Former President Donald Trump said Thursday night that Fox News made a mistake in firing Tucker Carlson, and it will backfire on the cable news network.
"It's a shame what happened to Tucker," Trump said during an episode of his son Donald Trump Jr.'s "Triggered" podcast. "He had the No. 1 show; he was doing great.
"I think losing Tucker, not having Tucker be there, is going to have a big impact and a very negative impact on Fox."
Trump was right. Since Carlson, who had the highest-rated show in cable news, was fired Monday, Fox News' ratings have plummeted, especially in Carlson's 8 p.m. time slot. On Wednesday, Fox saw just 1.3 million viewers during the 8 p.m. slot — a 59% drop from Carlson's average rating.
"His show was very interesting, and he was out there in the sense that he was telling the truth," Trump said. "To me, the other ones are out there because they are lying and they're hiding and they're afraid to talk."
The former president also touched on Fox settling a $787.5 million defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems, which alleged the network promoted lies about the 2020 election. He said the settlement was a mistake and that had Fox had a better legal team, they would have let the case go to trial.
"I don't know how they would have lost the case if they had lawyers who would have talked about free speech, if they had lawyers who would have talked about platforms," he said. "It's a news platform. That means every time someone goes on the news, if they say something and it's wrong — CBS or NBC fake news or ABC fake news — any of these groups or outlets or platforms are going to be responsible for whatever is said. It's ridiculous. You won't have any news. They ought to close out their news shows.
"People go and talk about the platform, whether it's elections or anything else. They say the election is good; the election was bad. Everybody talks. They basically said the person holding the platform is liable. This was the craziest case I've ever heard."