MSNBC host Rachel Maddow warned on her show Monday evening that Fox News and conservatives are at a crossroads following the surprise firing of the channel’s controversial opinion host Tucker Carlson.
“Conservative media and the conservative movement are very effective. They’re rich, effective, successful, thriving enterprises,” Maddow said during her show as she addressed what Carlson’s shocking departure means for conservative media.
“And for at least the past generation, that really is where the political success has been on the American Right. It’s in conservative media and the conservative movement — that’s where they are strongest. And conservative media and the conservative movement tend to drag the actual Republican Party around like a rag doll that’s missing a limb or two. I mean, the Republican Party is comparatively very weak, very disorganized and has no idea how to talk to people. The Republican Party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections.”
While Maddow emphasized that conservative media is in one of its “periodic crises,” she warned that there will be a new “episodically dominant figure” after Carlson. She added that a key question for the country is whether that “remarkably successful industry as a whole is today at any risk of losing its zhuzh.”
“Its power, its capacity, importantly, to drag the Republican Party around in its wake, no matter how hapless that party is, that’s the question,” she added.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the decision to fire Carlson was Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch’s and was related to a discrimination lawsuit filed by former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg.
In her lawsuit, in which she also accuses the network of setting her up to take the fall in its defamation case against Dominion Voting Systems, Grossberg said that as a producer on Carlson’s show she witnessed sexist jokes and was asked about host Maria Bartiromo’s sex life after moving over from Bartiromo’s show in 2022. Grossberg also said that Carlson’s staff frequently made sexist and antisemitic jokes.
An individual with knowledge of the matter exclusively told TheWrap that Carlson has “no clue” why he was fired Monday from his top-rated Fox News show and suggested it may not have much to do with the Grossberg lawsuit.
“She was only in our office for several months. If [Carlson and Grossberg] spoke by phone I don’t remember it,” the individual said. “I’d be shocked if it was anything newsworthy.”
The news of Carlson’s departure also came in aftershocks of Fox News’ parent company settling with Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million.
On Monday, “Fox and Friends” co-anchor Brian Kilmeade stepped in to cover Tucker Carlson’s vacant Monday night primetime slot.
“As you probably have heard, Fox News and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” Kilmeade said at the top of the show. “I wish Tucker the best. I’m great friends with Tucker and always will be.”
Kilmeade hosted the 8 p.m. hour on Monday as “Fox News Tonight” replaces “Tucker Carlson Tonight” with a rotating roster of hosts until a permanent host is named. It is not known at this time what additional hosts will appear this week and at what point a new host will be named.
Watch Maddow’s full segment in the video above.