Tucker Carlson, former host on Fox News Channel, sat with Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, and the two-hour interview posted February 8. The interview was first released on TuckerCarlson.com, then went live on X. 

Carlson and Putin spoke at the Kremlin February 6. Carlson asked his questions in English and Putin responded in Russian. A translation is dubbed into the program. 

In the intro, Carlson mentioned Putin’s half-hour diatribe on the history of Russia, which he thought might be a “filibustering technique” to eat up time and prevent tough questions. He said Putin then grew more sincere. 

“Vladimir Putin believes that Russia has a historical claim to parts of Western Ukraine,” Carlson said. 

The interview was Putin’s first with a Western media outlet since the war began nearly two years ago. Some media outlets said Carlson did not push back against Putin's more dubious statements. The BBC said, "Putin was fully in charge of this encounter and for large parts of it his interviewer barely got a word in...Instead of pushing the Russian leader -- indicted as a suspected war criminal -- on his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and challenging his false assertions, Carlson swerved off-piste to talk God and the Russian soul."

The Washington Post said, "On Fox News, Carlson was a master of combative interviews, carefully controlling their flow with interjections and even undermining his subjects by flashing a blank look on his face or a mischievous smile. But in Moscow, Carlson was a bystander for much of his own interview, interjecting only briefly."

In the interview, Putin called on the U.S. to “make an agreement” to end the war, with Russia picking up Ukrainian territory. 

Putin wondered if America has “anything better to do” than immerse itself in the war in Ukraine. “You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt,” he said. 

Among other things, Carlson asked about Evan Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in Russia last year on espionage charges that the U.S. government denies. Putin said “the dialogue continues” on Gershkovich. 

Carlson, who hosted Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News, departed in April 2023. His departure came after Fox News settled a hefty defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems, where text messages and emails from Fox News journalists, including Carlson, were revealed. He also faced a lawsuit from a former producer based on how she said she was treated in the workplace. 

Fox News did not give a reason for Carlson's ouster. 

Putin said Russia and Ukraine would eventually come to terms and end the war. “This endless mobilization in Ukraine, the hysteria, the domestic problems–sooner or later, it will result in agreement,” he said. 

Stressing that he deems Ukraine to be part of Russia, the president referred to the battle as “a civil war.”

He concluded, “They will be reunited.”

Thirty-four days ago, it appeared that we might be witnessing the beginning of the end for powerful Fox News and the entire cable news paradigm. 

Tucker Carlson, abruptly fired a month earlier from his position at Fox News as the No. 1 rated primetime host in all of cable news, kicked off his new social media-based talk show, Tucker on Twitter, to the tune of 28.9 million video views. 

On Monday, however, journalist Matt Binder tweeted out video view numbers for all eight episodes to date. The data reveals a steady, significant audience decline, with the most recent installment totaling 3.8 million video views. 

Analyst Evan Shapiro crafted this graphic based on Binder's filings:

Of course, one could argue that Carlson is merely finding his true level of audience interest. He regularly drew just over 3 million viewers at night at Fox News, too. 

As for Twitter, usage is reportedly "tanking" following of a rival text-based social media platform, Threads, launched last week by Meta, which has already secured more than 100 million signups. 

Fox News is reportedly looking to finish cleaning house and stabilizing its primetime lineup in the wake of devastating revelations tied to its expensively settled Dominion Voting Systems legal battle. 

Citing unnamed inside sources, the Drudge Report has advanced an earlier story from the Penske Showbiz Trades suggesting major changes to Fox News' primetime lineup are being considered. 

According to Drudge, longtime Fox News primetime presence Sean Hannity will move up one hour from 9 p.m. to 8 p.m., the fired Tucker Carlson's old time slot; Jesse Waters will move from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.; and Greg Gutfeld will shift from 11 p.m. to 10 p.m., the slot currently occupied by Laura Ingraham. 

Meanwhile, reports circulated on Twitter Wednesday afternoon that Ingraham, whose text messages, along with Carlson's, factored into the $787.5 million Dominion settlement, has not just been bumped from primetime, but fired from the network.

