Tucker Carlson Says He’s Bringing His Show To Twitter

Ted Johnson
·4 min read
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Tucker Carlson said that he is planning to relaunch his show on Twitter, while he has reportedly fired off a legal threat to Fox News.

He said that the new show would be “starting soon,” but gave no exact date for the debut. His website featured a photo of Carlson holding a rifle with a spot for users to sign up for updates.

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In a message posted on Tuesday, Carlson said, “Amazingly, as of tonight, there aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one remaining in the world, the only one, is Twitter.”

Meanwhile, Axios reported and a source confirmed that Carlson’s attorney Bryan Freedman has sent Fox News a letter accusing the network of fraud and breach of contract in an effort to argue that a non-compete provision is no longer valid. The letter claims that Fox violated an agreement not to leak private messages to the media or use that material to take adverse action. In the wake of his April 24 exit from Fox News, some of his inflammatory text messages have surfaced in The New York Times and elsewhere.

Carlson announced the new show in a post in which he bashed the news media without directly naming Fox News, which made the bombshell announcement two weeks ago that they had parted ways with the host.

In his Twitter video, Carlson told viewers that “at the most basic level the news you consume is a lie, a lie of the stealthiest and most insidious kind. Facts have been withheld on purpose, along with proportion and perspective. You are being manipulated.”

He added, “What’s it like to work in a system like that? After more than 30 years in the middle of it, we could tell you stories. The best you can hope for in the news business at this point is the freedom to tell the fullest truth that you can, but there are always limits. And you know that if you bump up against those limits of enough, you will be fired for it. It’s not a guess, it’s guaranteed. Every person who works in English language media understands that.”

Two days after his exit, Carlson posted a video message on Twitter that has drawn more than 24 million views. That, too, did not address Fox News directly, but similarly claimed that media outlets were constraining the truth.

Axios reported earlier this week that Carlson had a conversation with Twitter owner Elon Musk about working together. A week before his Fox News axing, Carlson interviewed Musk. But Musk denied that Twitter had signed any kind of deal with Carlson. “Tucker is subject to the same rules & rewards of all content creators,” Musk wrote in a tweet, adding that “rewards” means a share of subscriptions and advertising revenue share.

Carlson has a contract with Fox News that runs through 2025 and, as is typical with such agreements, it includes a non-compete clause. Freedman told Axios, “The idea that anyone is going to silence Tucker and prevent him from speaking to his audience is beyond preposterous.”

In recent days, some of Carlson’s allies have come to his defense. Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News personality, said on her SiriusXM show that Fox News was trying to keep Carlson “silenced” while they try to find a successor host in the 8 p.m. ET who can command a larger audience. The network ratings have fallen in that hour since his exit. While Fox News has still been winning total viewers, MSNBC has won the 25-54 demo on some nights.

A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment, and Freedman declined comment.

In the past week, there have been more revelations of Carlson’s text messages and Fox News outtakes that have added to the speculation over what ultimately led the Murdochs to drop his show.

Media Matters for America published more outtakes on Tuesday, including a clip in which he complained about liberals working at the network. “If you’ve got pronouns in your Twitter bio, you shouldn’t work here because we can’t trust you because you’re on the other side,” he said. Media Matters has continued to publish the videos despite a legal threat from Fox attorneys.

Last week, The New York Times reported on the contents of an inflammatory text message that Carlson sent in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. In the message, Carlson shared his views on a video in which a group of Donald Trump supporters attack an individual that Carlson calls an “Antifa kid.”

“It was three against one, at least,” Carlson wrote. “Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight.” Fox attorneys fired off a letter to Dominion Voting Systems’ legal team last week, asking them to investigate the source of the leak of the text and others, which remain redacted in a Delaware court.

More to come.

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