Did Tucker Carlson’s comments about religion lead to his firing by Rupert Murdoch?
One of the contributors to Tucker Carlson’s sudden firing from Fox this week may have been a Friday night evangelical speech in which he preached about “good and evil,” according to a source quoted by Vanity purse.
Carlson was fired without warning Monday morning after managing Fox News’ top primetime show for seven years. There has been much speculation about what sealed his fate.
Some sources say Murdoch and other Fox News executives were outraged by Carlson’s unflattering remarks about them that went public in the Dominion lawsuit file. Others say it was due to a recent discrimination lawsuit brought against him and some of his top associates by a former booking producer.
Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman quotes sources as saying that overtly religious displays such as Carlson’s Friday night “freak” Rupert Murdoch are “out.”
“That stuff drives Rupert crazy. He doesn’t like all that spiritual talk.’
The speech came just a few weeks after Murdoch’s ex-fiance, Ann Lesley Smith, allegedly called Carlson a “messenger from God.”
The pair had discussed religion at a recent dinner at Murdoch’s Bel Air vineyard. Murdoch called off the brief engagement after two weeks.
On Friday night, Tucker Carlson gave a 36-minute speech at The Heritage Foundation, where he lamented that he had stopped praying and was desperate for America’s future.
He was the keynote speaker at The Heritage Foundation’s 50th anniversary gala, using his speech to talk about the growing need for prayer in America and the “fraudulent debates” he had gotten into.
Fox has not disclosed the exact reason for Carlson’s firing.
However, a News Corp source dismissed the idea that the Heritage Foundation’s speech was to blame.
In his 36-minute speech, Carlson complained that he had stopped praying and said that – unlike the rest of the country – he was paid to speak his mind.
He ranted against the “herd mentality” that many fell into during “George Floyd and COVID,” and people aren’t “trained” to speak out against the ideas they disagree with.
“We need to stop these totally fraudulent debates, using the terms we used in 1991 when I started at [The Heritage Foundation]like maybe I could win the debate if I gathered more facts.
‘I’ve tried. That does not work. And two, maybe we should all just take 10 minutes a day to pray about it. I mean it. Why not?
“And I’m not saying that to you as some kind of evangelist, I’m saying that literally to you as an Episcopalian, the Samaritans of our day. I come to you from the most humble and lowly theological position you can have. I am literally an Episcopalian.
“And even I’ve come to the conclusion that it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to pray for the future, and I hope you will.”
Carlson also called some pro-choice arguments “bad” and equated abortion with “child sacrifice.”
Rupert Murdoch recently hosted Carlson with his former fiancé, Ann Lesley Smith, for dinner. She gushed that Carlson was a “messenger from God.”
Tucker Carlson, pictured with wife Susan in Florida for the first time since leaving Fox last night
“If people, or crowds of people, or the largest crowd of people, which is the federal government, the largest human organization in the history of mankind, decide that the goal is to destroy things, destruction for themselves, ‘Hey, let’s break it off,” what you’re looking at isn’t a political movement. It’s bad.
“This is not necessarily just a Christian idea, this is a kind of, I would say, generally accepted understanding of right and wrong.
“Good is characterized by order, calmness, tranquility, peace, whatever you want to call it, lack of conflict, cleanliness. Cleanliness is next to godliness.
‘And evil is characterized by their opposites. Violence, hatred, disorder, division, disorganization and filth.
“So if you’re all about the stuff that the latest batch of results are producing, you’re really arguing for evil.
‘That’s just true. I am not calling for a religious war. Far from it. I’m just calling for confirmation of what we’re looking at.’
Carlson was spotted outside his Florida home last night by DailyMail.com.
In his first public remarks about his firing, he joked, “Retirement has been great so far! I haven’t had dinner with my wife on a weeknight in seven years.
‘Starters plus main course!’
He has yet to confirm his next move.