UPDATED: After this article was initially published Wednesday, Fox News gave Next TV this statement: “Reports based on various tweets by left wing activists are wildly inaccurate -- Laura Ingraham, the top-rated woman in cable news, is now and will continue to be a prominent host and integral part of the Fox News lineup."

Quoting an unnamed Fox source, Drudge said Fox News is planning to very soon announce its "ambitious new schedule," one in which "every hour of primetime will change." 

Also read: Tucker Carlson Announces New Twitter Show, May Have Breached His Still-Active Fox News Contract in the Process

So far, Fox has issued one statement on the matter, saying, “No decision has been made on a new primetime line-up and there are multiple scenarios under consideration.”

Fox fired Carlson, its most watched on-air presence, last month following a steady string of controversies and dwindling participation in his primetime show by premium advertisers. 

Fox News' ratings performance declined around 50% in the key adults 25-54 audience demo in the immediate aftermath of Carlson's final April 21 show. 

Speaking Wednesday morning at MoffettNathanson’s Inaugural Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in New York, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch expressed confidence that his channel will successfully transition away from Carlson. (That event was covered by another Penske showbiz trade brand.)

“We’ve done it before, right? You know, Bill O’Reilly was a superstar. Megyn Kelly was a superstar. Glenn Beck was a superstar, and we’re able to move forward with programming decisions that ultimately result in long term growth and profitability of the business,” Murdoch said.

With the Dominion matter behind it, Fox is preparing to defend itself from another libel suit filed against it be a separate voting machine maker, Smartmatic, which claims Fox News' coverage of the 2020 election and subsequent January 6 Insurrection led to its brand being inaccurately impugned on the channel. 

Meanwhile, down the street at Madison Avenue, Fox advertising executives have worked this week's Upfront meetings to assure brand marketers that the network's new primetime lineup will be safe from things like white nationalism and other corrosive elements that the far right Carlson was widely alleged to have courted during is nightly 8 p.m. talk hour. 

Activist groups, however, have also infiltrated the Upfront scene, trying to counter-message that narrative. This includes grassroots Republican org The Lincoln Project.

“Jesse Waters, Brian Kilmeade, Sean Hannity, are not serious people. They are nothing more than mouthpieces in Murdoch’s right-wing propaganda machine," said Reed Galen, Lincoln Project co-founder, in a statement. "The real truth is that [Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch] hasn’t changed his mind about the direction of the company. Brands need to ask themselves if they want to be associated with an even more extremist version of Fox News.”

Even though he was stripped by of his prime-time on-air duties and told to leave the building two weeks ago, Tucker Carlson remains under contract at Fox News until 2025 and is still subject to non-compete clauses in the realm of conservative media. 

Still, on Tuesday, Carlson took to Twitter, announcing a new show for the social media platform that he described as "a new version of the show we've been doing for the last six and a half years." 

In the video post, that was accompanied by the simple text declaration, "We're back," Carlson didn't reveal any other key details, including start date for the new show. But as The New York Times suggested, the mere existence of the post may have breached Carlson's Fox contract. 

In fact, the announcement itself seems to indicate that negotiations to end the contract with Fox aren't going very well. 

According to Axios, Carlson's lawyers sent a letter to Fox, accusing the media company itself of fraud and breach of contract before he took to Twitter Tuesday. 

Fox hasn't commented. 

Responding to Carlson's post, Twitter's new owner, the also very polarizing Elon Musk, said, "I also want to be clear that we have not signed a deal of any kind whatsoever. Tucker is subject to the same rules & rewards of all content creators."

Musk, meanwhile, seemed to indicate that Carlson will be functioning within for-profit content creator monetization models that have yet to be revealed by Twitter. 

"Rewards means subscriptions and advertising revenue share (coming soon), which is a function of how many people subscribe and the advertising views associated with the content," Musk added. 

Whether Carlson is using the announcement as a negotiating ploy with Fox, or he thinks he's found a workaround to his contract situation, remains to be seen. 

Those on the far right, including Musk, touted Carlson's allegiance with Twitter as yet another free-speech win for the embattled social platform.

