients include Megyn Kelly, Chris Harrison, and Gabrielle Union. His current clients include Don Lemon, who was fired from CNN on the same day that Carlson was let go from Fox, and former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.

How sudden was his exit?

Very. Despite Fox News’s statement that implied the decision was mutual, all signs point to Carlson being fired with almost no warning. Carlson reportedly didn’t know he’d been cut until minutes before it was announced. Carlson also signed off on Friday with, “We’ll be back on Monday,” indicating that he expected there would be a Monday show — which, obviously, never happened.

Fox News itself didn’t seem to know for sure that Carlson would be exiting until close to the actual announcement. On Monday morning, the channel was still reportedly airing previews of Carlson’s show for that evening, which did not air after all.

As of Wednesday night, Fox News’s website still listed Carlson as a Fox News personality and host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, which it says is its “flagship primetime cable news program.” It also still listed Carlson’s show as airing weeknights at 8 pm. Fox Nation, however, has removed Carlson’s likeness and shows from its front page.

Why is he leaving?

Carlson’s departure has spawned rampant speculation but few facts so far. Reports are attributing his firing to various factors cite unnamed sources that may well be Fox News itself; the network is well-known for pushing its preferred narrative to the press when it wants to.

The LA Times reported that Fox Corp chair Rupert Murdoch was behind the decision to fire Carlson, purportedly over a lawsuit filed by a former employee and Carlson’s on-air assertions that Ray Epps, a man who was part of the January 6 riots, was an FBI informant, which the FBI has denied. The night before Carlson’s firing, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Epps where he said Carlson’s statements led to death threats. The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, reported that the decision to fire Carlson came from Murdoch’s son, Lachlan, the CEO of Fox Corp, as well as Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott.

The proximity of the news to the Dominion lawsuit settlement makes it appear that the two are related, but Fox jettisoned its most problematic host related to the Dominion suit, Fox Business’s Lou Dobbs, back in 2021 and hasn’t fired any of its other hosts, some of whom said far worse than Carlson and were named in the lawsuits.

The most popular theory so far does include the lawsuit, however. A Washington Post report claims that Carlson’s texts criticizing Fox executives that were uncovered during the Dominion lawsuit were one possible reason for his ouster. Unnamed sources told the Wall Street Journal that there were even worse statements hidden behind redactions in the publicly available documents — which Fox News executives would have seen. And NPR reporter David Folkenflik told Vox’s Peter Kafka that he suspected keeping those out of public view was a possible reason Fox settled in the first place.

“A ton of stuff was redacted and blacked out … I actually think there’s a lot more embarrassing stuff that’s been sunk by this, that’s been kept hidden, and submerged by the settlement,” Folkenflik said.

The New York Times had some more details, reporting that Fox News executives hadn’t seen Carlson’s redacted texts until just before the trial was supposed to begin. Whatever they said was somehow more objectionable than what Carlson regularly says on Fox News’ own airwaves. So much so that preventing them from getting out was one of the reasons why Fox agreed to the last-minute settlement with Dominion.

Fox is also being sued by one of Carlson’s former producers, Abby Grossberg, who accused the network of being openly sexist and said Carlson’s staff in particular denigrated women and Jewish people. Fox News has denied those allegations.

On the more gossipy side of things, Vanity Fair is reporting that Carlson may have found himself on the outs with his boss over Carlson’s increasingly open religiosity. He gave a speech last Friday where he recommended praying for 10 minutes a day, and Murdoch’s (now ex-)fiancée, Ann Lesley Smith, apparently read the Bible with Carlson during a March dinner. Days later, Murdoch and Smith’s engagement was over.

More recent reports (several of them coming from the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal) attribute Carlson’s firing not to one singular event, but to all of them. They point to a pattern of insubordination, disrespect toward Fox News executives, and growing reservations over the content of his broadcasts. Carlson’s Fox News run was defined by controversies over various and frequent racist, sexist, and transphobic comments he made, as well as the conspiracy theories he spread about everything from cattle mutilations to Covid-19’s origins and the January 6 riots. Those resulted in advertiser boycotts but seemingly didn’t bother Fox News much. Nor Carlson, who tweeted a photo of himself last year laughing at a front-page New York Times story about the racist and nationalist messages in his broadcasts.

