Fox News Media announced on Monday that Tucker Carlson, who hosts the most popular news talk show on television, has left the network.
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part 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. His final show was on Friday. The 8 pm eastern time slot will be filled by a rotating lineup until a new host is named, the company said. The news hour will be called “Fox News Tonight.”
Last week, Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $757.5 million.
On Saturday night, Carlson gave a rousing speech at the 50th anniversary of the Heritage Foundation’s gala dinner in Washington, D.C., where he may have given a clue that he was out at Fox, where he has hosted Tucker Carlson Tonight since 2016.
“But you look around and you see some of the people who have really paid a heavy price for telling the truth. They are passed out of their groups, but they do it anyway. I look at those people with the deepest possible admiration,” he said, in speaking about the urge to shut down speaking the truth in order to be accepted by the herd.
Carlson was set to appear as a witness in the lawsuit Dominion filed against Fox, but the lawsuit was settled on the eve of the trial.
Carlson in 2010 was a co-founder of the news site, The Daily Caller, which features columns on Sunday by Suzanne Downing, publisher of Must Read Alaska.
Last week, Dan Bongino announced on his podcast Thursday that he was leaving Fox News, saying that he and Fox failed to reach agreement on a new contract.
“It’s no big conspiracy, I promise you. You’re going to read a thousand left-wing articles about some nonsense, and I’m guaranteeing you on my reputation, it is all made up. It’s a simple contract thing, and that’s it. It is no more complicated than that,” he said. But by Monday, the situation looks more like a purge than a simple contract standoff.
