Fox News Claims Tucker Carlson Breached His Contract By Doing Twitter Show

Ted Johnson and Dominic Patten
·2 min read
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Fox News informed Tucker Carlson’s attorney that they believe his new Twitter show violated his contract.

Carlson was dropped from the network’s primetime lineup last month, but his contract with the network runs through 2025.

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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.

Carlson’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, 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.”

Carlson was dropped from the network in April, less than a week after Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle defamation claims. Carlson’s attorney has previously claimed that the network breached his contract in an effort to argue that a non-compete agreement was no longer valid.

A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Axios first reported on the letter from Fox to Carlson’s lawyer. The site reported that Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar contended that Carlson’s contract is exclusive with the network and prohibits other appearances like the Twitter show.

The first episode of Tucker on Twitter has drawn more than 90 million views. According to Twitter, that metric is triggered when a user watches a video “for at least two seconds and sees at least 50% of the video player in-view.”

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