Tucker Carlson’s firing came from the highest levels of Fox News.
It may have boiled down to one issue.
And you won’t believe the phone call that played a role in Tucker Carlson’s firing.
In a video posted to social media two days after his firing Tucker Carlson alluded to the fact that Fox News Chairman Rupert Murdoch canceled him over Carlson’s opposition to Joe Biden’s war against Russia in Ukraine.
New reporting appears to back up Carlson.
Weeks before Murdoch pulled the trigger on handing Carlson his walking papers Murdoch spoke on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
And while Carlson’s coverage supposedly did not come up in conversation, conservatives suspect that Zelensky and Murdoch did discuss the state of the war and the importance to Ukraine of continued American support.
Semafor reports:
Fox News Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch held a previously unreported call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this spring in which the two discussed the war and the anniversary of the deaths of Fox News journalists last March. The Ukrainian president had a similar conversation with Lachlan Murdoch on March 15, which Zelenskyy noted in a little-noticed aside during a national broadcast last month.
The conversations came weeks before the Murdochs fired their biggest star and most outspoken critic of American support for Ukraine, Tucker Carlson. Senior Ukrainian officials had made their objections to Carlson’s coverage known to Fox executives, but Zelenskyy did not raise it on the calls with the Murdochs, according to one person familiar with the details of the calls.
The Washington Post also reported that Murdoch took personal issue with Carlson’s coverage of Zelensky, specifically a segment where Carlson called Zelensky a “Ukrainian pimp” for Zelensky lecturing Americans on why they had to hand over their own money.
“At that particular moment, he was disturbed by Carlson’s stance on Ukraine. A graphic on Carlson’s show had referred to Volodymyr Zelensky, president of the besieged nation, as a ‘Ukrainian pimp,’ and the host had repeatedly excoriated the U.S. government for providing aid to its defense against Russian attacks,” the Washington Post reported.
The Post added that Murdoch attended a Fox newsroom meeting to denounce Carlson’s coverage of Ukraine.
“But they had drawn furious blowback from powerful Republicans who see U.S. support for Ukraine as a bulwark in a fight for freedom and democracy — some of whom had Murdoch’s ear. After one such on-air segment in mid-March, Murdoch joined a Fox newsroom meeting to loudly challenge Carlson’s message, according to people familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of newsroom confidentiality policies,” the Washington Post reported.
Funding a blank check for Joe Biden’s war in Ukraine is an example of what Carlson described as the two-party establishment teaming up to crush debate.
On issues like Ukraine, funding big government, increasing immigration and amnesty, and gun control, there is no difference between establishment RINOs like Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren.
And Tucker Carlson may have lost his job for speaking that truth.