Serving our own strident mandate of both-sides journalism, we'll also include a statement from progressive non-profit watchdog Media Matters:

“There is no shortage of flaccid hate peddlers on the internet, and on Elon Musk’s toxic Twitter, Tucker Carlson is now just another one of them," said Angelo Carusone, president of the org. 

"... Be warned," Carusone added. "Elon Musk is continuing to double down on making Twitter a supercharged engine of radicalization. Any brands still partnering with Twitter, or using the platform to reach consumers, should be increasingly worried about what they are funding. Put another way, get out now before you become the advertising equivalent of Tucker’s new MyPillow.”

Did TMZ just report the next big move for one of the most controversial and influential figures in U.S. politics? Well, given the way things have gone the last seven years, that seems about right. 

The tabloid news org, citing sources close to Newsmax, said the fledgling far-right media company has offered Tucker Carlson control of its flagship cable channel's entire programming slate, should he sign on. 

Newsmax responded Saturday to Next TV's inquiry for comment and confirmation with this statement: “We have not spoken with Tucker Carlson but Newsmax is always open to a conversation with incredible talent, including Tucker.”

Former Fox News heavy hitter Carlson seems to have lapsed into the wrong end of the cost-benefit ratio for Rupert Murdoch and Fox, which fired their biggest, most influential, most polarizing host last Monday following a steady stream of embarrassing leaks, expensive settlements and lost advertisers. 

We heard the news 10 minutes after Carlson supposedly did, according to the Fox narrative. And we immediately wondered if Newsmax founder and CEO Chris Ruddy might make a play for an on-air presence that would undoubtedly bring vast amounts of viewership — and heat — to his relatively tiny conservative media business. 

Say what you will about Carlson — and there’s a lot to say — but that would be a pretty compelling media story. The most polarizing figure in American media today, creating singlehandedly and overnight, the first real, serious threat to Fox News in the realm of right-wing news and propaganda. 

Those of you who followed a few months ago Newsmax’s carriage battle with DirecTV will understand that the channel’s modest economics don't match up with Carlson’s likely salary demands. We've seen per-year compensation figures as low as $8 million for him and as high as over $40 million. Suffice it to say that Newsmax, at its current iteration, probably couldn't afford the $8 million. 

And for his part, Carlson posted a mind-contorting tweet Wednesday night about “truth” in American media that has generated 77.6 million views so far — perhaps proving the tweeter’s whole purpose for the whole strange, opaque five-minute exercise, which seemed to be showing everyone he can generate an audience no matter where he goes. 

Certainly, Carlson has options. According to this Puck News story posted Saturday, he might even have opportunities with Russian state media, which seems to admire his style. 

But as they often say in Port Arthur, Texas, home to the legendary Janis Joplin, and Boca Raton, Florida, birthing ground for cross-platform media companies trying to make a dent in the conservative political media machine, “freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” 

From Glenn Beck to Bill O’Reilly to Megyn Kelly to Carlson, Fox chief Rupert Murdoch is said to be wary of hosts who think they’re bigger than the Fox News brand. But in the case of Carlson — at this strange point of inflection — he just might be. (The New York Times published a compelling column Saturday suggesting why Carlson just might be the first host to actually transcend the Fox News transom at this particularly dangerous moment in the American democratic experiment.)

Indeed, for a media conglomerate that just agreed to pay Dominion Voting a $787.5 million settlement, and still has to litigate against more lawsuits from other voting machine makers, not to mention harassment complaints from former female producers, Carlson might have become an unaffordable liability. 

For the much smaller Newsmax, which is battling for distribution and could be wiped off the Coastal Floridian map by similar pending Category 5 libel lawsuits from the same voting-machine companies, living for today might be a sensible business model, regardless of what kind of liability it’s taking on. 

As for Carlson, who seems to be testing the powers of his own audience spells, he just might be open to being offered Newsmax’s house broom and cauldron.

Notable is the transformational effect a Fox News crisis has on Newsmax, which seems to swing wildly from niche far-right channel, struggling to stay on the pay TV programming grid, to a serious player in the red-meat conservative media space. 

It's eerily reminiscent of those post-January 6 weeks during which Fox vacillated on former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie“ about the 2020 election, and viewers fled to Newsmax. 

