Tucker Carlson: I Know Why I Was Fired

Tucker Carlson says he "knows" his firing from Fox News was "a condition" of the $787.5 million settlement Fox agreed to pay to Dominion Voting Systems to resolve a defamation case. Fox and Dominion have denied the claim. Still, the former prime-time host says Fox "agreed to take me off the air, my show off the air, as a condition of the Dominion settlement" in a biography to be published Aug. 1, per the Guardian, which obtained an early copy. "They had to settle this; Rupert [Murdoch, owner of Fox News] couldn't testify," Carlson tells biographer Chadwick Moore. "I think that deal was made minutes before the trial started. I mean, I know it was."

The book, called Tucker, also contains a denial from Dominion. An attorney for the company "wanted to make clear personally that Dominion made no requests or demands whatsoever regarding Mr Carlson's employment with Fox or his appearance, or non-appearance, on Fox News," Moore writes. Carlson says Fox gave him no explanation. He says he expected Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to congratulate him on the sixth anniversary of his move to the 8pm time slot when she called him April 24. Instead, Scott apparently told him, "We're taking you off the air." "No explanation why, and they've let me guess ever since," Carlson says. "I asked if I violated my contract. They said, no, I'm not fired, I'm still under contract."

There's been plenty of debate about what led Fox to ditch Carlson, whose show drew the network's largest audience. Media outlets have reported that the firing was tied to comments Carlson made, some about Fox executives, in messages revealed through Dominion's legal process of discovery, as well as to a discrimination lawsuit against Fox. In the book, Carlson suggests political pressure following his comments about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including his labeling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a "monster," may have contributed to his being "canceled," per the Guardian. Moore, contributing editor at the Spectator, also claims to have been "canceled" by Fox because of the biography, per Mediaite. (More Tucker Carlson stories.)