Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News.
The network saying in a statement, quote,
We thank him for his service
to the network as a host and prior
to that as a contributor.
That was it.
The surprise
announcement coming just a week after Fox
News settled a defamation lawsuit
with Dominion voting systems
for more than three quarters
of $1,000,000,000.
That lawsuit
revealed text
between Carlson and staffers
where he said that
he hated for President
Trump despite saying other things on air.
Texts also showing him
making disparaging comments
about Fox executives.
Joining us now on this is CNN senior
senior media reporter Oliver Darcy
and CNN
political commentator
Jonah Goldberg, who
we should note left Fox News
after being there for 12 years
when Carlson said
that January
six was a false flag operation.
Thank you both for being here.
All right. I think the question
this morning
that even Tucker may be asking
himself is why?
Why now Why is the big question?
And that's just unclear, to be honest.
At this point in time,
I think it's impossible
to disconnect the decision for Fox News
from the Big Dominion settlement
last week.
I mean, that was
a massive settlement, $787.5 million.
They had a payout to Dominion.
It's it's unclear exactly, though,
what part of that lawsuit
I think, factored into Carlson's
ultimate firing at Fox News.
There are a number of factors
that could have factored in,
but it's unclear
exactly what was its undoing
as related to that lawsuit.
But we should keep in mind
that the Murdochs had stood by Carlson
through everything.
I mean, he made white nationalist
remarks on Fox News.
They stood by him.
He made
and to make certain remarks,
they stood by him.
He promoted
conspiracy theories
about the COVID vaccines.
They stood by him.
He promoted
conspiracy theories and truther
ism about the January six attack.
They stood by him.
He so did about the 2020 election.
And they stood by him.
So something changed in their calculus.
And it's
perhaps it was just that the risk versus
the reward calculation had altered.
And he was just costing them
too much problems
and not offering enough reward.
And they just decided
maybe to just wipe their hands clean.
Yeah.
Jonah, I mean, as someone who didn't
stand by him, right?
You know, you've known him for 12 years.
You worked at
you were a contributor there to Fox News.
I wonder what you think
the final straw could have been.
Yeah, just be clear.
I knew Tucker.
I've known Tucker for 25 years.
I mean, I knew more
or he went to Fox News.
Yeah.
And but regardless, Well,
I think Oliver's right.
I think that it's still kind of opaque
and murky about what?
You know,
there's a reason
why we call the last straw.
The last straw,
because normally straws
don't break camel's backs, right?
But it's all the stuff prior to the straw
that makes it the decisive factor.
I do think that there is
you know, the L.A.
Times where I write a column, there's a
there there
apparently it's the Abby Grossberg Tapes
or Abby Grossberg lawsuit.
Something about
that is a big part of the decision
And also something about
the Rae Epps episode on 60 Minutes,
which sort of debunk
Tucker's false flag operation stuff.
And I think that one of the things
that a lot of people don't understand
is that Tucker's schtick,
where he called January
six this false flag thing,
where he leans
into all these conspiracy theories.
That's actually related
to the Dominion suit.
And in a sort of weird way insofar as
that whole idea of
respecting the audience,
if you follow that logic
where you say, well,
we should tell the audience
what it wants to hear,
why go half assed with that?
Go all in. Right.
And that's what Tucker did, is rather than just say,
oh, maybe there's something
to this Dominion thing,
He said, no, no, no, no.
These deplorable people
who stormed the Capitol,
they're actually heroes
and victims and martyrs.
And he really force fed
and pandered to the audience
what he thought it wanted to hear,
not just this sort of half measure.
You know, let's say
Trump is got something going.
Maybe it maybe onto something
with his Dominion
the stuff he said, no, no, no.
Let's take the worst things
about Trump and January six
and turn them into positives for us
because that's
what the audience really wants to hear.
And the thing about that
is it's a really big audience.
Oliver,
I mean, he was one of the highest
rated anchors that they had.
And I think that's why, you know,
the front page of The New York Times
and the Washington Post,
it was your a one in your newsletter.
And so the question is
what does that look like going forward?
Because obviously,
I've heard from people in Trump world,
they're stunned by this. He was a big
conservative.
If you wanted to be a successful Republican,
you had to go on his show.
Essentially, people felt
I think there are two questions
about what's next.
What's next for Fox News
and what's next for the Republican Party
moving forward? For Fox?
For the Republican Party, I think.
Well, I think for the Republican Party,
you had Tucker Carlson,
who really shaped the modern day GOP
and he pushed it to the extremes.
I mean, Tucker Carlson
was not your average conservative.
He made
Sean Hannity look fairly moderate
on a lot of positions.
He was an extremist
and he whipped the Republican Party
in that direction.
And so without him doing that,
without GOP lawmakers
fearing that
if they didn't
say the right thing,
that Tucker Carlson would
go on his April time
perch and lash out at them.
I think that, you know, really
it doesn't
we don't know what's going to happen.
I mean, I think this is going to change the GOP
in some way.
And I think for Fox News,
they have some problems
as well, potentially,
if Tucker
Carlson decides to go somewhere else.
They were really worried after
the 20, 20 election
about losing an audience
to the smaller competitors like Newsmax
if Tucker Carlson somehow
turns up on one of those channels
or does his own thing. It's not.
I mean, it would not be,
you know, unheard of.
That a significant chunk of his audience
could follow him.
So I think those are the two things
I'm watching right now.
Jonah, as someone who's done
Tucker for 25 years
and worked at Fox for 12, do you I mean,
no world in which
this is the end of Tucker Carlson in the
in the
in the public eye on some media platform,
maybe his own
Yeah.
I think there's a very real possibility
he goes full.
Joe Rogan creates his own thing.
Then he gets to do things on his terms.
He will definitely want
to get the last word
or at least get his version of events.
He may be
he may be in
need of lawyering up right now
because of the Grossberg stuff.
Who knows?
But I think it's absolutely true.
We haven't seen the last of
Tucker Carlson.
I do think it's important,
you know, in this Republican Party question,
you know,
we call it
Ron DeSantis,
one of the first missteps he had was
he felt
compelled to fill out Tucker Carlson's
campaign questionnaire.
And that's where he called, you know,
the Ukraine stuff, a border dispute.
None of these candidates know
GOP people are going to feel compelled
to fill out
whoever replaces Tucker
in his questionnaire.
Yeah, that's such a
good point, Jonah,
because it does show just the impact
that he had, that
what they did was they just reached out
to all these candidates
to ask for their position on Ukraine
and then read them live on air.
Basically, what was didn't do it.
A major. Yeah.
And then I later retroactively
did a major moment for dissenters there.
We'll see what the impact of this
looks like going forward.
Jonah Goldberg,
Oliver Darcy, thank you both.