Tucker Carlson Leaving Fox NewsFox News Parts Ways With Tucker Carlson Days After Dominion Settlement
The announcement came less than a week after the network agreed to pay $787.5 million in a defamation lawsuit in which Mr. Carlson’s show, one of the highest rated on Fox, figured prominently. He was said to be surprised by the move.
Fox News on Monday dismissed Tucker Carlson, its most popular prime-time host and one of the most influential voices on the American right.
The network made the announcement less than a week after it agreed to pay $787.5 million in a defamation lawsuit in which Mr. Carlson’s show, one of the highest rated on Fox, figured prominently for its role in spreading misinformation after the 2020 election.
Mr. Carlson’s program became a must-watch for conservatives during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, an ideological ally and occasional confidant of Mr. Carlson’s. Both men helped push hard-right positions on issues like immigration reform and race relations into the Republican mainstream, and both relished antagonizing their political opponents with audacious and often untrue attacks.
Here is what else to know:
The decision to let Mr. Carlson go was made on Friday night by Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive officer of Fox Corporation and the son of its co-founder, Rupert Murdoch, and by Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, according to a person briefed on the move.
Mr. Carlson was given no heads-up that his time at Fox News was drawing to an end, according to two people with knowledge of the timing of the conversation. The anchor was told of the network’s decision on Monday morning, and his senior executive producer, Justin Wells, was also out of a job.
A Fox spokeswoman said Mr. Carlson’s show would be replaced with a new program called “Fox News Tonight” that would feature rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named. Brian Kilmeade was the first host on Monday night, but he said little of Mr. Carlson beyond wishing him well.
Mr. Carlson is also facing a lawsuit from a former Fox News producer, Abby Grossberg, who claims that he presided over a misogynistic and discriminatory workplace culture. Ms. Grossberg said in the lawsuit, which was filed in March, that on her first day working for Mr. Carlson, she discovered the work space was decorated with large pictures of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing a swimsuit.
In April 2022, The New York Times examined how Mr. Carlson positioned himself to inherit the movement that grew around President Trump as he constructed what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news.
The power that Tucker Carlson wielded outside Fox News could not insulate him from a growing list of troubles inside the network related to his conduct on and off the air, some of which had been grating on Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of Fox Corporation, and his father, Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corporation, who co-founded the network in 1996, according to two people with knowledge of the company’s decision.
The decision to let Carlson go was made on Friday night by Lachlan Murdoch and Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, according to a person briefed on the move.
Brian Kilmeade hosts the first installment of “Fox News Tonight” in Tucker Carlson’s former 8 p.m. slot. In brief comments about Carlson, he tells viewers: “I wish Tucker the best. I’m great friends with Tucker and always will be.”
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The abrupt cancellation of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” will come at a cost for Fox News.
Mr. Carlson’s prime-time show brought in $77.5 million in advertising revenue last year, dwarfing his Fox News prime-time colleagues as well as his main competitors on CNN and MSNBC, according to Vivvix, a research firm.
Last year, Anderson Cooper’s 8 p.m. program on CNN had ad revenue of $50.7 million, while MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” brought in $30.9 million, according to Vivvix data.
Meanwhile, Sean Hannity’s 9 p.m. Fox News show took in $50.4 million, and “The Ingraham Angle” had ad revenue of $53.7 million.
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” also had a bigger year-to-year increase compared with those shows. Last year, the show took in $10 million more in ad revenue compared with 2021, a 15 percent jump.
Tucker Carlson has not yet released a statement or spoken publicly of his firing from Fox, more than seven hours after it was announced.
With his abrupt departure from Fox News on Monday, Tucker Carlson lost the megaphone that many have accused him of using to spread conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines, gender identity and election integrity.
Civil rights activists and media experts expressed hope that a major force in the misinformation ecosystem had been muzzled.
The television host was “one of the nation’s most prolific mouthpieces for white supremacy, misinformation and misogyny,” said Bridget Todd, director of communications at the gender equity advocacy group Ultraviolet.
“We are not sad to see him go,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and chief executive of the L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization GLAAD, wrote on Twitter.
