The reasons for Tucker Carlson’s firing from Fox News’s highest-rated show remain under wraps, with both the former host and the network keeping mum. Fox only issued a statement saying the two parted company and the host’s Monday night replacement, Brian Kilmeade, repeated the line, adding Carlson was a great friend.
But the move comes less than a week after Fox News paid $787.5 million to settle the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems Inc. The litigation had resulted in the disclosure of many of Carlson’s messages, some of which were critical of Fox management.
Last month, one of Carlson’s producers also sued Fox News, alleging widespread gender bias at the network and on his show in particular. Abby Grossberg, who was fired shortly after filing her suit, also claimed she was coerced into lying in her deposition in the Dominion suit. Bloomberg News reported last week that Grossberg’s allegations and secret recordings she made played a role in Fox’s decision to settle.
Fox has denied Grossberg’s claims and is still fighting her suit, but she and her lawyer said Monday they welcomed Carlson’s firing and took it as a sign the company might be open to settling her case as well.
Here are the key allegations about Carlson from the recent litigation:
He was furious (and fearful) about Fox’s Arizona call
Fox News’s relatively early projection that Joe Biden won Arizona angered Donald Trump and set off calls to boycott the network among his supporters. Evidence collected during the Dominion lawsuit showed Fox’s top brass and on-air personalities feared viewers’ wrath.
Carlson was especially demonstrative. “We worked really hard to build what we have,” Carlson wrote in one message that went on to use an expletive to describes others at the network who were “destroying our credibility” by calling Arizona. “It enrages me,” he said.
He cast blame on Fox management
“Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience?” Carlson wrote on Nov. 7, 2020. “We’re playing with fire, for real...an alternative like newsmax could be devastating to us.”
He hated (and feared) Trump
Many of Carlson’s messages disclosed during the Dominion case showed him to be highly critical of Trump’s claims of election fraud as well as the then-president himself. “I hate him passionately,” Carlson said in one message. But Carlson also expressed fear that Trump could “destroy” Fox News.
He used sexist, vulgar language to describe a Trump ally
During one of his broadcasts, Carlson famously challenged Trump ally Sidney Powell, one of the main purveyors of wild election-fraud claims, to provide proof to back her claims. His skepticism about her conspiracy theories was further evidenced in messages produced during the Dominion case.
But Grossberg’s suit cited a private message between Carlson and his executive producer, Justin Wells, in which the star described Powell using crude, sexist terms, including a vulgar reference to a part of a woman’s anatomy. Wells was also dismissed today, according to media reports.
Such comments weren’t unusual for Carlson’s staff
“Unprofessionalism reigned supreme” on the show, Grossberg said in her complaint. “The staff’s distaste and disdain for women infiltrated almost every workday decision.”
On her first day on the job, she said she was shocked to see blown up photos of then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, “in a plunging bathing suit, revealing her cleavage.” Grossberg said she also witnessed a “crass and sexist” discussion over which Michigan gubernatorial candidate — Governor Gretchen Whitmer or Republican challenger Tudor Dixon — was “hotter.”
She says she also encountered religious bias
Grossberg, who is Jewish, claims her supervisor described another colleague to her as going to visit a “Jew bakery” and going “to see his people.”
She doesn’t accuse Carlson personally of any misconduct
Though her suit excoriates the work environment of his show, Grossberg doesn’t allege Carlson himself ever acted inappropriately towards her.
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