This week, the pendulum once again tilted toward the latter. Without Carlson around at 8 p.m. to stir his magic cauldron of division and resentment, Newsmax host Eric Bolling’s nightly show saw a 264% ratings uptick to 531,000 viewers. 

But Bolling shouldn't get too excited. He could be just keeping the seat warm. 

Fox News Channel has abruptly parted with its top-rated on-air personality, Tucker Carlson, following an embarrassing wave of depositional leaks tied to the just-settled Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit. 

“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the company said in a statement on Monday. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”

Carlson last hosted his nightly primetime show on Friday, signing off by telling his audience he'd be back on Monday. But he won't be. The departure is immediate, with no fanfare thrown in. 

You can read Fox's terse statement here . 

"Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 PM/ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named," the release adds. 

According to the Los Angeles Times, Carlson’s exit is tied to a discrimination suit filed by recently fired Fox News producer Abby Grossberg. The decision to fire him reportedly came directly from Fox chief Rupert Murdoch, with his son, Lachlan, executive chairman of Fox, and CEO Suzanne Scott strongly suggesting to the elder Murdoch he let his highest rated Fox News personality go. 

Carlson's exit also follows the departure last week of much lighter-hitting on-air talent Dan Bongino. 

Further adding to the intrigue — CNN announced almost simultaneously the departure from the network of embattled host Don Lemon. 

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As for Carlson, he joined Fox News in 2009 after appearing on CNN and MSNBC. According to a ranking of cable news personality salaries published last week by Yahoo Finance, Carlson made around $8 million a year at Fox, around a third of what colleague Sean Hannity pulls in.  

According to TV Newser, Carlson’s 8 p.m. weeknight show was far and away the biggest draw in cable news. For example, Thursday’s penultimate cablecast averaged 334,000 viewers aged 25-54, the key demo, soundly trouncing competing shows from CNN's Anderson Cooper and MSNBC's Chris Hayes by more than 200,000 viewers. 

Certainly, Carlson remains an asset in the realm of right-wing media — at least, for anyone who can figure out how to hire a man who made a reported $8 million annually at his last gig. Next TV asked Newsmax founder and chief Chris Ruddy if he'll make a run for a star that could be transformational to his cable network. 

“For a while Fox News has been moving to become establishment media and Tucker Carlson’s removal is a big milestone in that effort,” Ruddy told Next TV. “Millions of viewers who liked the old Fox News have made the switch to Newsmax and this will only fuel that trend.”

Beyond the Abby Grossberg matter, Carlson’s exit isn’t a total surprise in the wake of Fox’s $787.5 million settlement with Dominion last week. Numerous embarrassing leaks strongly indicated that Carlson had serious doubts about former President Donald Trump’s assertion about voter fraud tied to the 2020 election. Yet, his reports breathed life into the so-called “Big Lie,” as well as the debunked conspiracy theory that Dominion’s voting machines were used to perpetrate election fraud. 

Fox still faces a libel suit from another voting machine maker, Smartmatic, in the same Delaware court in which it fought Dominion. 

The leaks also seemed to further undermine the core of Fox News' credibility, which had long been debated, anyway. 

Indeed, Carlson has increasingly been a lightning rod for Fox News. In March, Carlson was rebuked by even Republican lawmakers for segments suggesting that the January 6 insurrection amounted to little more than Washington, D.C. tourists getting a little rowdy. 

In fact, just last night, Ray Epps — a former ardent Trump supporter singled out by the far right for causing the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol — blamed Carlson on 60 Minutes for being his principal false accuser. (You can see that video report here.)

Still, the reaction Monday from the Twitterati — well, what’s left of it anyway — was one of shock and awe, with veteran media reporter Brian Stelter calling Carlson's axing “an Earth-shaking moment in cable news.” 

Meanwhile, left-of-center watchdog Media Matters weighed in Monday with its own statement: “Tucker Carlson is a dangerous misinformer. Tucker served as the bridge between Fox News and the most extreme parts of the right-wing base — laundering anti-trans paranoia, Infowars nonsense, election lies and venomous rhetoric, including the great replacement conspiracy theory, nightly.”