Mr. Carlson’s show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” was the most-watched show in prime-time cable news, averaging 3.25 million viewers in the first quarter of the year. He was also a prominent figure in the defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems. Before the election technology company settled with the network last week for $787.5 million, it blamed stars like Mr. Carlson for giving credibility to false voter fraud narratives while privately mocking them.
Yet even as Mr. Carlson’s ability to spread misinformation is likely to be “greatly diminished” without Fox News, the conspiracy theories he championed will continue to be shared, said Howard Polskin, who compiles a daily newsletter, TheRighting, which tracks conservative news outlets.
“This is a weed with deep roots — just because you take away something on top of the soil, that doesn’t mean it’s not going to pop up elsewhere,” he said. “There are so many voices on the right. They’re proliferating, and they’re a lot of the time getting louder and more passionate.”
Andrew Torba, who founded Gab, a social network that has become a hub for white supremacists and extremists, said Mr. Carlson should create his own digital broadcasting network “so that he no longer needs to ask permission from anyone to cover any story he wants.”
The absence of an explanation from Fox News about Mr. Carlson’s exit did not prevent an outpouring of unfounded speculation about the departure, including rumors that he had been silenced by Fox.
Prominent anti-vaccine skeptics, including the Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., proposed without proof that Mr. Carlson was fired for suggesting that Fox News had promoted the Covid-19 vaccine to please its pharmaceutical advertisers.
Anti-vaccine activist Dr. Sherri Tenpenny also posted several messages to her 124,000 Telegram followers, suggesting that there was a conspiracy behind Mr. Tucker’s departure from Fox News. “Don’t expect #FoxNews to tell the truth, as they got rid of the only Journalist that could NOT be controlled,” she wrote.
Mr. Carlson and Fox News did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Rashad Robinson, the president of the advocacy group Color of Change, worried that Fox would replace Mr. Carlson with “someone even worse” and called for more accountability for media figures who spread misinformation.
“Firing Tucker Carlson doesn’t undo the damage he’s already done or signal any new direction for Fox,” Mr. Robinson said on Twitter.
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In an intriguing move, former President Donald J. Trump has decided on the venue for his first public comments about Tucker Carlson’s ouster: Newsmax, one of Fox News’s major rivals. Trump will appear on the channel at 9 p.m. for an interview with the Newsmax anchor Greg Kelly.
The announcement on Monday that Fox News was parting ways with its top-rated prime-time host, Tucker Carlson, stunned people in Donald J. Trump’s orbit. The former president himself was surprised by the news, according to a person with direct knowledge, and his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who is a close friend of Mr. Carlson’s, described the network’s decision as “mind-blowing.”
“I think it changes things permanently,” Donald Trump Jr. said on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” adding that Mr. Carlson was “an actual thought leader in conservatism” and a “once-in-a-generation type talent.”
The casual news observer would be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Trump and his family no longer had a relationship with Mr. Carlson, given the recent disclosures of the Fox host’s scathing private text messages, which emerged as part of the conservative network’s legal battle against Dominion Voting Systems.
In early 2021, as Mr. Trump desperately tried to overturn the 2020 election, Mr. Carlson texted a confidant that he hated the president “passionately.” He also described Mr. Trump as a “demonic force.”
When the texts were released in March, Mr. Trump was wounded and called Mr. Carlson to talk about them, according to a person familiar with the outreach. But the two men patched it up quickly. Since then, they have talked regularly, exchanged text messages and appeared to have a closer relationship than at any time before, according to two people close to Mr. Trump who are familiar with their relationship and who did not want to be identified to discuss their private interactions.
In an interview with Greg Kelly of Newsmax that was recorded shortly after Mr. Carlson’s departure became public, Mr. Trump offered support for the former anchor. “I’m shocked. I’m surprised,” Mr. Trump said. “I think Tucker’s been terrific. He’s been, especially over the last year or so, he’s been terrific to me.”
Mr. Carlson did not respond to a request for comment.
