Tucker Carlson might privately know why his leading Fox News program was canceled, but he is not being told officially, leaving "offended" viewers left to guess and go elsewhere, "Tucker" biographer Chadwick Moore told Newsmax.
"No, they have not told anyone, and it's looking like they're just happy to keep it a mystery," Moore told Wednesday's "Eric Bolling The Balance." "The closest they came was somebody from Fox told The New York Times it was because of a racist text message he sent to one of his colleagues, which, of course, wasn't racist at all. It was actually quite a heartwarming text message.
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"That's the closest they've given to an explanation. They still have not told Tucker, which is sort of amazing. They've still left him to guess.
"Tucker suspects he knows what's going on. Of course, there are people at Fox who do know why, and people on the board. I'm sure that they have spoken to Tucker about it privately, but he has not gotten an official explanation from Fox News.
"Just like the rest of us."
It's just one more reason why viewers are tuning out of Fox News, as former President Donald Trump got in a "dig" during his Brett Baier interview this week, Moore noted, saying, "I don't really see how they can" get the disenchanted viewers back.
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"I think the whole network kind of outstayed its welcome," Moore said. "They've continually offended their core audience, and they seem to not care."
The move away from Trump is not unlike the dismissal of Carlson, as a top-down directive, according to Moore, who details Tucker Carlson in his biography "Tucker," to be released next month, which is available now for preorder.
"They really didn't like Donald Trump in 2016 — I'm not speaking of the rank and file; plenty of them are wonderful people who certainly like Donald Trump — but it seems that the head honchos really didn't like him, and then they kind of sucked up to him when he got into power, and now it looks like they want someone else in that role, and they're being hostile to him," Moore said.
But Trump "got some good digs in at Fox during that Brett Baier interview."
"Tucker was bringing so many people to that whole network and propping up the entire prime-time lineup," Moore said. "They're not coming back with him gone. It's been long enough."
Also, with employees at Fox News rumored to be disenchanted and fearing for their jobs, FoxNation might go the way of CNN's now-defunct streaming service, Moore said.
"That wouldn't surprise me one bit because Tucker was really the only reason anyone signed up for that," Moore said. "I can't think of any other reason that they would have signed up. ... Fox did sort of victory lap when CNN-plus went out of business, and now it looks like that same thing might happen to FoxNation."
For now, as Moore writes in "Tucker," Carlson will be exercising his First Amendment right to free speech on Twitter, while shackled to a Fox News contract but silenced under it through the 2024 presidential election.
"Twitter is launching a new video platform that is supposed to be a rival to YouTube, and that's eventually where these longer shows are going to live," Moore said. "I don't think the show is always going to be these 10-minute things. I believe that's probably contractual.
"I think he's probably doing what he can get away with in his contract because, of course, Fox doesn't want him speaking right now, which is incredible. The network that built its reputation on defending free speech is trying to shut him up and now threatening legal action."
This is ostensibly "corporate censorship" as Fox News has issued a cease-and-desist letter to Carlson, according to Moore.
"Fox would be the first one to talk about corporations compelling or restricting speech and the fear, the chill that would have in our national discourse when private companies silence people, and now look what's happened to Tucker," Moore said.
"And their cease-and-desist seemed pretty hollow. I don't really think they have much of a case.
"In fact, it seems like in many ways Fox could be one in violation of their agreement with Tucker, especially if they tried to disparage him during this process."
The disparagement and Carlson's disappointment in how he has been attacked is all detailed in Moore's upcoming book "Tucker."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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