Fox News has sent Tucker Carlson a cease and desist letter as the first step in legal action intended to kill Carlson’s new Twitter show.
Axios reported:
Fox News has sent a “cease and desist” letter to Tucker Carlson as he ramps up a competing series on Twitter that drew a combined 169 million views for its first two episodes, Axios has learned.
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Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer who represents Carlson along with Bryan Freedman, said in a statement to Axios: “Fox News continues to ignore the interests of its viewers, not to mention its shareholder obligations.”
“Doubling down on the most catastrophic programming decision in the history of the cable news industry, Fox is now demanding that Tucker Carlson be silent until after the 2024 election,” the statement continued.
Elon Musk has been boosting Carlson’s view count with various tricks and gaming of the platform that he owns, and Twitter’s view count metrics are a joke, so Axios treating them as gospel is a point that has its own issues.
Tucker Carlson isn’t going to get very far with his First Amendment argument. If Fox has Carlson under contract through the end of 2024, that contract with his signature on it beats the First Amendment. Plus, Tucker’s free speech constitutionally only pertains to speech toward the government, not where that speech is made or distributed contractually.
Fox is probably going to shut Tucker on Twitter down and force him off of the air until after the 2024 election. By that point in time Carlson will likely be replaced by a new conservative media star, and will just be another former Fox News host who lost his job due to racism, sexism, and lawsuits.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association