Last year, some of Mr. Trump’s advisers had worried that Mr. Carlson seemed poised to support the potential presidential candidacy of Mr. Trump’s top rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Mr. Carlson had given Mr. DeSantis plenty of airtime and praised his policies. But over the past six weeks, as Mr. Trump and Mr. Carlson spoke more often, the Trump team felt increasingly confident that Mr. Carlson would not be weighing in for Mr. DeSantis, who has been heavily promoted by Rupert Murdoch’s media properties including Fox News.
The Trump team liked their odds even more when they learned that Mr. Carlson was disgusted with Mr. DeSantis’s decision, in late March, to call President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a “war criminal.”
Senator J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican who is a close ally of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Carlson, described the Fox News host’s ousting as a shock.
“Tucker is a giant, and the most powerful voice against idiotic wars and an economy that placed plutocrats over workers,” Mr. Vance said in a text message. “This is a huge loss for a conservative movement that hopes to be worthy of its own voters. I assume he’ll land on his feet and continue to have a powerful voice. If he doesn’t it will be terrible for the country.”
“The best decision I ever made was leaving Fox. Good for you, @TuckerCarlson. You’re free & uncensored!” Kari Lake, a Republican who lost the governor’s race in Arizona last year, wrote in a tweet. Ms. Lake left her job as an anchor at a local Fox channel in 2021.
Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, struck an upbeat tone in a Monday tweet: “Wherever Tucker Carlson goes, America will follow!”
Joe Kent, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Washington State, tweeted, “Standing by for the launch of the Tucker news network, the people demand it!”
One close ally of Mr. Trump said he was happy that Mr. Carlson would not be able to give rocket fuel to any other candidate on Fox’s airwaves. Yet for some candidates in the Republican primary field, the loss of Mr. Carlson could mean a minefield they would have to navigate is now gone from a prominent platform.
For instance, Mr. DeSantis’s statement to Mr. Carlson weeks ago describing the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” set off alarm bells and a wave of criticism among Republicans in Washington and some donors. It represented the beginning of what has been a period of concern about Mr. DeSantis’s expected candidacy from some who had seen him as the best option to stop Mr. Trump.
A Trump adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the sense in Mr. Trump’s world was that any pro-Trump host at Fox News had something of a target on their back after the Dominion lawsuit.
Mr. Trump’s longest-serving adviser, Roger J. Stone Jr., who is also an old friend of Mr. Carlson’s, said in an interview that Fox News had “essentially canceled the single most influential conservative commentator in the country, at the same time killing a cash cow for the network.”
He predicted that Mr. Carlson would take his “massive audience” wherever he ends up next.
Alyce McFadden contributed reporting.
Fox’s share price fell almost 3 percent on Monday following host Tucker Carlson’s departure, marking the network’s worst day in a run of losses since it settled with Dominion last week.
The company’s share price fell below $30 per share on Monday, down roughly 4.5 percent since the start of the month. That compares to a modest gain for the broader S&P 500 index over the same period.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTMessages sent among Fox News hosts, released as part of the recently settled lawsuit against the network filed by Dominion Voting Systems, showed that Tucker Carlson was among those whose private musings were often at odds with what they said on their broadcasts.
Mr. Carlson expressed grave doubts on the unfounded narrative about widespread voter fraud, which was promoted by then-President Donald J. Trump and a coalition of lawyers, lawmakers and influencers.
Two days after the election, Mr. Carlson’s producer, Alex Pfeiffer, said that voices on the right were “reckless demagogues,” according to a text message. Mr. Carlson replied that his show was “not going to follow them.”
But the same day, on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Mr. Carlson expressed some doubts about the voter fraud assertions before insisting that at least some of the claims were “credible.”
On Nov. 7, 2020, Mr. Carlson privately told Mr. Pfeiffer that claims about manipulated software were “absurd.” Mr. Pfeiffer replied later that there was not enough evidence of fraud to swing the election. But during his broadcast on Nov. 9, Mr. Carlson devoted time to various theories, suggesting there could be merit to claims about software manipulation. “We don’t know, we have to find out,” he said.
