Earlier this month, Tucker Carlson bowed Patriot Purge, a wild (which is to say factually challenged and conspiracy theory-heavy) “documentary” series about Jan. 6. Among its bizarre claims the Capitol siege was a “false flag” operation set up by the FBI, all to incriminate innocent violent Trump supporters. Patriot Purge didn’t air on Fox News. Instead it dropped on their app Fox Nation. Still, its existence drove two longtime network contributors to quit in disgust. But they weren’t the only people on the payroll to take umbrage.
According to NPR, two of the more respected members of the Fox News team, Chris Wallace and Bret Baier, were among the veteran staffers who “shared their objections” with some of the networks top brass. Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and the president of news, Jay Wallace, both heard what they had to say, which were then passed all the way up to Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch. Details of their complaints have not been made public.
Wallace has a long history of not towing the Fox News party line. The host has long rankled die hard Trumpists by not only daring to question the former president to his face — sometimes on live television — but calling out Republican lawmakers who come to the network expecting questions that exclusively softball. Most recently he grilled a GOP figure in Texas, almost — but, of course, not quite — getting him to admit that forbidding businesses to not enforce vaccine mandates wasn’t exactly conservative.
Carlson, meanwhile, has become Fox News’ top draw, largely by going farther than most. He’s slammed vaccines (despite his own employers’ requiring them or negative tests), told viewers to harass people wearing masks, and downplayed the events of Jan. 6.
The Fox News contributors who threw in the towel over Carlson’s antics are Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg, the latter who wrote a book actually called Liberal Fascists. If the author of that tome is appalled by Tucker Carlson, then that’s saying something.
(Via NPR)