Host Tucker Carlson has left Fox News Channel. His last program was Friday, April 21. 

“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” said the network. 

Fox News did not give a reason for parting ways with Carlson, who hosted Tucker Carlson Tonight in the 8 p.m. ET weeknight slot. 

His departure comes on the heels of Fox News paying $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought on by Dominion Voting Systems. Private text messages and emails from Fox News journalists and executives were revealed in stacks of testimony pertaining to the lawsuit, which saw Carlson express his disdain for former President Donald Trump.  

Carlson, and Fox News, is also facing a lawsuit from a former Tucker Carlson Tonight producer, Abby Grossberg, whose suit mentioned a workplace where “the staff’s distaste and disdain for women infiltrated almost every workday decision.” 

Tucker Carlson Tonight is described on FoxNews.com as “the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.” It launched at 7 p.m. in 2016 and moved to 9 p.m. in 2017, when Megyn Kelly departed Fox. It moved again, to 8 p.m., when Bill O’Reilly left the network that same year.

Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 p.m. starting April 24 as an interim show helmed by rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named. 

Carlson was on CNN and MSNBC before joining Fox News in 2009. 

Conservative Fox News contributors Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes, co-founders of The Dispatch have quit Fox News citing long-simmering issues with the network, then Tucker Carlson's three-part series on Fox's streaming service, Fox Nation, as the tipping point.

"Like Ernest Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy, it came gradually and then suddenly," said Goldberg in a column for the Los Angeles Times.

Goldberg who has been a prominent critic of Donald Trump, called Carlson's streaming special, Patriot Purge, about the Jan. 6 insurrection "a perfect example of propaganda that weaves half-truths into a whole lie." The special insinuates the riot might have been orchestrated by the FBI or "deep State" and that the Biden Administration could be coming for  the "real patriots," Trump voters, he wrote.

Goldberg said there are many people doing good journalism at Fox and that given his many friends there it was an "unhappy" decision, but one he made clear he felt he had to make. "This dangerous nonsense was the last straw for me (and Steve)."

"In the wake of the Jan. 6 riot, it became routine for Trump partisans to claim that criticism of his effort to steal the election amounted to an insult to everyone who voted for Trump, as if 74 million people voted for the riot and the lies that led to it," Goldberg wrote. "The government is not coming for “half the country” — it’s lawfully prosecuting a few hundred people who broke the law on Jan. 6. But we’re supposed to believe that the Trump base is not merely indivisible but defined by a tiny sliver of the worst actors on the right. That’s the real insult to the 74 million." ■

Discovery Inc. said it has formally notified Poland’s government that it will take legal action to block a draft bill that would bar foreign ownership of media in that country, claiming the legislation violates the bilateral investment treaty between the U.S. and the Republic of Poland and is directly tied to its control of independent news channel TVN, which has been critical of Polish President Andrzej Duda’s administration. 

The draft legislation is just the latest in what the programmer claims is a history of attempts by the government to squelch TVN. Discovery, which in May said it would combine with AT&T’s WarnerMedia unit in a deal valued at $43 billion, said it applied for renewal of TVN’s broadcast license 18 months ago but has still not received approval. That broadcast license is set to expire on Sept. 26, according to reports.

Wednesday (Aug. 11), the lower house of Poland's parliament voted to pass the bill by a slim margin (226-216, with 10 abstentions). The draft legislation still must go before the country’s Senate, where the opposition holds a slim majority in the upper house and could make changes, but the lower house could pass the bill as is, according to the Associated Press. Once it passes the Senate, the bill would go before Duda for his signature. 

Although the draft bill would prevent any non-European country from owning media in Poland and was being promoted as a national security measure, it is largely believed to be targeted at Discovery, which in TVN has the largest independent foreign investment in media in Poland. TVN has been highly critical of the conservative Polish government and has uncovered wrongdoing by officials. 

“The legislation is the latest assault on independent media and freedom of the press, and takes direct aim at Discovery’s TVN, the country’s leading independent broadcasting group and news provider, as well as one of the largest U.S. investments in Poland,” Discovery said in a press release. “Over a number of years, the current Polish government has targeted TVN in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner as part of a broader crackdown on independent media and in direct violation of legal protections around freedom of expression.” 

