Fox hosts avoid Carlson's name after his ouster

By: David Bauder
Associated Press

NEW YORK - The day he was fired, Tucker Carlson was nearly invisible on the Fox News primetime lineup that he used to dominate.
..... "We're not talking about him," former colleague Sean Hannity said in one of the two very brief mentions of Carlson's name on Fox News on Monday [04/24/2024] night. In contrast, his ouster was the lead story on ABC, CBS and NBC evening news casts.
..... Carlson was abruptly bounced from his popular prime-time show earlier in the day without any explanation from Fox. It was less than one week after fox had agreed to pay $878 million to settle a lawsuit with Dominion Voting System over the network's dissemination of bogus election conspiracy theories, and it came as more legal threats loom.
..... Brian Kilmeade took over Carlson's hour, telling viewers that Carlson and Fox had agreed to part ways " as you may have heard." He swiftly moved on to other stories.
..... Hannity led his hour-long broadcast with a story on Hunter Biden, the president's son, and interviewed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and West Virginia Senate Joe Manchin.
..... Carlson's name came up when Hannity did a segment on the other big media story of the day, CNN's firing of anchor Don Lemon. He brought on Kellyanne Conway, former aide to President Donald Trump, to criticize Lemon as a studio audience cheered.
..... "We're not talking about Tucker," Hannity said, unprompted. "I don't have any details on it. He had a massive audience and he had a huge following. This guy (Lemon) had nobody."
..... Fox's other prime-time host, Laura Ingraham, didn't mention Carlson. Instead, she criticized Democrats in her lead story. She also devoted segment of her show to a contest in Belgium where people pretended to screech like seagulls.
..... Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham appeared close in November 2020. That's when they engaged in a three-way text conversation bashing their own network's news division following the presidential election, according to documents revealed earlier this year [2023] as part of Dominion's lawsuit.
..... Fox has said the rotating guest hosts will occupy Carlson's old time slot until a full-time replacement is named.

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