As more information trickles out about Tucker Carlson’s exit from Fox News, former host on the network Megyn Kelly wonders what Carlson did to deserve the treatment he has received from his now former employer.
During The Megyn Kelly Show Tuesday, the former Fox News host began the program by questioning why someone like Carlson — who she believes helped the network weather a nasty storm — was treated with such hostility.
“He’s been at the company for years. He’d be in primetime for seven years and saw Fox News through one of the most difficult times in its history: the immediate era post-Roger Ailes, where they didn’t know left from right and up from down,” Kelly said. “They didn’t have strong management leading the company, and they had lost two of their biggest stars, Bill O’Reilly and me. So Tucker takes over, it’s a huge order that he was given. He did it. He smashed the ball out of the park.”
Kelly continued by saying she couldn’t really fathom a situation that could be Carlson’s fault to be treated in such a manner.
“What led them to treat their number one start with such disdain? I mean, dripping disdain, to the point where he no longer has access to his email. He doesn’t get to say goodbye. I mean this is absolutely disrespectful to him,” argued Kelly. “Unlike Don Lemon, he hadn’t been immersed in controversy after controversy inside the building, against his own colleagues…what was it? What would make your own company turn against you like that? The Fox News audience is clearly mad, and I don’t blame them.
“Fox News is banking on its audience not leaving it, on its audience being more in love with the Fox News brand than they were with Tucker. We’ll see whether or not that’s true. I just think the way they handled it was disrespectful and gross. I think Tucker Carlson deserved better.”
Kelly argued that while Fox News and Carlson negotiate a separation agreement, the network should allow him out of his non-compete clause so he can “go out there and get his voice on the air, now, when his audience will most be missing it”.
