This reporting is featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the newsletter pulling back the curtain on the media. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.
Tucker Carlson plans to hit Fox News hard in the hopes he can get back on the air and, as Confider has learned, his team is now rolling out a coordinated pressure campaign from a rogues gallery of surrogates including NFL legend Brett Favre, MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Sen. J.D. Vance, and even former Fox News colleague Megyn Kelly, and more colorful characters to come.
Carlson is “antsy” to get back to work following his April 24 firing, sources told us, and he has absolutely no intention of sitting out the 2024 election on the sidelines, shackled by his Fox News contract.
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On Monday afternoon, Favre tweeted, “I’m with Tucker. Time to boycott Fox until they come to their senses and let the man speak,” alongside a clip of Kelly also calling for a boycott.
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Fox’s primetime ratings have tanked since Tucker’s departure and people familiar with the matter say Carlson could very well further destroy Fox’s reputation if he decides to go scorched earth. The rollout of celebrity backers is just a teaser of what’s to come, they said. “This is like putting some smelling salts under Fox’s nose,” one person with knowledge of the situation told Confider about the campaign, which Axios first reported over the weekend.
Just how much worse it could actually get for Fox remains to be seen, as the network has weathered the high-profile firings of icons like Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly before.
All eyes will be on Lachlan Murdoch tomorrow morning as the Fox Corp CEO reports quarterly earnings and he will almost certainly be asked by analysts about what a post-Carlson Fox will look like.
Carlson and his attorney, Bryan Freedman, did not respond to a request for comment. Fox declined to comment.
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