How Tucker Carlson could become even more dangerous after Fox News

25 April 2023

On Monday, April 24, there were two major bombshells in cable news: Fox News had fired Tucker Carlson, and CNN had fired Don Lemon. But Carlson's departure from Fox News was such a huge story that it overshadowed the news about Lemon, who was one of CNN's top hosts. On MSNBC, everyone from liberal Rachel Maddow to Never Trump conservative Nicolle Wallace made Carlson their top story.

It remains to be seen where Carlson, post-Fox News, will resurface. There has been much speculation that he could eventually end up at Newsmax TV or One America News (OAN) if either of those outlets could afford him.

In an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on April 24, journalist Erin Gloria Ryan reflects on Carlson's life after Fox News. And she has a warning for all the pundits who have been gloating about his firing, which was reportedly ordered by Rupert Murdoch himself: Carlson may become even more dangerous.

"Tucker Carlson will land somewhere else, because he has always landed somewhere else," Ryan explains. "Some of his viewers will follow him, because they always have. Whether that place is a Bill O’Reilly-style home recording studio in the basement of a Long Island megamansion, a place on one of the many conservative radio and podcasting networks, or a return to his Daily Caller stomping grounds, we will certainly have old Tucker Carlson to kick around, again, somehow."

Ryan adds, however, that the Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz fears that Carlson, post-Fox News, could become even more influential — and more dangerous.

Lorenz warned, "While people are celebrating right now, (Carlson) could simply make the jump to a platform like Rumble and become a powerful far- right influencer and end up doing even more damage and still make millions of dollars with even less oversight."

Ryan notes that during his years on Fox News, Carlson typically "oozed contempt for women, for non-whites, for immigrants, for gay people." And wherever Carlson resurfaces, she adds, he has an army of devotees on the far right.

"While at Fox," she observes, "Carlson was massively successful. He reached millions of American homes per night. He has probably single-handedly ruined millions of Thanksgiving dinners and been the catalyst to some of the most lively Boomer-Millennial fights on Facebook. That's power. That's clout."

Read Erin Gloria Ryan's full op-ed at this link (subscription required).

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