Why Tucker Carlson is 'coming from a position of weakness' following Fox News split: report

28 April 2023

Two days after countless media outlets reported that Tucker Carlson had been fired by Fox News, the far-right MAGA pundit posted a two-minute video on Twitter (where he has 6.7 million followers). Carlson is cryptic in the April 26 video and doesn't get into the specific reasons why Fox News fired him despite the fact that he was their biggest star.

In fact, he doesn't mention Fox News by name at all in the mostly rhetorical video. But Carlson implies that his followers haven't heard the last of him, saying, "True things prevail. Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren't many places left, but there are some. And that's enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon."

Journalist Alex Shephard weighs in on Carlson's first post-Fox News video in an article published by The New Republic on April 28, arguing that it shows him to be "coming from a position of weakness."

Shephard says of the video, "You know it's real because Carlson's message is vintage Carlson. It's vague — he says almost nothing of substance in its two minutes — but it is aimed squarely at his most reactionary viewers…. Carlson here is gassing himself up — and not so subtly making the case that he was kicked off the network for being too real.…Carlson is telling his viewers that he's still one of them, and that Fox, by extension, is too woke."

Carlson doesn't literally slam Fox News as "woke" in his video, but the former Fox host, Shephard notes, is implying it.

"It's clear that Carlson knows that his future is with the lunatic fringe," Shephard says. "This Twitter video is a message to that segment of his audience: He’s telling them he's still here. He's telling them to stand by."

It remains to be seen where post-Fox News Carlson will resurface. The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson — a Never Trump conservative, former GOP strategist and scathing critic of the MAGA movement — believes that Carlson has so many fanatical supporters on the far right that he would have a good shot at winning the Republican nomination if he ran for president in 2024, or perhaps becoming Donald Trump's running mate if Trump is the nominee.

Some pundits believe that Carlson could resurface at Newsmax TV or One America News (OAN) if either of those Fox News/Fox Business competitors can afford his salary demands. But for now, Shephard notes, Carlson has been deplatformed.

"Carlson's video is a reminder to Fox that he's ready to go to war if need be," Shephard writes. "But Carlson is coming from a position of weakness, and not just because he's currently out of a job. He can bloviate all he wants, but he's cut off from Fox's firehose audience."

Read Alex Shephard's full article for The New Republic at this link. Watch Tucker Carlson's video below or at this link.

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