The Pentagon is reportedly breathing a collective sigh of relief over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News, with one anonymous Department of Defense official calling it "good riddance."
"We’re a better country without him bagging on our military every night in front of hundreds of thousands of people," a second, senior unnamed military official said.
Carlson, who has yet to give his take on his surprise dismissal, responded to the sentiments expressed anonymously by Pentagon top brass by saying simply "Ha! I'm sure," without elaborating.
The pundit spent over two years on his popular prime time vehicle 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' attacking the Biden administration’s attempts to reform the military, airing a series of segments railing against superficial LGBTQ+ pride campaigns, maternity flight suits and other 'woke' initiatives which he claimed would make the military weaker.
Since taking to the airwaves on Fox in late 2016, Carlson also became a consistent critic of the military-industrial complex and US warmongering and regime change operations abroad, becoming the only mainstream television host to criticize the CIA dirty war in Syria, the US-sponsored coup attempt in Venezuela, attempts to start a war with Iran, and the NATO proxy war in Ukraine.
Observers have given a range of possible explanations for Carlson’s sudden departure, from the Dominion voting machine company’s recent lawsuit payout from Fox, to his takes on hot button issues like the coronavirus pandemic, Russiagate and gender reassignment surgery for children, as well as the conservative anchor’s willingness to regularly give people from the other side of the political spectrum a voice on his platform.
Sources told US business media Wednesday that Carlson’s use of unfiltered language in private conversations, including calling a senior Fox Executive the c-word in private text messages, may have had something to do with his dismissal.
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' consistently ranked as the highest-rated cable news program in the 25-to-54 age demographic over most of its run, averaging 3.4 million nightly viewers in the month before being pulled from the air. Carlson’s pull was so significant that he even garnered more Democratic-leaning eyeballs than his top liberal competitor, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow of ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’.