Tucker Carlson has broken his silence over his abrupt exit from Fox News in a defiant and conspiracy-laced video he posted to Twitter.
Rupert Murdoch’s news network parted company with the right-wing TV host on Monday, days after Fox News agreed to pay $787.5m to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit over election lies amplified by the channel’s personalities.
Carlson said in the video – which dropped at 8pm est, his previous starting time in his Fox News slot – that after being “outside the noise for a few days” he realised how “unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are,” calling them “completely irrelevant” and insisting that they “mean nothing.”
“In five years we won’t even remember that we had them,” he said, adding, “Trust me as someone who has participated.”
And he said that the “undeniably big topics that define our future” such as “war, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, natural resources” were not given “legitimate debate” in the US.
“Debates like that are not permitted in American media. Both political parties and their donors have reached a consensus on what benefits them and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it,” he said.
Carlson said that the result was that America “suddenly looks very much like a one-party state” and called it a “depressing realisation” that “wasn’t permanent.”
“Our current orthodoxies won’t last. They are brain dead, nobody actually believes them, hardly anyone’s life is improved by them. This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue and so it won’t.
“The people in charge know this and that is why they are hysterical and aggressive, they are afraid. They have given up persuasion and they are resorting to force. But it won’t work. When honest people say what’s true calmly and without embarrassment they become powerful.
“At the same time, the liars who have been trying to silence them shrink and they become weaker, that is the iron law of the universe. True things prevail.
“Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left but there are some, and that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words there’s hope.”
And he finished the video by signing off, “See you soon.”
Carlson is being replaced in the network’s 8pm slot with a rotating lineup of hosts until a permanent replacement can be found.
But his departure has reportedly seen the channel’s rating in that slot drop by more than 20 per cent, while rivals such as Newsmax have seen their audiences spike.
“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the network said in a statement after his departure was announced. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