Mr. Carlson and other hosts also privately criticized Sidney Powell, a lawyer and conspiracy theorist who was gaining traction among the far right for her involvement in several lawsuits aimed at challenging the election results. Mr. Carlson called her claims “shockingly reckless.”
Tucker Carlson is joining a long list of nightly news hosts who once commanded huge audiences before quick departures from their networks. They have continued their careers elsewhere with mixed results.
Bill O’Reilly, the onetime host of the Fox News show “The O’Reilly Factor,” was fired in 2017 amid a sexual harassment scandal. Mr. O’Reilly now hosts “No Spin News,” a political opinion podcast that ranks No. 71 in Apple’s top podcast charts for news shows in the United States, according to Chartable, a podcast insights company.
Mr. O’Reilly also runs a news and commentary website, billoreilly.com, where he livestreams interviews with politicians, writes opinions pieces and hawks merchandise. The site had 1.2 million visits last month, according to SimilarWeb, a web traffic monitoring company. (Fox News’s flagship news site had 329 million visits during the same period.)
Glenn Beck, the former Fox News host, departed in 2011 to begin his own online news venture. That included The Blaze, a news and video website that had 12 million visits last month, according to SimilarWeb. He also hosts “The Glenn Beck Program,” a radio show and podcast that ranked No. 13 in Apple’s top podcast charts for news shows in the United States, according to Chartable.
Chris Cuomo, the former CNN host, was fired in 2021 amid an inquiry into his efforts to help his brother, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, navigate sexual harassment accusations. The anchor now hosts “CUOMO” on NewsNation, a subscription television news network. The site had five million visits last month, according to SimilarWeb. Also in 2021, two top editors at NewsNation resigned amid staff complaints of a right-leaning tilt to its coverage and abysmal ratings.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAfter a journeyman cable career that included stints at MSNBC and CNN, Tucker Carlson finally found the huge ratings success that had long eluded him at Fox News.
Ever since “Tucker Carlson Tonight” debuted, the show was a hit, with Mr. Carlson regularly attracting roughly three million viewers a night. Mr. Carlson assumed prime-time duties six years ago, taking Megyn Kelly’s 9 p.m. time slot after she left the network for NBC. Mr. Carlson moved to his current 8 p.m. time slot in April 2017 after Bill O’Reilly was pushed out by the network.
From 2017 to 2020, Mr. Carlson had the second-highest number of viewers on Fox News, finishing only behind Sean Hannity’s prime-time program. Fueled by the pandemic and a chaotic election cycle, Mr. Carlson’s show in 2020 had more than four million viewers, one of the best ratings performances in cable news history.
In 2021, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” bested “Hannity” and finished the year as the most-watched show in cable news with 3.2 million viewers.
Last year, Mr. Carlson’s 8 p.m. show narrowly ceded the most-watched crown to Fox’s 5 p.m. “The Five,” part of a broader trend in cable news where viewers have been flocking to afternoon shows.
Through the first three months this year, that trend has held: “The Five” averaged 10,000 more viewers than “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Mr. Carlson had been the top show among the viewers — ages 25 to 54 years old — that matter most to advertisers. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” had averaged 443,000 viewers in that age bracket compared to the 357,000 that watched “The Five,” in the first quarter this year.
After graduating from Trinity College in 1991, Tucker Carlson entered print journalism, writing for a variety of right-leaning and mainstream publications.
His move into broadcast began his ascent into stardom. Here is a brief timeline of his career.
2000-2005: CNN
Mr. Carlson started at CNN in 2000 as a host of “The Spin Room.”
In 2001, he sparred with commentators from the left as a host of “Crossfire,” a debate show in which he conducted a memorably contentious interview with the comedian Jon Stewart. The show was canceled in 2005, and CNN ended its relationship with Mr. Carlson.
2004-2005: PBS
His show, “Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered,” lasted about a year and ran at the same time as CNN’s “Crossfire.” It was part of an effort by the public media network to add ideological balance.
2005-2008: MSNBC
In what would now be an unexpected pairing, Mr. Carlson hosted “Tucker” on the cable news network until 2008, when it was canceled for low ratings. MSNBC gradually moved to the left during his tenure.
