Fox News escalates its war on Tucker Carlson

Outcome has 'mighty repercussions for the conservative media ecosystem'

Fox News is escalating its war on its former star host Tucker Carlson, with a "cease-and-desist" letter it has dispatched to the commentator.

Carlson, taken off the air by the network a few weeks ago, now has started releasing his monologues online, and has proven that he is far more popular among Americans than his former network.

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Where his show on Fox routinely was among the highest rated, even there his audience was a few million.

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On Twitter where he now voices his opinions, his first two monologues collected nearly 170 million views, with more than 100 million coming to the first comments.

But now, a report from Axios says, the network has hit Carlson with a legal charge.

Axios reported there are more concerns than just a network that appears to be moving more and more leftward and a conservative commentator who is far more popular among Americans than virtually any other commentator now on the scene.

Axios said the outcome of the war has "mighty repercussions for the conservative media ecosystem."

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The report said, "With 'Tucker on Twitter,' Carlson and his growing production team are working to elevate Elon Musk's social media site as a news platform."

The report claims Fox is continuing to pay Carlson, and that would mean it can enforce a contract provision keeping his content exclusive to Fox.

However, Carlson has explained that under the First Amendment, he can post comments on Twitter. Both sides have accused the other of breach of contract.

Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer who represents Carlson, said in a statement to Axios: "Fox News continues to ignore the interests of its viewers, not to mention its shareholder obligations."

The statement continued, "Doubling down on the most catastrophic programming decision in the history of the cable news industry, Fox is now demanding that Tucker Carlson be silent until after the 2024 election. … Tucker will not be silenced by anyone ... He is a singularly important voice on matters of public interest in our country, and will remain so."

Carlson's first new commentary, on Twitter, took on a life of its own and collected more than 100 million views.

In just two days.

Further, WND reported that Carlson's lawyers accused the network of breach of contract, and Fox's lawyers responded with a claim Carlson was in breach.

The latest skirmish in the war over Fox's decision to remove Carlson from the airwaves without notice has the network saying Carlson's recent appearance with a commentary on Twitter violated his contract.

A report from Deadline said the network told Carlson's attorney that they believe his new Twitter show violated his contract.

The report said, "The letter from the network to Carlson’s attorney did not include threats or suggest recriminations, but stated the network’s belief that Tucker on Twitter, which debuted on the platform on Tuesday, amounted to a contract violation, according to a source."

The network's broadside was immediately rejected by Carlson's lawyer, who said in a statement, "Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events. That’s not going to happen. Not in the United States of America."

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Carlson was canceled by Fox only days after it agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle defamation claims. That stemmed from comments on the network about the 2020 election and Dominion's actions then.

Carlson's lawyers earlier charged that Fox breached its contract with him in reaching that settlement, and that a "non-compete clause" essentially had been abandoned.

IMPORTANT NOTE: “Election denier!” “Science denier!” “Climate-change denier!” “Conspiracy theorist!” And then there’s “hate speech,” “fake news,” “disinformation,” “misinformation,” even something called “MALinformation.” A bizarre new lexicon has been conjured up by America’s elites, the SOLE PURPOSE of which is to discredit and ridicule – and if at all possible, CENSOR ENTIRELY – speech that doesn’t support their increasingly dark and deranged agenda. Tucker Carlson is just the latest.