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Tucker Carlson speaks during the Politicon conference in Los Angeles, October 21, 2018
Rich Polk | Getty Images
Tucker Carlson broke his silence on Wednesday night, two days after his unceremonious exit from Fox News.
The right wing former primetime TV host, however, did not address his firing or what is next for him. Instead, in a video posted on Twitter, Carlson discusses his view on U.S. politics and the conversation taking place on cable news.
“When you take a little time off, you realize how unbelievably stupid the debates you see on television are, they’re completely irrelevant. They mean nothing. In five years, we won’t even remember that we had them. Trust me as someone who participated,” Carlson said in his video message on Wednesday.
On Monday, Fox News fired Carlson, noting his last show aired on Friday. Neither Carlson, nor his recently hired attorney Bryan Freedman, have responded to requests for comment since then.
“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the company said in a statement Monday. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.” Fox News representatives, which haven’t commented past their Monday announcement, didn’t immediately respond to comment Wednesday.
His departure from Fox Corp.’s cable-TV network – which carries the highest cable news ratings – came in the wake of the company’s $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. Fox and Dominion settled the defamation lawsuit just as it was about to go to a six-week trial that would have seen Carlson, some of his fellow anchors and top brass including Rupert Murdoch testify on the stand. Dominion sued Fox and its cable networks for airing false claims that the voting machine maker helped rig the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden.
Although the Dominion lawsuit was unlikely to affect Fox’s bottom line too much – its stock price remained stable until Carlson’s departure on Monday, when it took a slight dip – the implications of what was already unveiled in discovery, and what could be later revealed, were likely a bigger concern. Carlson was a huge ratings draw for the network.
Since Monday, media reports have emerged that private messages from Carlson that were unearthed during the discovery process for the Dominion lawsuit helped seal his fate at Fox News. Vulgar private messages about his colleagues pushed Fox leadership toward letting go Carlson, The Wall Street Journal reported. Executives at Fox found out about the messages on the eve of the trial, according to The New York Times.
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