#1. TUCKER CARLSON’S PRAYER TALK: “THAT STUFF FREAKS RUPERT OUT” BY: GABRIEL SHERMAN

Tucker Carlson’s Prayer Talk May Have Led to Fox News Ouster: “That Stuff Freaks Rupert Out". Fox Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch is said to have balked at Carlson’s remarks in a Friday night speech, driving another theory about the prime-time star’s abrupt exit. “He doesn’t like all the spiritual talk,” said a source.

Twenty-four hours after  Fox News ousted its highest-rated host , the network has yet to explain one of the most shocking defenestrations in cable news history.“I’m not going beyond the release,” a Fox News spokeswoman texted yesterday when I asked her for comment. In this information void, multiple theories about why Fox fired Carlson circulated in the media. It was fallout from the  $787.5 million Dominion settlement ; punishment for vulgar text messages published in Dominion court filings; or a consequence of former Fox producer  Abby Grossberg’s  lawsuit , which alleged Carlson oversaw a hostile work environment. (Fox News has vowed to “vigorously defend” the company against “Grossberg’s unmeritorious legal claims.”)

But none of these potential reasons fully add up. Fox News anchor  Maria Bartiromo hyped Dominion conspiracies far more than Carlson did, and yet she remains on the air. Fox had access to Carlson’s texts and emails in the Dominion lawsuit for months, and didn’t punish him for it. Fox hosts sued for sexual harassment in the past were fired publicly for cause, but Carlson wasn’t. According to a source, Carlson wasn’t even fired and remains on the Fox News payroll. 

So the mystery remains: Why did Fox News take its biggest star off the air?

A new theory has emerged. According to the source, Fox Corp. chair  Rupert Murdoch  removed Carlson over remarks Carlson made during a speech at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary gala on Friday night. Carlson laced his speech with religious overtones that even Murdoch found too extreme, the source, who was briefed on Murdoch’s decision-making, said. Carlson  told the Heritage audience that national politics has become a manichean battle between “good” and “evil.” Carlson said that people advocating for transgender rights and DEI programs want to destroy America and they could not be persuaded with facts. “We should say that and stop engaging in these totally fraudulent debates…I’ve tried. That doesn’t work,” he said. The answer, Carlson suggested, was prayer. “I have concluded it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will,” he said. “That stuff freaks Rupert out. He doesn’t like all the spiritual talk,” the source said. 

Carlson declined to comment. A spokesperson for Fox Corp. declined to comment. 

It’s  been reported that Fox Corp. CEO  Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News CEO  Suzanne Scott made the decision to fire Carlson on Friday night. Another source, a person close to Murdoch, has said something similar to me. Scott  informed Carlson of the decision on Monday morning. 

Rupert Murdoch was perhaps unnerved by Carlson’s messianism because it echoed the end-times worldview of Murdoch’s ex-fiancée  Ann Lesley Smith, the source said. In my  May cover story , I reported that Murdoch and Smith called off their two-week engagement because Smith had told people Carlson was “a messenger from God.” Murdoch had seen Carlson and Smith discuss religion firsthand. In late March, Carlson had dinner at Murdoch’s Bel Air vineyard with Murdoch and Smith, according to the source. During dinner, Smith pulled out a bible and started reading passages from the Book of Exodus, the source said. “Rupert just sat there and stared,” the source said. A few days after the dinner, Murdoch and Smith called off the wedding. By taking Carlson off the air, Murdoch was also taking away his ex’s favorite show. 

Smith did not respond to a request for comment. 

The 92-year-old mogul’s broken engagement is part of a string of erratic decisions he has made of late that raises questions about Murdoch’s leadership of his media empire. According to sources, executives at Fox are worried about Murdoch’s unsteady hand at the wheel of the company. “It’s like the King is senile but no one wants to say anything,” the source said. According to two sources, Fox settled with Dominion moments before the trial was set to begin because Fox’s lawyers didn’t want Murdoch to testify in public. “They were hoping and praying to settle for months, but they didn’t want to pay up,” the second source said. Once the trial began, the lawyers told Fox execs that Murdoch would be “disgraced on the stand, run out of the boardroom, and his testimony will expose him as a lunatic sliding into senility.” (The person close to Murdoch disputed this. “Rupert was very well prepared to testify.”) 

#2. FIVE THEORIES THAT ARE SWIRLING AROUND THE INTERNET ABOUT WHY FOX NEWS FIRED TUCKER CARLSON BY: MICHAEL SYNDER

Why in the world would Fox News fire Tucker Carlson?  He had the highest-rated show on cable news by far, and he is wildly popular with millions upon millions of Americans.  Unfortunately, if you want to survive as a cable news host in this day and age, popularity is not enough.  You must please the elitists that own your network, the advertisers that are paying the network’s bills, and the political establishment in Washington.  For years, Tucker Carlson has repeatedly said things on his show that no other cable news host would dare to say, and it was inevitable that this would get him into big trouble.

Tucker understood this very well, but he didn’t think that he would be on the chopping block quite yet.

In fact, on his Friday show he told viewers that he would be back for another show on Monday …

Fox announced Carlson’s departure Monday morning, and so far no one has given a reason. But it seems clear that the move came as a surprise to Carlson himself, who signed off his Friday show saying “We’ll be back Monday … see you then.”

Apparently the decision to get rid of Tucker was very abrupt.

According to the Daily Mail , he did not know that Fox News was firing him until very shortly before it was announced…

Tucker Carlson was blindsided by his firing from Fox News and learned of it on Monday morning shortly before it was announced, sources tell DailyMail.com.

Even some of his closest staff were unaware that his show had been axed, reading about it for the first time on Twitter.

