Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News, ending reign of dominant conservative anchor

Tucker Carlson, the flame-throwing, conspiracy-floating, hard-right conservative news host who has dominated prime-time cable TV in recent years, is leaving Fox News, the network said Monday.

Fox News delivered the surprise announcement — an earthquake in the media world — six days after reaching a $788 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, which had sued over the role Carlson and other network mainstays played in propagating 2020 election misinformation.

Carlson’s final show on the network aired last Friday, according to Fox News. The 53-year-old host, who had led “Tucker Carlson Tonight” since 2016, first joined Fox News as contributor in 2009 and inked a new contract in 2021.

It was not immediately clear if Carlson was pushed out by the network. He is also at the center of a New York lawsuit against Fox News lodged by a former head booker and senior producer who charged she was subjected to sexism and hostility while working on his show.

“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the network said in a detail-light, three-paragraph statement. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”

Carlson, a probing questioner with a preppie style whose face often morphs into an expression of confusion when met with opposing viewpoints, did not immediately comment publicly on his departure.

The 8 p.m. hour on the channel he leaves behind, now dubbed “Fox News Tonight,” will be hosted by a rotating crew of anchors until a new host is named, Fox News said. Carlson was not given the opportunity to say goodbye to his audience on the air.

Fox News’ parent company, Fox Corp., saw its stock price slide sharply as news of Carlson’s exit arrived Monday morning. As the stock market closed, the price was down about 3% on the day.

The disclosure came on a chaotic, hyperspeed news day in the cable world: Less than an hour after the Carlson bombshell, Don Lemon said he had been fired by CNN, capping a 17-year run at that news giant.

Carlson, an alum of Trinity College who appeared on MSNBC and CNN before moving to Fox News, has long been a political lightning rod reviled by the left.

Critics have charged that he caters to racists and white nationalists. In 2020, his top writer, Blake Neff, resigned after racist online posts Neff published under a pseudonym surfaced.

Over the years, Carlson drew criticism for a range of jarring comments he made on air. He suggested that immigration makes the U.S. “poorer and dirtier.” He called white supremacy a “hoax.” He declared that President Biden seeks to replace “legacy Americans” with migrants.

“For far too long, Tucker Carlson has used his prime-time show to spew antisemitic, racist, xenophobic and anti-LGBTQ hate to millions,” Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote Monday on Twitter.

Carlson’s behind-the-scenes behavior has also drawn scrutiny, and he is named in an ongoing lawsuit from the former Fox News producer and booker, Abby Grossberg, who claimed he presided over an overtly misogynistic work environment.

The complaint, filed last month in Manhattan Federal Court, said that Carlson’s “derogatory comments towards women, and his disdain for those who dare to object to such misogyny,” were well-known on the set of his show.

Grossberg, whose suit also accused Fox of coercing testimony from her in connection with the Dominion case, issued a statement Monday saying that Carlson’s departure delivered a dose of “justice for the American people and for Fox News viewers who’ve been manipulated and lied to for years.”

“This is a step towards accountability for the election lies and baseless conspiracy theories spread by Fox News, something I witnessed firsthand at the network, as well as for the abuse and harassment I endured,” Grossberg said in the statement.

Grossberg is also suing Fox News in state court in Delaware. Fox News has said her claims against the network are baseless.

Carlson’s public and private views on former President Donald Trump have come under particular scrutiny in recent months. After Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden, Carlson remained a steadfast supporter of the Republican president on air.

But in early 2021, two days before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Carlson privately delivered biting criticism of Trump, writing in a text message to staffers, “I hate him passionately,” according to court papers disclosed in the Dominion case.

“There really isn’t an upside to Trump,” Carlson asserted in another text.

The case also exposed Carlson turning his private fire toward his employer. He lampooned leadership at Fox News after the network accurately called Arizona for Biden in 2020, asking in one text: “Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience?”

Trump, who is now seen as the front-runner in the Republican primary for the 2024 presidential election, did not immediately respond publicly to Carlson’s exit from Fox News, though the former president, in a post on his Truth Social platform, celebrated Lemon’s ouster.

Trump’s representatives did not immediately reply to requests for comment on Carlson.

The prime-time host’s exit came less than a week after one of Fox News’ conservative pundits, Dan Bongino, said he was leaving the network. Bongino said he had failed to reach a contract agreement.

Carlson had been a TV force during and following the Trump years. In March, his program averaged 3.3 million viewers, according to Fox News, and was the single most watched news program on cable.

Jane Kirtley, a media law professor at the University of Minnesota, said that she had anticipated firings after the Dominion settlement, but that she did not expect them to reach so high in the network’s ranks.

“I suspect that this is not the last head that we will see roll,” she said. “I think that Fox is trying to recalibrate its relationship with the former president, and it could be that Tucker Carlson does not fit in there.”

With Joseph Wilkinson