Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson released a statement Wednesday evening on Twitter criticizing the media and the general political conversation in America, hinting that he intends to stay working in media.
Key Details
- “One of the first things you realize when you step outside the noise for a few days is how many genuinely nice people there are in this country, kind and decent people, people who really care about what’s true,” he says.
- “The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are,” he continues.
- “And yet at the same time, and this is the amazing thing, the undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all: war, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, natural resources,” he continues.
- “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.”
- “When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful,” he concludes.
why it’s news
Before being fired by Fox News earlier this week, Tucker Carlson was the highest-rated host on television, reaching more than 3 million viewers for his daily 8 p.m. show. His monologue and guest interviews covered topics far outside the mainstream—angering mostly liberals but many conservatives as well.
In fact, his last broadcast included an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who argues that corporate America dictates the media dialogue and the course of public policy, getting nods of approval from Carlson, who says media outlets stifle themselves so as not to offend advertisers. Kennedy, a Democrat and son of the slain brother of President John F. Kennedy, is running for president himself.
He was both pro-Trump and anti-Trump: pointing out the former president’s vulgarities, his failures in business, and that he fakes it around evangelicals. But he contends that Trump is viable because of the failures of the governing class, which he took on. In fact, he maintained on his show, night after night, that America’s “Ship of Fools,” as he called the ruling class, was still the most important player and needed covering.
To some degree, Carlson was limited to what he could say from his high perch at Fox News because he had to placate his corporate owners and advertisers, whom he did nevertheless rile up. But with an enormous following and an already established media presence of his own, Carlson could be a major player leading the public-policy debate as we step closer to the 2024 presidential election.