‘No one I know was told about it beforehand. We were blindsided,’ one senior staffer who works closely with Tucker’s show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, told DailyMail.com.

So why did Fox News decide to do this?

The following are 5 theories that are currently swirling around the Internet…

#1 THE DOMINION LAWSUIT

Losing 787.5 million dollars can motivate a company to make big changes, and many news outlets are pointing out that the firing of Tucker Carlson has come very shortly after the settlement with Dominion was revealed…

Right-wing prime-time host Tucker Carlson is leaving Fox News immediately, the cable network announced Monday.

The announcement came days after Fox News’ parent company settled Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million. The company’s hosts were not required to talk about the lawsuit, or make an apology for it, as part of the settlement, CNBC previously reported.

But apparently there are some inside Fox News that are pouring cold water on this theory …

The Denver-based company, which last week  settled its $1.6 billion defamation case  against Fox News for $787.5 million, did not have any influence on Fox and Carlson’s decision to part ways, people with knowledge of the situation tell TheWrap. Dominion has already collected its payout from Fox News and had no comment on Monday’s development.

While the lawsuit may not have directly led to Tucker’s firing, it is likely that moving forward management at Fox News wants to have much more control over what is being said on their shows.

That could potentially be the reason why independent thinkers such as Dan Bongino and Tucker Carlson are now gone.

If you go to Tucker’s personal website right now, you are greeted by a message that tells you that Tucker Carlson is “the sworn enemy of censorship”.

I think that says a lot.

#2 BIG PHARMA

Less than a week ago, Tucker brutally attacked Big Pharma and their COVID vaccines during one of his monologues.

It was one of the best monologues of his entire career, and millions of us loved it.

But it was not something he should have done if he wanted to have a long career in cable news.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suggesting that this is the real reason why Fox News canned him…

Fox fires @TuckerCarlson five days after he crosses the red line by acknowledging that the TV networks pushed a deadly and ineffective vaccine to please their Pharma advertisers. Carlson’s breathtakingly courageous April 19 monologue broke TV’s two biggest rules: Tucker told the truth about how greedy Pharma advertisers controlled TV news content and he lambasted obsequious newscasters for promoting jabs they knew to be lethal and worthless. For many years, Tucker has had the nation’s biggest audience averaging 3.5 million — 10 times the size of CNN. Fox just demonstrated the terrifying power of Big Pharma.

#3 RUPERT MURDOCH AND FOX NEWS MANAGEMENT

It is no secret that management at Fox News was tiring of Tucker Carlson, and the Los Angeles Times is reporting that the decision to give Tucker the axe “came straight from Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch”…

Fox News announced the stunning departure of its top-rated host Monday with no explanation, but people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to comment publicly said the decision to fire Carlson came straight from Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch with input from board members and other Fox Corp. executives.

The newspaper is also claiming that allegations made by Abby Grossberg played a major role…

Carlson’s exit is related to the discrimination lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg, the producer fired by the network last month, the sources said. Carlson’s senior executive producer Justin Wells has also been terminated, according to insiders. She alleged she was bullied and subjected to antisemitic comments, according to a lawsuit in New York.

Abby Grossberg is no longer at Fox News, and all of the allegations that she is making in her lawsuit sound rather sketchy.

I think that executives at Fox News have no other dirt on Tucker, and so they are just throwing this out there to make themselves look like the good guys.

Ultimately, there may be a much different reason why Rupert Murdoch and other executives at Fox wanted Tucker gone.

One insider says that Murdoch is actually planning to sell the company, and that will be much easier to do without Tucker “as the main star” …

‘We believe Rupert wants to sell the company and it’s harder to find an institutional buyer with Tucker as the main star.

‘Tucker gone makes it more of an appealing media company to buy,’ the source said.

#4 JANUARY 6TH

Tucker Carlson got into a lot of hot water for exposing what really happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

Other mainstream news outlets have relentlessly characterized it as an “insurrection”, but the raw footage provided to Tucker by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy showed that wasn’t the case at all.

Of course many establishment politicians in both parties pushed back against Tucker’s reporting really hard, and the Los Angeles Times is telling us that this is another reason why Murdoch was so eager to show him the door…

Murdoch also was said to be concerned about Carlson’s coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The host has promoted the conspiracy theory that it was provoked by government agents, and Carlson has called Ray Epps — a Texas man who participated in the storming of the Capitol but did not enter the building — an FBI plant, without presenting any evidence.

#5 RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT

For years, there have been rumors that Tucker Carlson would run for president in 2024.

And now that he is free from his obligations at Fox News, many are claiming that he will pull the trigger on such a move …

After the conservative commentator  Tucker Carlson left Fox News on Monday , public speculation has suggested that he may mount a 2024 presidential campaign.

“He’s running,” tweeted Stephen L. Miller , a conservative commentator and editor at The Spectator, a sentiment that many media figures on the right echoed. “It significantly changes the GOP 2024 primary overnight,”  wrote Philip Wegmann , a White House Correspondent for RealClearNews.

“Keep an eye out for speeches in the Granite State,” tweeted  fellow conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, referring to New Hampshire. “He’s always downplayed the possibility of running for president, but that’s an open possibility now,” wrote Christopher Rufo , a conservative writer and fellow of the Manhattan Institute, a leading think tank on the right.

Personally, I believe that this is a bunch of nonsense.

I don’t think that Tucker Carlson has ever had any plans to run for public office.

And I certainly don’t think that he is going to run for president in 2024.

But I am sure that there will continue to be a lot of speculation about his future in the days ahead.

Personally, I hope that he takes at least a little bit of time off.

He has certainly earned it.