2009-2023: Fox News
He began appearing on several shows as a contributor, and in 2016 became the host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” at times running in the 7 p.m., 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. time slots. His show became the highest-rated cable news program in prime time.
2010-2020: The Daily Caller
Mr. Carlson co-founded the conservative news site, a pioneer in online conservative journalism, in 2010. He sold his stake in 2020.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAn attorney for Abby Grossberg, who is suing Tucker Carlson, said in a statement that Carlson's exit from Fox News “is, in part, an admission of the systemic lying, bullying and conspiracy-mongering claimed by our client.” The attorney, Tanvir Rahman, added that Grossberg’s legal team would be taking Carlson’s deposition and those of his subordinates “in the very near term.”
Tucker Carlson’s popular show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” has held the weeknight 8 p.m. slot since 2017, when it replaced Bill O’Reilly’s show after he was fired from the network.
Often pushing conspiracy theories and racist narratives, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” became one of the most-watched shows in prime-time cable news, averaging 3.25 million viewers in the first quarter of this year.
The Fox News host Harris Faulkner said Monday while on air that, starting Monday evening, the interim show, “Fox News Tonight,” would fill the 8 p.m. hour “with rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named.”
Brian Kilmeade was the first host on Monday night, and he told viewers in brief comments: “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.”
Mr. Carlson’s last show was on Friday. In it, he appeared to not know it was his finale. He ate a sausage and pineapple pizza with a delivery man who had thwarted a man running from police and told viewers: “We’ll be back on Monday. In the meantime, have the best weekend with the ones that you love.”
A wild few hours in cable news rocked the media landscape on Monday, when two of the industry’s most recognizable stars unexpectedly departed their respective networks.
Not even an hour after Fox News announced that it was parting ways with Tucker Carlson, its popular prime-time anchor, the CNN anchor Don Lemon, a 17-year veteran of the network, said on Twitter that he had been “terminated” without having spoken to CNN management.
In response, CNN called Mr. Lemon’s statement “inaccurate,” saying that he was “offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.”
Their sudden exits came less than 24 hours after Jeff Shell, who commanded Comcast’s sprawling entertainment empire as the chief executive at NBC Universal, left the company on Sunday after an investigation into a complaint about an inappropriate workplace relationship.
And on Monday morning, the sports behemoth ESPN made significant layoffs.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTTucker Carlson is facing a lawsuit from his former head of booking, Abby Grossberg, who says she was subjected to a hostile and discriminatory work environment.
Ms. Grossberg, who was fired by Fox News shortly after she filed two lawsuits against the company in March, joined Mr. Carlson’s team in 2022 after several years as a senior producer for Maria Bartiromo, another Fox host.
Ms. Grossberg said in the lawsuit naming Mr. Carlson that male producers regularly used vulgarities to describe women and frequently made antisemitic jokes.
On her first day working for Mr. Carlson, Ms. Grossberg said she discovered the office was decorated with large pictures of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing a plunging swimsuit. She said she was once called into the top producer’s office to be asked whether Ms. Bartiromo was having a sexual relationship with the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy.
Ms. Grossberg also said in her lawsuit that after she was coerced by Fox’s lawyers into providing a misleading deposition in a recent defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems and defending an offensive text from Mr. Carlson, his producers emailed the rest of the staff in recognition of “Abby Day” and suggested ordering a staff lunch to celebrate.
Fox has disputed Ms. Grossberg’s claims, and Mr. Carlson hasn’t said anything publicly about the case.
“We will continue to vigorously defend Fox against Ms. Grossberg’s unmeritorious legal claims, which are riddled with false allegations against Fox and our employees,” a Fox News spokeswoman said.
The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, also names Fox Corporation, Fox News, some network executives and several of Mr. Carlson’s producers as defendants.
In a statement on Monday, one of Ms. Grossberg’s attorneys, Tanvir Rahman, said that Mr. Carlson’s departure from Fox News “is, in part, an admission of the systemic lying, bullying and conspiracy mongering claimed by our client.” Mr. Rahman said that the legal team would be taking Mr. Carlson’s deposition and those of his subordinates “in the very near term.”