NEW YORK: Right-wing extremist TV host Tucker Carlson and Fox News have severed ties almost one week after the network agreed to pay $787.5 million in a defamation lawsuit to Dominion Voting Systems over the dissemination of lies about the 2020 presidential election.
Carlson, who used his primetime talk show to influence Republican Party, was notorious for his racist comments, lies and allegations of sexism on his show.
In an announcement, Fox News said they thank Carlson for his service to the network as a presenter and a contributor. However, the network did not explain his ouster, only saying his last show was on Friday, April 21.
According to CNN, Carlson, among the top ten rated TV hosts in the US and single-rated at Fox News, kept a mysterious silence about his ouster.
Fox News’ decision to part ways with Carlson was announced by Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
A second person familiar with the development said Carlson had been informed of the decision.
As a primetime host on Fox News, Carlson was one of the most influential figures to exert his influence on the Republican Party. Republican lawmakers often prostrated at his feet, and former president Donald Trump granted him the first interview after his arraignment in New York earlier this month.
Carlson rose to stardom in recent years by promoting conspiracy theories, blatant lies and radical rhetoric. He repeatedly sowed doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election and promoted conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 vaccines, and elevated white nationalist talking points.
Inside Fox News, some of Carlson’s harsh critics celebrated after learning the news about his departure, people inside the network told CNN. There’s “much relief generally, and surprise they had the nerve to fire him, and we hope for a culture change,” one employee explained.
It is unlikely that Fox News will avoid the right-wing talk that its loyal audience often tunes in nightly for. The network said that Carlson’s 8 pm time show would be filled by rotating hosts, for now.
Carlson was a key figure in Dominion’s gigantic defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which the parties settled on the brink of trial for a noteworthy $787 million.
In some ways, Carlson played an outsized role in the litigation: Only one of the 20 allegedly defamatory Fox broadcasts mentioned in the lawsuit came from Carlson’s top-rated show. But the right-wing host was set to be one of Dominion’s first witnesses to testify at trial. And Carlson’s private text messages, which became public as part of the suit, reverberated the US politics.
Dominion obtianed on Carlson’s group chat with fellow Fox primetime stars Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham and a trove of other messages from around the 2020 presidential election.
These communications divulged that Carlson told collegaues that he “passionately” hated Donald Trump and that his tenure in the White House was literally a “disaster.” He also used misogynistic words to criticize pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and reject her conspiracies about the 2020 election – even as those wild theories got airtime on Fox News.
Carlson also disparaged the right-wing network’s leaders in a series of text messages revealed in Dominion’s defamation case.
In a text on November 5, 2020 — two days after the 2020 election — Carlson wrote his producer Alex Pfeiffer: “We worked hard to build what we have. Those f-ckers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me.”
The pair appeared to be discussing the network’s coverage of the 2020 election, which had just recently — and correctly — called the critical state of Arizona for Joe Biden, enraging the network’s pro-Trump audience.
