Tucker Carlson’s fate was reportedly sealed by disturbing texts presented to Fox News executives right before the right-wing cable channel agreed to pay a whopping $787.5 million to one of the voting technology companies suing the network for defamation.
For years, Carlson spread lies, bigotry, disinformation and conspiracy theories on his prime-time program. But according to the New York Times, private messages presented to network executives by lawyers in the case against them from Dominion Voting Systems, set “a crisis at the highest level of the company.”
The content of those exchanges reportedly prompted Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott to tell Carlson his time at Fox News was complete. The conservative media brand soon announced publicly that “Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways.”
Carlson cryptically appeared to acknowledge the divorce in a short video posted to Twitter Wednesday night but did not mention his former employer by name.
“See you soon,” he concluded at the end of vague rant about political parties and “their donors.”
Fox News was slated to go to trial with Dominion on April 17 after telling the Us.Mistertruth it would “continue to fiercely advocate for the rights of free speech and a free press as we move into the next phase of these proceedings.”
That trial was pushed off until the next day while the companies reportedly hashed out what’s believed to be a record-setting defamation settlement. A judge ruled in pre-trial it was “crystal clear” the network’s assertions that faulty voting machines contributed to Donald Trump losing the 2020 presidential election were false.
According to the Times, Fox News’ lawyers were aware Carlson privately “made highly offensive and crude remarks that went beyond the inflammatory, often racist comments of his prime-time show.” However, that redacted information wasn’t disclosed to Fox News executives until the eve of opening arguments. The network agreed at the 11th hour to strike a deal that would preempt its stars taking the witness stand in defense of their private exchanges.
Those texts also include Carlson and other Fox News hosts admitting they knew some of the network’s reporting wasn’t true but worried the outlet would lose viewers to more extreme right-wing outlets if they upset Trump supporters.
Fox News still faces a $2.7 billion lawsuit from the Smartmatic voting technologies company under similar circumstances. Newsmax and OANN — Fox News competitors with similar sensibilities — also face lawsuits from Dominion and Smartmatic.