According to the AP, some government critics fear the law is another step toward the restrictive policies of its European neighbor, Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who gained a fan in Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson earlier this month, has cracked down on that country’s media outlets, as well as silencing opposition to his right-wing policies by Hungary’s universities and judiciary. 

Discovery acquired the TVN interest through its purchase of Scripps Interactive Networks in 2018. Scripps paid about $2 billion for TVN in 2015. 

“We are deeply committed to safeguarding our investment in Poland and its people, defending the public’s interest in independent media and the rights of freedom of expression,” Discovery International president and CEO JB Perrette said in a press release. “Discovery, as a protected investor in Poland, is afforded important rights and freedoms under the US-Polish Treaty. We do believe this legislation will have a chilling effect on U.S. and European investment into the Polish economy, and we will aggressively defend our rights.”

The U.S. government also has expressed its displeasure with the legislation. In a statement Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was “deeply troubled” by the bill.

“Poland has worked for decades to foster a vibrant and free media,” Blinken continued. “This draft legislation would significantly weaken the media environment the Polish people have worked so long to build.”  

Tucker Carlson Today premieres on streaming service Fox Nation March 29. The show, an extension of Carlson’s nightly program Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News, will stream Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 

Carlson mentioned the new streaming program on his March 24 show. “We've spent years telling you that the left is trying to silence you and free speech is at stake. Well, the last three months have proved that right,” he said. “Not to brag. Freedom of speech has never been under attack like it is now. Media companies are shrinking in the face of it and shrinking audiences. We are proud to say that we're moving in the opposite direction. This show is still free. This channel, Fox News, is still free and this show is expanding. We often don't have enough time to get through everything that we want to talk about in a single hour. So we're launching a couple of new programs here.”

Carlson will also host a video podcast. 

Fox Nation costs $5.99 monthly and $64.99 yearly. 

Fox Nation has signed a deal with Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson to provide what Fox Nation calls “flagship content” for the streaming platform. Carlson will host a video podcast and the series Tucker Carlson Originals. Starting in April, Carlson will release at least three video podcast episodes a week. Tucker Carlson Originals will also premiere on Fox Nation in April, and air monthly. 

“As we continue to expand and evolve as a service, adding exclusive content from Tucker Carlson will make Fox Nation a must-have service for his most passionate fans,” said Jason Klarman, president of Fox Nation. 

Carlson hosts Tucker Carlson Tonight weeknights at 8 p.m. ET on Fox News. The show launched in late 2016. 

“This is my twelfth year at Fox News and I’ve never been more grateful to be here,” said Carlson. “As other media outlets fall silent or fall in line, Fox News Media’s management has redoubled its commitment to honesty and freedom of speech. I consider that heroic at a time like this.”

Justin Wells has been named VP of Tucker Carlson Digital Products. “We have a close relationship with our viewers,” he said. “We’re excited to continue and expand that relationship on Fox Nation. We have far more stories to tell than we can air in our nightly format. We see this as a welcome expansion of what we’re already doing.” 

Blake Neff, a writer for Tucker Carlson Tonight, has resigned after what Fox News called deeply offensive comments he made on the AutoAdmit message board, with top execs signaling that had he not resigned, he would have been fired. 

"Make no mistake, actions such as his cannot and will not be tolerated at any time in any part of our work force," said Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and president and executive editor Jay Wallace sent a memo to staffers informing them of Neff's exit. 

Related: Ed Henry Out at Fox News

He had written the comments under a pseudonym, they said, and neither Fox nor the Carlson show had learned about them until Friday (July 10). 

They said Neff had made "deeply offensive racist, sexist and homophobic comments," and that Carlson would talk about the issue on the show Monday. 

"We want to make abundantly clear that Fox News Media strongly condemns this horrific racist, misogynistic and homophobic behavior," Scott and Wallace wrote. "Neff’s abhorrent conduct on this forum was never divulged to the show or the network until Friday, at which point we swiftly accepted his resignation." 

