The Days of Tucker Carlson on Fox News Are Over — Did He Quit?

Tucker Carlson has practically been the face of Fox News since he joined Tucker Carlson Tonight in November 2016, just after the election of Donald Trump. Now, nearly five years later, Tucker Carlson and the right-wing news station have decided to part ways.

There have been rumors about Carlson leaving Fox News for years. Naturally, people have been wondering what Carlson has been up to and whether the rumors were true. Did he get fired or did he quit? We have all the latest information. Keep reading for the whole scoop!

Chris Hayes, an American commentator for MSNBC, spoke on his show All In With Chris Hayes about Carlson's potential exit from Fox News.

Hayes used his platform to showcase how so many Fox News commentators and hosts vocally oppose vaccines and related regulations. In fact, he cited data from left-leaning researcher Media Matters for America suggesting that in 99 percent of the days over the past six months, the Fox website shared undermining stories about vaccines.

The big issue for many of these commentators, including Carlson, wasn't necessarily the COVID-19 vaccines themselves, but vaccine mandates. President Biden imposed a vaccine mandate on large private businesses (with an alternative of weekly virus testing for those who didn't want to or couldn't get vaccinated).

Ironically, the Fox company had an even stricter vaccine mandate at one point and required daily COVID-19 testing for those who didn't get vaccinated. Fox also had mask mandates in place at its in-person offices, as evidenced by a fully masked Washington Bureau reopening event.

Meanwhile, Carlson highlighted people who left jobs that required vaccines on his show. Hayes thought that Carlson would quit at Fox News.

While working at Fox News, Carlson had to either get vaccinated or test daily against COVID-19. In the past, he touted the tyranny of medical control often on his show. Still, he might have complied with Fox's rules. As Hayes put it, the alternative would be that Carlson "just does not believe any of the stuff he's saying, and it's all just a craven, cynical act for ratings while he himself is [vaccinated]."

In 2020, a screenshot of Tucker announcing that he was leaving Fox News and going to far-right platform NewsMax swirled on Parler. The highly conservative social media platform was big news at the time, although its popularity has since dwindled.

Ultimately, it came to light that the screenshot had been doctored. It happened just as many Trump voters were upset about a supposed "stolen election." The election proved to be legitimate, but viewers were upset that Fox News wasn't covering what they wanted, even if that coverage would have been fake. The NewsMax post wasn't real and Carlson stayed at his job on the Fox show.

However, on April 24, 2023, Fox News reported and Carlson would no longer be working at the network. Did Carlson quit or did Fox News fire him? Fox did share an announcement.

In its announcement, Fox News said the network and Carlson agreed to go their separate ways. A spokesperson for Fox News Media added, “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.” Carlson hasn't commented yet. So, the exact circumstances surrounding his departure aren't known.

Carlson’s last day with Fox News was April 21, 2023. Tucker Carlson Tonight has been replaced with an interim program called Fox News Tonight, which will air at 8:00 p.m. EST. While the network seeks a new face to fill Carlson’s shoes, it will have “Fox News personalities” rotate as hosts.

Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show had been airing since 2016. News of Carlson's departure broke just a few days after Fox settled a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems. Rather than go to trial, Fox opted to settle for $787 million.

As if that news wasn’t enough to swallow, Carlson’s departure happened around the same time Don Lemon tweeted that he had been fired from CNN.