Tucker Carlson doesn’t know why he was fired from Fox News but suggests his views on Ukraine were a ‘red line’

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

In his first interview after his abrupt exit from Fox News, Tucker Carlson claimed he doesn’t know why he was fired, though he suggested his coverage of Russia’s assault in Ukraine likely played a role.

“I don’t know why I was fired. I really don’t. I’m not angry about it. I wish Fox well,” Carlson said during an appearance on a podcast hosted by Russell Brand.

He added, however, that the war is a “red line for a lot of people in business and politics,” echoing the far-right pundit’s previous on-air statements from his primetime slot on one of the most-watched cable news networks in the US.

His segments on Fox News routinely undermined Ukraine and questioned US military aid to support the country against Russian attacks, claims that have not only advanced into Republican Party platforms but also made Carlson a star on Russian state media.

“The US could force peace like tonight. They could. Uniquely, they have that power, and they won’t, and they are continuing to allow Ukrainians to be killed and that country to be devastated,” he told Brand. “If you criticise that, they are really intent on making you be quiet.”

Carlson, like Donald Trump and other right-wing personalities who have claimed that peace could be brokered immediately, did not explain how either party could achieve that.

After the White House announced a first wave of sanctions against Russia as armed forces launched an assault into Ukraine last February, Carlson used his platform to make an apparent defence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, posing a question to Americans: “It may be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious, what is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?”

He referred to the war as a “border issue” and called Ukraine “a pure client state” of the US Department of State. He also has characterised the US as the aggressor in a proxy war against Russia, a claim also raised by Russian propagandists, though he also has conceded that Putin “started” the war and pinned the blame on Putin for the assault that would lead to thousands of casualties. Meanwhile, he has cast Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator,” a “pimp” and “a dangerous authoritarian”.

Carlson also stated that Ukraine’s defence of its sovereignty is a “lie”.

“You can’t have an audit” of US defence spending in Ukraine, Carlson said earlier this year, in a sarcastic screed, “because if you do want an audit of where your money is going into the most corrupt country in Europe, you’re a tool of Putin!”

When he launched the first of his post-Fox video posts on Twitter, he called Ukraine’s Jewish leader “rat-like” and claimed it was “obvious” that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.

Carlson was fired from Fox days after the network agreed to a record-breaking $787m settlement with a voting machine company that accused the network of spreading false statements about its business in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election – bogus claims that Carlson privately disputed but had devoted generous airtime to entertain.

Hundreds of court filings and overlapping reports across several media outlets stitched together a picture of a looming human resources nightmare inside the Fox empire, with a federal lawsuit from a now-former producer putting Carlson and his staff at the centre of a workplace discrimination complaint.

Last week, Fox Corporation reached a $12m settlement in that lawsuit from Abby Grossberg, a former producer for Tucker Carlson Tonight, who alleged a culture of misogyny at the network and accused Fox and its employees of fostering a “toxic workplace” where “truth remains a fugitive”.

After he was fired from Fox, Putin-linked propagandists trolled American media with public and televised statements seeking Carlson’s attention and offering him jobs on their networks.