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr went on Fox News (Tucker Carlson Tonight) Wednesday night to slam social media and their Sec. 230 exemption from liability for  how they handle third-party content--both taking it down and leaving it up. 

He even suggested Twitter appeared to be engaged in unfair and deceptive business practices by asserting it is neutral then engaged in political speech targeting the President. 

That appearance followed closely on news that President Trump would be signing an executive order targeting social media.  

The President is unhappy that Twitter provided a fact check link to his tweets slamming mail-in ballots as bogus and a way for his opponents to try and steal the election, Tweeting himself that something "big" was coming Twitter's way. Carr shares the President's view.

Carlson asked Carr why the White House and Congress had not done anything about the exemption. Carr cited the reports that the President's executive order would be "addressing some of these issues," then went off on social media himself.  

He said that since the 2016 election "the far left has popped from hoax to hoax to hoax to try to explain the loss at the ballot box."  

Related: FCC's Carr Slams Twitter for 'Manipulated' Tag on Biden Video

He said they had gone after online platforms for the "crime in their view" of being neutral in the 2016 election and "making sure those platforms are not neutral again." 

Carr said that an example was Twitter, which he said was "engaging in political speech against the President." He said that if social media want to be political actors, "they have First Amendment rights, but they shouldn't necessarily have these special bonus protections that only that set of actors have in Sec. 230." 

Carr is hardly alone in the last point, with both Democrats and Republicans questioning whether internet giants still need a shield from Sec. 230. 

Carr said Twitter was not engaged in fact checking, but in opinion journalism, suggesting it was the partisan political bias social media platforms have told Congress they don't engage in.  

Related: Hawley Questions Sec. 230 Immunity

But Carr added his own twist to the argument, suggesting Twitter was engaged in the kind of unfair and deceptive business practice that the Federal Trade Commission should be interested in checking out.  

"Put aside the fact that they can choose to speak," he said, "you can't have it both ways. You can't go to Congress and say "we're neutral politically and then engage in this type of conduct."

The President continued his attack on Big Tech late Wednesday, tweeting that those companies were working against him:

[embed]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265819308699070464[/embed]

President Donald Trump continued his attacks on social media Monday, saying "a lot of things" were being looked into, and the Justice Department might have to take some action. 

He took aim at Big Tech last week in an interview with Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo, variations on an ongoing theme among conservatives accusing social media of systematic bias against conservatives. 

His most recent veiled threats came in an interview in which Fox News' Tucker Carlson said Google was against the President and doesn't want him reelected. The company has denied there is an institutional bias against Trump, but a Project Veritas undercover video of a Google exec suggesting that was the case has gotten wide play in conservative circles. 

Trump said he had been hearing that Google and Twitter and Facebook didn't want him elected, but pointed out that he had won even though they were "totally against me." 

He said he had heard they had fought hard against his initial election, adding: "They are fighting me hard right now." 

He said a lot of Democrats as well as Republicans want to "shut them up." 

He echoed his criticism of Twitter, saying "they don't treat me right." He said he knew for a fact that Twitter was making it hard for people to follow him. "What they do is wrong and possibly illegal. A lot of things are being looked at right now." 

Carlson pressed the President on whether there was a role for the Justice Department. "There could be," said the President, though he said he did now want to say whether or not they are doing something." 

But he said there are "a lot of people that want us to take action against Facebook and Twitter and Amazon," but would not say whether Justice would do so. 

Fox News Channel may be President Donald Trump’s favorite media outlet, but POTUS and the channel diverge markedly in their use of Trump’s favorite social-media platform — Twitter — at least in terms of activity level.

For example, the Fox News Channel and Fox News Politics Twitter accounts have issued no new tweets or retweets since Nov. 8, 2018; there have been none from Fox Business since Nov. 9; Fox & Friends, another presidential favorite, hasn’t tweeted since Nov. 12; and The Five hasn’t tweeted since Nov. 23.

Fox would not comment on why the accounts have been silent since then, following hundreds of thousands of tweets, but it appears to be connected with Twitter threats against host Tucker Carlson that date from around the election, particularly after Carlson’s home address was tweeted out and protestors appeared.

