Tucker Carlson news – live: Fired Fox News host’s sexist comments about fans revealed as Newsmax ratings climb

Overlapping accounts across multiple news outlets and a lawsuit from a former producer allege a wider picture of dysfunction at the network leading to the far-right star’s exit, Alex Woodward reports.

Tucker Carlson broke his silence over his exit from Fox News in a defiant and conspiracy-laced video he posted to Twitter on Wednesday evening at 8pm, his former primetime slot on the channel.

The video had more than 1.8 million views in the hour after its release. By the following afternoon, the video had been directly watched by 17.3 million users, and seen on the timelines of 57.8 million others.

Fox News agreed Wednesday to hand over thousands of documents to voting machine company Smartmatic, which is suing the network for defamation in a case similar to Dominion Voting Machines’ just-settled lawsuit.

Smartmatic says Fox bears financial responsibility for airing false allegations that the company rigged the 2020 presidential election against former President Donald Trump.

Last week, Fox agreed to pay Dominion nearly $800m to avert a trial, although the ultimate cost to the media company is likely to be much lower.

Smartmatic wants a $2.7bn judgment, which far exceeds the $1.6bn Dominion sought in its suit. No date has been set, and the case might not go to court for a couple of years.

Smartmatic said in court filings that Fox “slow-rolled its production” of transcripts and other material that were created during the Dominion suit, and that Smartmatic had received just a small fraction of the more than 52,000 documents it requested as part of the discovery process.

Among the documents Smartmatic hopes will bolster its case are deposition transcripts for Fox founder Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch, as well as documents related to company executive Raj Shah and lawyer Viet Dinh.

In a statement, Fox News said it was ready to defend itself in “this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events.”

Tucker Carlson was caught on video making inappropriate comments about women and his “postmenopausal fans” before he was fired from Fox News, according to a report.

In the video, obtained by The New York Times, Carlson is heard off-camera talking about whether his “postmenopausal fans” would like how he looks on his primetime show.

In a second video, Carlson is said to be heard referring to a woman as “yummy”.

The video has come to light as multiple reports have cited the discovery of offensive and crude text messages sent by Carlson as a key factor in his sudden ousting.

What ended up being Tucker Carlson’s final week on the network relied on familiar themes from a nightly lineup that has grown increasingly more extreme in recent years, tilting at far-right fringe conspiracy theories, racism and anti-trans attacks.

In what were his programme’s final moments, framed by several pizza boxes across his desk while holding a slice, he promoted Let Them Eat Bugs, a special described as an investigation into “environmentalists pushing people to eat bugs.”

From the Dominion trial to his last broadcast and a phone call from the network’s CEO, here’s a look at Carlson’s final week at Fox:

Hundreds of thousands of Fox News viewers are reacting to Tucker Carlson‘s firing by abandoning the network in his old time slot — at least temporarily.

Fox drew 1.33 million viewers for substitute host Brian Kilmeade in the 8 p.m. Eastern hour on Wednesday night, putting the network second to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in a competition Carlson used to dominate, the Nielsen company said.

That’s down 56% from the 3.05 million viewers Carlson reached last Wednesday, Nielsen said. For all of 2022, Carlson averaged 3.03 million viewers, second only to Fox’s “The Five” as the most popular program on cable television.

Carlson offered his own alternative to Kilmeade on Wednesday, posting a two-minute monologue on Twitter at 8 p.m. By Thursday afternoon, that video had been viewed 62.7 million times, according to Twitter.

Kilmeade had 1.7 million viewers on Tuesday and 2.59 million on Monday, when he told people who hadn’t already heard the news that Carlson would no longer be there.

Carlson had 2.65 million viewers on Friday for what he didn’t know at the time would be his last show on Fox. He was fired on Monday with no explanation given publicly, although there are no shortage of theories — including a former employee’s lawsuit that cited a toxic work atmosphere at his show, offensive statements by Carlson that came out as part of the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox and his embrace of political conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The ratings slump echoes what happened at Fox following the 2020 election, when many viewers angered by the network’s crucial election night declaration that Joe Biden had won Arizona followed then-President Donald Trump’s advice to seek alternatives. That caused tremendous angst behind the scenes at Fox, which was illustrated in documents released as part of the Dominion case.

Asked for comment, Fox responded with a statement noting that Fox has been cable news’ most-watched network for 21 years with its team “trusted more by viewers than any other news source.”

In the wake of Carlson’s firing, viewing at the conservative network Newsmax has shot up for Eric Bolling, who hosts a show in the same 8pm ET slot.

For example, Bolling had 510,000 viewers Wednesday night, compared to 168,000 on Wednesday a week ago, Nielsen said. On Tuesday, Bolling had 562,000 viewers, up from 122,000 the same day a week earlier.

The challenge for Newsmax will be making it last. Fox surged again following Biden’s inauguration as president, and Newsmax couldn’t keep up the momentum.

Shortly after they both lost their jobs at their respective networks, Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon turned to prominent Hollywood attorney Bryan Freedman.

The high-profile entertainment lawyer has represented clients including Mariah Carey, Julia Roberts and Quentin Tarantino, as well as the estate of Michael Jackson in a $100m legal battle over the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland.

He also represented ousted Jeopardy! producer Mike Richards and Chris Harrison of The Bachelor.

The Independent has requested comment from Mr Freedman.

James Corden joked that he’d be appearing on Dancing with the Stars with Tucker Carlson as his tenure on The Late Late Show comes to an end.

Corden’s final episode aired Friday (28 April), the same week that the Fox News host was fired by the broadcaster.

In a Carpool Karaoke special airing hours before Corden’s final Late Late Show, the host spoke about his feelings coming into Television City – CBS’s studio lot in Los Angeles – for the last time.

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Rudy Giuliani claimed he wasn’t surprised by Tucker Carlson’s firing in a conspiracy-laden interview with Newsmax.

The former New York City mayor and 2020 election denier appeared on the right-wing network on Thursday night to say he had been “expecting” Fox News to axe its biggest star.

“I was still shocked by it because he’s had, like about a year or two ... of what I would consider historic and inspired journalism,” he said.

“We have a lot of great journalists on our side, and it takes a lot of guts to be on our side.

“To be on the other side, I don’t know. You’ve got all the cocktail parties, and they drink so much, they probably don’t even know what they’re doing.”

Mr Giuliani, who was a familiar face on Fox News when the platform pushed election conspiracies to its viewers, launched into yet more lies about the January 6 Capitol riot.

He claimed that “nobody died” during the riot – an outright falsehood as at least five deaths occurred that day and in the immediate aftermath.

He also falsely claimed that none of Mr Trump’s supporters were armed – something that video and photo evidence can easily disprove.