Tucker Carlson Leaves Fox: Reactions!

Tucker Carlson Leaves Fox: Reactions!

Fox News has released a statement announcing that Tucker Carlson and the company have parted ways. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” the network said in a statement. This past Friday was his last show.

A round up of the more interesting reactions follows.

Jeremy Carl:

Nobody in journalism in my lifetime has been equivalent to @TuckerCarlson

Lots of lefty journos who “set the agenda” really were just regime narrative enforcers/amplifiers.

Tucker was the only person who could make national stories out of narratives the regime wanted buried.

The narrative people must be alarmed at Fox’s increasing media dominance, especially Tucker’s:

These figures and Tucker’s sacking also make it clear that the media is not about profits so much as influence.

Megyn Kelly and Glenn Beck, who were each also sacked by Fox while near the top of ratings:

Andre Widburg:

We’re watching the breakout of an internecine battle between the management, which serves as the media’s only Republican party outlet, and popular hosts who have become disenchanted with the GOP. …

Tucker Carlson has never allied himself with Trump or the MAGA banner. However, it’s become increasingly clear that he’s dissatisfied with the GOP’s delicacy in advancing conservative policies and, more importantly, in dealing with the grotesqueries coming from the left. This is true whether that involves Biden’s official policies or the less official activities on the left, ranging from the culture wars to its continuing push for election laws that make cheating easy (e.g, ballot harvesting, mail-in-only voting, the abolishment of “racist” IDs, etc.). …

We’re witnessing a war between MAGA and GOP factions within Fox. And as I said, while Tucker isn’t MAGA, I think he really dislikes the GOP.

Park MacDonald:

For the Left, he was a terrifying Julius Streicher-type figure, a symptom of the Republicans’ alleged collapse from the noble party of business interests and Cold War hawkishness into conspiratorial, pro-Russian fascism (I say “alleged” because you can read the same things written about Reagan in the ‘80s).

For the Right, he was either a dangerous demagogue or, more commonly, a noble crusader against both the crushing conformity of mainstream opinion and the Brezhnevian monotony of conservative counter-programming — and one that could channel the growing current of paranoia on the American Right.

For others still, Carlson’s show was, whatever his considerable flaws, one of the few places left on American television where one could count an alternative to the uniparty consensus on topics like Ukraine, Covid, and the increasingly brazen meddling of the American security apparatus in domestic politics.

All of which is true, or true enough in its own way. Speaking as a conflicted fan of Carlson, and one who generally has little patience for establishment liberal pearl-clutching, even I at times found his rhetoric to at times be incendiary, conspiratorial, and yes, even “irresponsible”; I also thought he was the only cable host worth watching, for the reasons listed above.

But mostly I thought Carlson was tremendously entertaining,

Larry Correia:

Tucker Carlson is now going to go sign a Joe Rogan size contract on a streaming service. He will make the most money of any news broadcaster in history and probdbly do so by an insane margin.

Meanwhile Don Lemon is a relative non entity. He won’t bring much of an audience with him wherever he goes.

John Hinderaker:

Tucker seems to me to represent the MAGA philosophy in its best form. Together with Donald Trump, Carlson was instrumental in making conservatism the philosophy of the common man. His exposure of the machinations of our so-called “elites” has been relentless. We live in an emperor’s new clothes world, and Tucker, more than anyone else, fearlessly pointed out the shortcomings and outright frauds perpetrated by those who claim to be our betters.

I didn’t always agree with Tucker, but I always respected his views and never doubted that his goal was to benefit the United States of America. That made him a hero to most, but a dangerous threat to the liberals who are trying to highjack America’s history and institutions, and turn them toward their own perverse ends.

Matt Vespa:

There’s word that Mr. Carlson intended to have an epic episode tonight, where he was reportedly going to delve into the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit and clear his name. He had guests lined up, but the bigwigs at Fox torpedoed the idea, leading to the host quitting. …

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) had spoken about regulating Fox News, specifically citing host Tucker Carlson. Well, that’s no longer necessary.

What is also apparent about Carlson is his worth to the network, which has now lost an estimated $930 million in market value since the news of his departure hit the wires. …

The better question: is this the end of Fox News?

My take? The Dominion lawsuit did it, because that case revealed that the US judiciary is now so biased that it makes non-narrative broadcasting unviable. Under US law and precedents, Fox could not be liable for reporting criticism by others (e.g. President Trump) of Dominion, in what was clearly a matter of pulic interest. But Dominion knew that they could not lose that lawsuit, because a loss would indicate that the Biden regime was not legitimate — smart move by Dominion. So a $20m company just won a $750m lawsuit, because Fox sensed they would lose — because the jury and judges would convict anyway, regardless of current law. Ergo, criticizing the narrative people in today’s climate is too dangerous. The truth is too dangerous and expensive for Fox, so Tucker had to go.

Anyway, the decision to fire Tucker was made by Lachlan Murdoch, who is much more narrative-friendly than his dad Rupert Murdoch. The Fox network has flipped, and has now joined the other five big media combines in the US in supporting the narrative and cancelling its critics.

Clearly Tucker was over the target.


hat-tip Stephen Neil, Joanne