Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently dropped the fourth episode of his Twitter show on Thursday and attacked his former employer.
Carlson, whose recent episodes of Tucker on Twitter have been slammed for trafficking in anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories, began with a claim that Fox quickly removed the producer who oversaw a chyron earlier in the week that called President Joe Biden a “wannabe dictator.”
Tucker Carlon opens up on the matter
Carlson began his monologue by noting that as Trump spoke following his arraignment on 37 criminal counts in Miami, Fox News aired a split screen with Biden and a chyron that said, “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”
“Those words were up for less than 30 seconds, but the effect was immediate. Inside Fox, the women who run the network panicked,” Carlson snarked, adding:
“First, they scolded the producer who put the banner on the screen. Less than 24 hours after that, he resigned. He’d been at Fox for more than a decade. He was considered one of the most capable people in the building. He offered to stay for the customary two weeks, but Fox told him to clear out his desk and leave immediately.”
Then the company issued a public apology for the 27-second long “wannabe dictator” line. Quote, “The chyron was taken down immediately,” Fox’s PR department said and then added ominously, it was, quote, “addressed.” That was all true, but it was not enough to save Fox News from the ensuing scandal.
On Thursday evening, the Daily Beast confirmed Carlson’s account and said the producer responsible for the chyron, Alexander McCaskill, has parted ways with Fox. The Beast noted that McCaskill “features prominently in a toxic work environment” lawsuit filed by a former Fox News producer named Abby Grossberg. Fox and Grossberg are reportedly on the verge of a settlement.
Carlson went on to opine on Democrats reacting with anger to the chyron and used some mental gymnastics to argue that the reason the “wannabe dictator” chyron sparked fury was that it’s obviously accurate.
“But why were they angry? If the banner on Fox was false? Why the hysteria? Lies don’t seem to bother anyone anymore. If some cable news producer had called Joe Biden a genius or accused him of being secretly Sudanese. Would anyone be yelling about it? Would Fox News have apologized for it? Probably not. But calling Joe Biden a wannabe dictator, that stung,” Tucker declared.
