Fox News Parts Ways With Tucker Carlson: Latest Updates

His last program was on Friday, Fox said. Two people briefed on his departure said Mr Carlson was not informed he had left the network until Monday morning.

The program became a must for conservatives during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, an ideological ally and occasional confidant of Mr. Carlson. Both men helped push far-right positions on issues like immigration reform and race relations into the Republican mainstream, and both enjoyed angering their political opponents with bold and often untrue attacks.

In recent weeks, however, it was the tumult unfolding from the air that consumed Mr. Carlson and his program. He was supposed to be a star witness in Dominion Voting Systems’ billion-dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News until the network abruptly settled for $787.5 million last week.

Fox offered a terse statement of thanks for the announcement late Monday morning. “Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and before that as a contributor,” the network’s statement said.

Mr Carlson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

His position at the station quickly seemed untenable. Fox had promoted an interview Mr Carlson was scheduled to conduct on Monday with Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential nominee in 2024.

Fox News host Harris Faulkner said Monday that beginning this evening, an interlude, “Fox News Tonight,” would fill the 8 p.m. hour “with rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named.”

It wasn’t just Mr. Carlson’s statements that got him into trouble. His private messages to producers – in which they denounced Mr Trump and his legal advisers in vulgar and sexist terms after the 2020 election – were exposed as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox. In an exchange with staff, Mr. Carlson texted about Mr. Trump: “I hate him passionately.” In another, he called Mr. Trump – whom he often praised on his show – as “a demonic force, a destroyer.”

And late last month, one of its former producers filed a lawsuit against Fox, alleging that Mr. Carlson ran a toxic workplace.

His departure ends a rapid and controversial rise at the conservative news and opinion network, where Mr Carlson was promoted to prime time in late 2016 and quickly became one of the big media stars of the Trump era.

More than any other Fox host, Mr. Carlson drew viewers by tapping into the cultural fears and racial grievances of the former president’s political base. Warning viewers that they were under attack from liberal elites and rampant immigration, he borrowed some of his central themes from the white nationalist and far-right net and polished them for a mainstream audience.

As Fox launched a streaming network, Fox Nation, to generate more revenue from its most loyal fans, Mr. Carlson became the new platform’s top personality, with a thrice-weekly talk show and regular documentaries that doubled his themes as duplicitous elites and racially obsessed liberals.

At his peak within Fox, he defied the network’s top leadership while cultivating among colleagues an impression that he was comfortable with the Murdoch family, particularly Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch. Although Mr. Carlson said in his affidavit as part of the Dominion trial that the two men were not particularly close. When asked how often he communicated with Lachlan Murdoch, Mr. Carlson replied, “Rarely.” He added, “It’s not weekly or even monthly.”

He also used his stature to bully and pressure younger colleagues on the news site when they were challenging the show’s powerful opinion anchors or — yes — reporting on the 2020 election results.

In the recent lawsuit filed by one of his former Fox producers, Abby Grossberg, she accuses Mr. Carlson of presiding over a misogynistic and discriminatory work culture. Ms Grossberg said in the lawsuit, filed in March, that on her first day working for Mr Carlson, she discovered the workplace was adorned with large pictures of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wearing a plunging swimsuit.

Ms Grossberg said Mr Carlson’s staff frequently used vulgar terms for women and that she was once called into the top producer’s office to be asked if Maria Bartiromo, a Fox Business host she previously worked for had a sexual relationship with her House Republican Chairman Kevin McCarthy.

Ms. Grossberg also claimed that after being coerced by Fox’s attorneys into making a misleading testimony in the Dominion case and defending an offensive text by Mr. Carlson, his producers emailed the rest of the staff crediting themselves of “Abby Day” and with the suggestion to order had a staff dinner to celebrate.

Fox has denied Ms Grossberg’s claims. She was fired after filing the lawsuit. A spokeswoman said in a recent statement: “We will continue to vigorously defend Fox against Ms. Grossberg’s baseless legal claims, which are riddled with false allegations against Fox and our employees.”

Justin Wells, the executive producer of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” is also no longer employed by Fox News, according to two people with knowledge of the decision from within the network. Mr. Wells had worked closely with Mr. Carlson since his prime-time show began in 2016.

In recent years, Mr. Carlson, 53, has expanded his platform and reach within the network, leading people to believe he is in some ways untouchable. He signed a new deal with Fox News in 2021 and expanded into podcasts and a series called “Tucker Carlson Originals” for the Fox Nation streaming service.

In 2022, he gave an interview to rising media company Semafor in which he bragged about how he operated with virtual autonomy at Fox. “I don’t clarify anything with anyone. I’m late turning in my script,” said Mr. Carlson.

He’s not the first Star Fox personality to leave the network after accumulating a massive following – and leaving fans feeling like they were just too big to fail. In 2011, the network ousted Glenn Beck, the tea party megastar whose anti-Obama rants made his show one of the most popular in Fox News history. Two years later, Fox split from Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska.

Fox executives said at the time that one factor in particular led to the departures: no one is bigger than the network.

Nicholas Confessore contributed to the reporting.