Is there any precedent for something like this?

Carlson himself got the 8 pm time slot after its inhabitant, Bill O’Reilly, was fired in 2017. Tucker Carlson Tonight, which was then in the 9 pm slot, moved to O’Reilly’s spot.

But the circumstances behind the two men’s ousters are much different. O’Reilly’s came after the revelation that Fox paid millions of dollars to cover up sexual harassment allegations against him. His problematic behavior was known about for years. When advertisers boycotted O’Reilly’s show, it was the nail in the coffin. There’s no indication that Carlson is involved in anything like that, and his firing was much more surprising.

There is also precedent for Carlson being fired from jobs. He left CNN in 2005 and MSNBC in 2008. Both times, the firing followed the cancellations of his shows, Crossfire and Tucker, respectively, reportedly due to low ratings. Carlson did not have this issue at Fox News.

How big was Carlson’s audience?

Carlson regularly averaged over 3 million viewers, making his show one of the highest-rated on all of basic cable. He led Fox News’s ratings for years, but his supremacy had recently been challenged: Another Fox News show, The Five, averaged higher ratings than he did in 2022.

Can Fox News recover from this?

If Carlson’s ascendancy at Fox News is anything to go by, the network will probably continue to thrive. When O’Reilly was fired, his was the channel’s highest-rated show, and he seemed irreplaceable. O’Reilly had been with Fox News from its launch and was, for all intents and purposes, its face.

But, though Carlson’s show was still relatively new, he filled O’Reilly’s spot just fine, staying atop the ratings, developing his own rabid fandom, and weathering plenty of controversies. Carlson also survived advertiser boycotts, accusations of racism and sexism, and unabashed and continued support of Russia. In fact, he thrived, getting two shows on Fox Nation in an effort to drive up the streaming network’s subscriptions in 2021. Carlson had become a powerful and influential figure both at Fox News and with the right wing in general. He hung out with President Trump (though Carlson’s texts would reveal he hated the man) and landed big interviews with Kanye West and Elon Musk. But Fox News has already proven itself to be bigger than any one of its stars.

How are people responding?

On Fox News, Carlson had become (and happily leaned into being) a polarizing figure. Accordingly, the right wing is generally furious, while the left is pleased.

Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz’s response spoke to Carlson’s power within the Republican Party: “I cannot overstate the importance that @TuckerCarlson had on public policy choices we made in the government.”

Glenn Greenwald, who became a frequent guest on Carlson’s show, said “the removal of Tucker means the elimination of the only real, sustained dissent on US militarism, the US Security State and more.” Another controversial personality who got a major platform on Carlson’s show, “Libs of TikTok” creator Chaya Raichik, tweeted “R.I.P. Fox News.” That was a sentiment many others echoed — “#RIPFoxNews” and “#DoneWithFox” briefly trended on Twitter — but it remains to be seen what impact Carlson’s exit will have on the network.

President Trump, who buddied up to Carlson but had recently discovered in the Dominion texts that Carlson secretly hated him, had a more measured response in an interview with Newsmax: “Wow, that was something. That’s a big one.” On Truth Social, however, he called it a “big blow to Cable News, and to America.”

There were a few notable, if unsurprising, exceptions. Former Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney tweeted, “[I]t’s about time.” Anti-Trump Republican political action committee the Lincoln Project said in a statement that Carlson “is the worst our nation has to offer.”

The other side mostly celebrated the news. The View, which was in progress when the news came out, led the audience in singing the chorus of “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joked in an Instagram story that Carlson’s exit “couldn’t have happened to a better guy,” adding that she was “very glad” to see him go. She didn’t seem convinced, however, that we’ve seen the last of him. Carlson seems pretty sure we haven’t, either.

Update, April 26, 9:40 pm ET: This story was originally published on April 24 and has been updated multiple times, most recently to add more details about Carlson’s departure, speculation around the reasons, and Carlson’s response.