Life after Fox is apparently taking shape for that Tucker CarlsonCarlson, apart from some comments to The Daily mailspoke publicly since his resignation once, in a video on Twitter, which has since been viewed 81 million times, where he took on the media industry and the American political order. Now, nearly two weeks after the right-wing host was ousted from his primetime spot at Fox News, reports are trickling in about what’s next for Carlson — including a campaign against his former employer. “Carlson is preparing to unleash allies to attack Fox News in an effort to bully the network into making him work for — or start — a right-wing rival,” Axios reported Sunday, citing a “good Carlson- friend” who said that while the ex-Fox host initially said he wanted to be “quiet and clean” when negotiating his departure with Fox, “Now we are going from peacetime to Defcon 1. His team is preparing for war. He wants his freedom.” A Carlson source told Axios that the ousted TV personality “knows where many bodies are buried and is ready to start drawing a map.” (Fox News declined to comment beyond their statement from April, when they “agreed to part ways” with Carlson. “We thank him for his services to the network,” the network said at the time.)
Carlson’s current contract expires in January 2025, after the presidential election; to get back on the air before then, he needs “Fox News to agree to a deal that will allow him to start working elsewhere”. New York Times reported, noting that such a deal “could require him to forfeit millions of dollars owed by the network.” Carlson reportedly made as much as $20 million a year at Fox News. “The idea of someone tuckering out and preventing him from speaking to his audience is beyond ridiculous,” Brian Freemanthe high-powered Hollywood attorney Tucker hired for the contract dispute, Axios told me.
There’s no shortage of places Carlson could go, with reportedly right-wing outlets like Newsmax, One America News Network, and the faith-based Trinity Broadcast Network all approaching Carlson. name,” said the Washington PostAnd, according to Axios, Carlson is “busy carving out his own media empire,” like a “direct-consumer media outlet where his millions of fans can pay to watch him.” Carlson and his team also “discussed the possibility of moderating a candidate forum outside of the traditional protocols surrounding the GOP’s primary debate system,” according to the afteran idea he talked to Donald TrumpHis availability to do so is also unclear given the non-compete aspect of his Fox contract.
How quickly Fox will agree to let Carlson go out again, whether on its own platform or a rival’s, remains to be seen. , seem to have gotten messier in recent days. There have been a slew of leaks, such as the behind-the-scenes video from Carlson’s set that Media Matters for America published, which shows Carlson with the Dominion attorney questioning him as part of the billion-dollar defamation suit against Fox and making sexist and cruel comments. Fox lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to the organization late last week, claiming that the “unbroadcast footage is Fox’s confidential intellectual property” that was “unlawfully obtained.” Fox “has not consented to its distribution or publication; and Fox does not consent to its further distribution or publication,” the letter said. There was also one Time account of a previously redacted text message obtained during the discovery process of the Dominion, which fully reflected Carlson’s views on race and violence – the discovery of which, according to the Timeplayed a part in the chain of events that ultimately led to his dismissal. The Daily Beast reported other previously unreported text messages that were part of the Dominion case court documents, including messages in which Carlson used the c-word for at least the second time to refer to Trump lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell.
Fox is clearly looking for ways to contain the unrest, as on Friday lawyers for the network asked Dominion’s attorneys to investigate the leaked Carlson messages, Reuters reported. discovery materials” and report the findings by the end of Monday, but Dominion denied that the materials came from the company or its lawyers. “No one associated with Dominion has shared these confidential materials with the press,” the company said, per Reuters And more about what was going on in Fox kept coming out Rolling stone reporting Sunday of the intra-network “death match” between Carlson and Irena BrigantiFox’s communications and PR chief. In the spring of 2020, Carlson reportedly tried, unsuccessfully, to fire Briganti, taking his case to the CEO of Fox News Susan ScottChief Legal Officer of Fox Viet DinhCEO of Fox Corp Lachlan Murdochand Fox News personalities like Sean HannityThe failed attempt “helped erode his goodwill among the Fox News executive class,” it said Rolling stone.
