At the beginning of the week, Tucker Carlson found himself unemployed.
The Fox News commentator and host of his own show was fired, so abruptly that his people didn’t know it until they showed up for work Monday morning.
Carlson was Fox’s first-string, pulling in not only more viewers than anyone else on Fox, but anyone else on cable television. Since his ouster, viewership of Fox’s line-up — and most significantly the Tucker Carlson Tonight time slot — plummeted.
Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch made the decision. This sort of self-sabotage is breathtaking to behold. It’s the second time in recent years that Fox News has ousted its most lucrative talent.
You may remember that Bill O’Reilly, whom Tucker replaced, was let go because of the many sexual misconduct lawsuits Fox had been forced to pay out. It was not immediately clear why Tucker Carlson got the boot.
Initial theories focused on the Dominion lawsuit, but that seemed implausible to those who followed the story closely. Most viewers believed the firing was ideological in nature. Murdoch is very establishment-oriented, and Tucker Carlson has increasingly become anti-establishment. And on his semi-penultimate show, he lectured about the dominance of Big Pharma advertising on cable TV, and
This.
Is.
Just.
Not.
Done.
As the week wore on, a more intriguing theory emerged: Rupert Murdoch did not like Tucker’s Heritage Foundation speech over the weekend, in which the Fox anchor entreated his audience to pray for the future of America. Murdoch is said to hate that sort of thing, especially since he jilted a former future Mrs. Murdoch (that is, a fiancée) for her over-religiosity.
I cannot imagine anyone praying for Fox News.
Not, it seems, even Rupert Murdoch.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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