Reports are now coming out for the reason behind Tucker’s firing. According to the Los Angeles Times, Rupert Murdoch ordered Tucker’s firing because Tucker believed January 6 conspiracy claims and because a producer accused him of running a production that bullied her, was sexist, and was antisemitic. I take this to mean that I was correct that there was a battle between a GOPer and a conservative, with the lawsuit serving as a convenient excuse.
The LA Times writes in relevant part:
Carlson’s exit is related to the discrimination lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg, the producer fired by the network last month, the people said. Carlson’s senior executive producer Justin Wells has also been terminated, according to people familiar with the matter. A Fox News representative would not comment.
Murdoch is also said to be concerned over Carlson’s coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, in which the host has promoted the conspiracy theory that it was provoked by government agents.
So there are two threads here: The first is the lawsuit, and the second is January 6. Let me take them one at a time.
Image: Tucker Carlson. YouTube screen grab.
According to the LA Times’s story from March about her lawsuit, Grossberg makes multiple allegations about a hostile work environment. Specifically, regarding Tucker’s show, Grossberg alleged that producers made “sexist and belittling comments” about Maria Bartiromo, that the pace of Tucker’s show caused her medically debilitating stress, that the set had blow-ups of the well-known photo of Nancy Pelosi in a low-cut swimsuit, that staff members were misogynistic, and that the guys on set thought rooms for pumping mother’s milk were a waste of space. The LA Times report from today adds antisemitism to the list of charges, something that I did not see in the original March article.
Interestingly, none of the charges seem to be aimed at Tucker himself. Instead, they’re aimed at his time. Admittedly, though, I haven’t refused the complaint, so I may have gotten that wrong.
It’s hard to believe that these allegations from a month-old complaint would justify firing one of Fox News’s most popular personalities. What makes more sense is the contention that Murdoch didn’t like Tucker’s unwillingness to accept the Democrat party/RINO line about January 6. This, again, is from the LA Times report today:
Murdoch is also said to be concerned over Carlson’s coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, in which the host has promoted the conspiracy theory that it was provoked by government agents.
Carlson has called Ray Epps — a Texas man who participated in the storming of the Capitol but did not enter the building — an FBI plant, without presenting any evidence.
Epps was interviewed Sunday on “60 Minutes” and said he has been subjected to death threats as a result of Carlson’s statements about him. The FBI told “60 Minutes” that Epps has never worked for the agency.
Here’s something to contemplate as you think about 60 Minutes’ reporting that the FBI stated that Epps had never worked for it:
There are a whole host of other anomalies attached to Epps’s behavior and the Democrats’ reverence for him. Only someone who really doesn’t want to know the truth would be angry at someone else who was poking around trying to find the truth.
In other words, as I suggested in my original post about Tucker parting ways with Fox, what we’re seeing here is a battle in the great ideological warfare playing out in America. Tucker was questioning the leftist/RINO narrative, and that didn’t play well at Fox. It’s another part of The Great Sorting.
I wish Tucker the best of luck as he contemplates restarting his career following his firing. I imagine that, if he were to do a show on Rumble, it would be enormously successful.