Fox News host Tucker Carlson distanced himself and his hateful hate speech show posted online by a former writer who worked on his top-rated show.
But critics waiting for an apology from the conservative cable provocateur for the out-of-office behavior of Blake Neff, who has worked at “Tucker Carlson Tonight” since January 2017, did not get one. He even shot them a goodbye shot.
“What Blake wrote anonymously was wrong,” Carlson said Monday on his show, reading a statement. “We do not endorse those words, they have no connection to the program. It is wrong to attack people for qualities that they cannot control. In this country we judge people by what they do, not by how they were born. We often say that because we mean it. We will continue to uphold that principle often only among national news programs because it is essential … Blake did not meet that standard and has paid a high price for it. “
Neff had written racist and sexist comments under a pseudonym on the AutoAdmit message board. He resigned Friday after a CNN report revealed his posts on the law student site, which is advertised as a forum for “supporters of the market for ideas and freedom of expression.” Neff shared racist and bigoted opinions about blacks and Asians, the Mormon church, and immigrants.
Still, Carlson had harsh words for his detractors whom he accused of delighting in Neff’s departure. “We are all human,” he said. “When we pretend that we are holy, we are lying. When we present ourselves as blameless to hurt other people, we are committing the gravest sin of all and will be punished for it. There is no question. “
Former reporter for the Daily Caller, the conservative news site co-founded by Carlson, Neff also created multiple discussion threads where he poked fun at the women he was friendly with on social media to share details about their personal lives and engaged in posts that they contained racist vitriol. .
Neff was part of a small group of writers who help Carlson craft the commentary he presents throughout his late-night show, which has been the most-watched show on cable news in recent months, averaging more than 4 million viewers per night. Some nights, in today’s fragmented television landscape, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” is the most watched show on all of television.
Carlson is one of the Fox News hosts who is regularly seen by President Trump. It has even been speculated by political columnists that Carlson would be a viable Republican presidential candidate in 2024 who would carry Trump’s message of anti-immigrant nationalism and economic populism.
But Carlson, who first joined Fox News in 2016, has come under fire for comments he has made about immigrants and race. He recently scared advertisers, including T-Mobile, Papa John’s and Walt Disney Co., of his show with a comment saying that the Black Lives Matters movement “can be many things, this moment we are living, but definitely not these are black lives. Remember that when they come for you, and at this rate, they will. ” Fox News issued a clarification of the comments, saying that “they” were referring to Democratic politicians and not blacks.
Fox News hosts rarely apologize when they face public reaction to their shows.
But Neff’s comments sparked a rare reprimand from top Fox News executives. In a statement to staff on Saturday, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and Fox News Media President and CEO Jay Wallace condemned Neff’s comments, calling them “horrendous and deeply offensive.”
“We want to make it very clear that Fox News Media strongly condemns this horrible racist, misogynistic and homophobic behavior,” they said in a statement. “Neff’s abhorrent conduct was never disclosed on the show until Friday, at which point we quickly accepted his resignation. Make no mistake, actions like yours cannot and will not be tolerated at any time in any part of our workforce. “
Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog group that has long lobbied advertisers to withdraw their commercials from Fox News programming, said Neff’s comments were not far from the rhetoric that appeared in “Tucker Carlson Tonight. “
“His daily job was to write a somewhat more sophisticated version of his online posts for the Carlson show,” Media Matters senior fellow Matt Gertz wrote Monday. “His job provides a clue to how some particular obsessions in that community ended up on Fox’s primetime. But ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ is steeped in the talking points of white nationalists because that’s how Carlson wants it.”
But aside from the outrage online, Carlson’s critics have little financial clout to pressure Fox News to take the host off the air.
For most of this year, the Carlson show has been broadcast without the support of national brand advertising, as companies have deserted over comments it made about immigrants and race. Almost all of the commercials for her program come from direct-response advertisers who solicit clients through phone numbers or 1-800 websites, such as MyPillow.com. Such marketers tend to be less particular about the content of the programs where their ads run.
MyPillow had four commercials on Monday’s show, which also included ads for Fungi-Nail, a toenail fungus remover made by Arcadia Consumer Healthcare, and Pray.com, an app that offers biblical stories.
“I am not changing my advertising,” MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said in a statement. “I make my decisions based on what is best for MyPillow customers and employees.”
Lindell is a strong advocate of President Trump.
Carlson has endured the advertiser exodus because he has the backing of Fox Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch, who chose the host to replace primetime Bill O’Reilly in 2017. O’Reilly was kicked out on sexual harassment charges. So he and Fox News paid multi-million dollar deals to prevent them from being publicly disclosed.
