Apr.27

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Be Careful What You Wish for--Tucker Carlson Edition

A lot of Democrats are happy as clams now that Fox has decided to rid itself of Tucker Carlson. Maybe they should wait a bit before breaking out the champagne. For 20 years, Fox News' star was Bill O'Reilly, who as just as far-right as Carlson, albeit somewhat more restrained. He was credibly accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. Advertisers began boycotting his show. Eventually Fox saw him as more of a liability than asset and let him go. Liberals everywhere cheered and some of them broke out the really good champagne that they reserved for special occasions.

Fox hunted around for a bit and found a suitable replacement: Tucker Carlson. He was just as far right as O'Reilly and even less tethered to reality. Was that an improvement? Those people now cheering Carlson's departure would be advised to wait to see who replaces him. We would be willing to bet $10 that it will not be Rachel Maddow (we don't do those $10,000 bets like Mitt Romney). There may yet come a day when liberals pine for the graciousness and level-headedness of Tucker after they have experienced what comes next. Suppose his replacement is Laura Loomer? It could be déjà all over again.

On Tuesday, we had an item with 10 guesses at what really happened at Fox to make them get rid of Carlson. Slate's Justin Peters also throws out some interesting possibilities.

• More shoes will fall: One possibility is that there is more bad news in store for Carlson and the network wants to be rid of him before it happens. We also mentioned this possibility, but didn't give an examples. Peters specifically mentions the lawsuit former Fox producer Abby Grossberg filed against Fox for Carlson's antisemitic and sexist comments. Maybe the Murdochs know she's right and want to be able to say at the trial: "As soon as we discovered his behavior, we fired him."
  
  
• Power struggle: Another possibility is that there is an internal power struggle going on at Fox and Carlson was on the wrong team. Some people at Fox are still defending the Jan. 6 rioters and some want to let that story go. Related to that, it is also possible that the Murdochs feel that Carlson has gotten too bit for his britches and takes orders from no one any more. That is unacceptable to them, so out he went. In addition, the Murdochs now fully understand that making stuff up can have consequences, sometimes 787,500,000 of them.
  
  
• It's been building: A more mundane possibility is that tension with Carlson has been building for a while. The Murdochs might have been afraid that had Carlson been called as a witness at the trial, be could have gone scorched earth and ratted out Fox executives big time. This possibility kept them from firing him. Now that it is certain there will be no trial in the Dominion case (although there could still be one in the Smartmatic case if Smartmatic considers $787.5M chicken feed), the Murdochs felt safe in getting rid of their troublemaker.
  

Getting rid of Carlson did not come cheap. It is not known if Carlson had a golden parachute clause in his contract that called for a big severance payment if he were fired. But Fox was hit in a different way, possibly in addition to a direct payment to Carlson. Its stock went down $500 million just after the announcement of Carlson's firing. Maybe it will come back eventually, but that could depend on whether the network can find a replacement who draws as big an audience and whether premium advertisers come back.

We don't know what is next for Carlson. He could probably join OAN or Newsmax if he wants to, but they can't pay the exorbitant salary he was getting at Fox. He could write a book, but probably not many of his fans read books. A podcast? Yeah, but that is a BIG step down. Running for office is a real possibility, but the House is beneath his dignity and knocking off Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) wouldn't be easy. Ron DeSantis will be term-limited in 2026, but that's a long way away. Maybe move from Florida to some deep red state where there is a vulnerable senator or term-limited governor in 2024? If he asked us for advice on this, we'd suggest moving to Dallas and challenging Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in 2024. There is a decent chance he could beat Cruz in a primary. (V)