According to a story on Wednesday, Tucker Carlson’s intention to shift his show to Twitter is moving along quickly, and the past Fox News presenter is physically rebuilding his home studio after Fox apparently left it in a state of disarray.
The satellite studio at Carlson’s home in Maine is being rebuilt by him and others, reported the Daily Mail after Fox News employees showed up and tore down the remote broadcast station.
The studio, which is located in a repurposed barn, will now need to be fully rebuilt, according to the report, after the network’s employees gutted it completely.
Carlson, who was fired from his show in April while being under contract with Fox News through 2025, declared on May 9 that he will move his show to Twitter.
We’re back. pic.twitter.com/sG5t9gr60O
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 9, 2023
In a video heralding his return, he said, “There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech,” “The last big one remaining in the world, the only one is Twitter, where we are now.”
“Twitter’s not a partisan site. Everyone’s allowed here, and we think that’s a good thing.”
While there may be methods to monetize his show, the main goal on Carlson’s part seems to be keeping his voice in front of audiences, according to The Washington Post, Twitter tycoon Elon Musk claimed Carlson hadn’t struck a deal with the social media giant.
Following the cancellation of his program, it became evident that Fox News would prefer to let Carlson finish out his $8 million-per-year deal until it expired in 2025 than to buy him out and lose him to a rival network.
Nothing, fortunately, prevents him from freely sharing his comments on social media, even if Fox News is also attempting to block that.
According to Patrick Feeney, the project manager in charge of renovating Tucker’s barn, “Fox came in last week and got all their s*** out of” Carlson’s home studio in Woodstock, Maine.
“They took the set and everything, all the equipment, the chairs, the desk, the fake walls, everything,” he added.
According to the Daily Mail, the change was made just as Carlson was about to begin webcasting on the platform which billionaire Elon Musk purchased last year.
So how do you respond to such a setback? If you’re Carlson, you grab an ax and set to work doing your bit to restore the studio’s functionality.
Carlson is working with a three-man staff to get the studio back to functional order, reported the Daily Mail. But it might keep him silent for a while more than he had intended.
“There’s no hardware in place at all,” Feeney pointed out. “There’s not even an infrastructure for a TV studio for a long time.”
There’s reason to believe why Fox is taking such a strong line against Carlson, even if it does seem a little bit vindictive on their part.
“He was the network’s most popular host, and his dismissal renewed criticism from conservatives who have become disenchanted with the network’s coverage during and after the 2020 election,” The Western Journal noted.
In addition, the panoply of reasons hypothesized from his sudden departure — which range from Rupert Murdoch taking issue with his Christian faith to the firing being an unwritten part of Fox’s settlement with Dominion Voting Systems — also have thrown additional egg on the network’s face.
And then there are reports Carlson is taking people with him to his independent venture; Variety reported last week that “[a] handful of Fox anchors have reached out to Carlson directly or had their surrogates contact him to say they are eager to join whatever venture he starts on Twitter when their contracts are up, according to sources.”
The Journal notes that they’ll have amiable neighbors in Maine if they decide to move in with him. Citizens of Woodstock spoke to the Daily Mail in the days following Carlson’s dismissal, and they only had positive things to say regarding the former Fox News star.
Neil Olsen, 75, described him as “one of the most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met who was so-called famous.” “And I could just tell, he just wants to be a down-to-earth person. I haven’t met anyone who’s been around this guy that didn’t like him.”
This week, according to Rolling Stone magazine, Tucker Carlson was informed by network executives that he was being fired as part of Fox News’ significant $787.5 million defamation deal with Dominion Voting Systems.
“In the latest development to come three weeks after Carlson was removed from his role at the network on April 24, it has been reported that one of Fox Corp.’s eight board members was the one to tell the fired host that his ‘recent benching’ was the result of the secret condition in the Dominion settlement,” the outlet said.
“According to Variety, the conversation between Carlson and the board member took place on April 26 – two days after the network announced Carlson’s involuntary departure from the company. The board member also reportedly told Carlson that the secret condition ensuring Carlson’s canning would not be found in any of the $787.5 million defamation settlement documents because it was a verbal agreement,” the articles added.
Dominion Voting Systems representatives denied that any covert agreements had been struck.