Fox News reported at the time that protestors from left-wing militant group Antifa chanted outside of Carlson’s home and posted threats on its website. Carlson was not home, Fox News said, but his wife was, and she locked herself in a pantry and called police. Carlson said the protestors “rang his doorbell, broke his oak door and one protester was apparently caught on security video mentioning a pipe bomb.”

Bloomberg noted those threats in December 2018 and that the Fox News main account had not been used for over a month. Now, more than six months later, that main and the other accounts remain mute.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to tweet regularly — a dozen tweets on June 3, for example — even though he, too, has had issues with the social-media platform.

Trump has accused edge providers, Twitter in particular, of a bias against conservatives. “Things are happening,” he told The Daily Caller in March. “Names are taken off. People aren’t getting through. You’ve heard the same complaints and it seems to be if they’re conservative, if they’re Republicans, if they’re in a certain group, there’s discrimination and big discrimination.”

He even met with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey at the White House in April and, yes, he tweeted about it.

Fox News reported that protestors from left-wing militant group Antifa chanted outside of the home of Fox show host Tucker Carlson Wednesday night (Nov. 7) and posted threats on its web site.

"Each night you remind us that we are not safe. Tonight, we remind you that you are not safe either," the group posted, according to Fox, and chanted: "Racist scumbag, leave town."

The chant could be heard in a video posted on Fox's Web site.

Fox said that while Carlson was not home, his wife was, and that she locked herself into a pantry and called police. Carlson said the protestors "rang his doorbell, broke his oak door and one protester was apparently caught on security video mentioning a pipe bomb."

Executives at the network condemned the protest.

“The incident that took place at Tucker’s home last night was reprehensible," said Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and President Jay Wallace, in a joint statement. "The violent threats and intimidation tactics toward him and his family are completely unacceptable. We as a nation have become far too intolerant of different points of view. Recent events across our country clearly highlight the need for a more civil, respectful, and inclusive national conversation. Those of us in he media and in politics bear a special obligation to all Americans, to find common ground.”

Committee to Protect Journalists advocacy director Courtney Radsch cited the Carlson protest Thursday (Nov. 8) in calling for President Trump to tone down his rhetoric, though his focus was on the White House revocation of CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta's press pass. "In the current climate, we hope President Trump will stop insulting and denigrating reporters and media outlets,," said Radsch. "it's making journalists feel unsafe."

The protest evoked ones by activists against FCC Chairman Ajit Pai over his network neutrality deregulation. He was the subject of racist attacks and threats to himself and his family.

AMC’s The Walking Dead was the most watched cable show last week with more than 11 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

Cable’s most watched series drew 11.1 million viewers for its Feb. 19 episode, topping all cable shows for the week of Feb. 13-19, according to Nielsen. TNT’s live coverage of Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game from New Orleans was the second-most watched show of the week, averaging 6.5 million viewers, followed by the network’s Feb. 18 coverage of the NBA All-Star Saturday night festivities, which averaged 5.6 million viewers.

Fox News programming represented five of the top 10 most watched shows for the week, including four slots for the The O’Reilly Factor and one for Tucker Carlson Tonight. AMC’s Talking Dead and Discovery Channel’s Gold Rush rounded out the top 10, according to Nielsen.

Fox News Channel will move its Tucker Carlson Tonight show into the 9 p.m. timeslot to fill the void created with the departure of Megyn Kelly.

Tucker Carlson Tonight will replace The Kelly File beginning Jan. 9, according to Fox News officials. The Kelly File will end its run on the network Friday following Kelly’s announcementearlier in the week that she’s moving to NBC News.

Tucker Carlson Tonightlaunched this past November in the 7 p.m. timeslot and last month finished as the second most watched cable news program on Fox News among adults 25-54. Martha MacCallum will take over for Carlson at 7 p.m. with a new series ,The First 100 Days, chronicling President-elect Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office.

“In less than two months, Tucker has taken cable news by storm with his spirited interviews and consistently strong performance,” said Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of 21st Century Fox and Fox News in a statement. “Viewers have overwhelmingly responded to the show and we look forward to him being a part of Fox News’ powerful primetime line-up.”