Tucker Carlson slams Fox Nation in new leaked video

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson allegedly slammed the company’s Fox Nation streaming service behind the scenes, according to a newly leaked video.

Carlson, who hosted the conservative news network’s 8 p.m. ET program starting in 2016 and consistently drew massive ratings, was abruptly fired from the company on April 24 for reasons that are still not entirely clear. Reports from various news outlets since his departure has indicated that vulgar and offensive text messages directed at some of his colleagues, which were unearthed during the discovery phase of the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, helped seal Carlson’s fate. Fox has not officially given any reason for the ouster.

sfIn addition to his role as the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson was also a significant producer of exclusive content for Fox Nation, a subscription streaming service the company launched in 2018, with his productions promoted under the “Tucker Carlson Originals” label. Despite his prominent role in promoting the service, a leaked video released by watchdog outlet, Media Matters, on Monday appears to show Carlson deriding Fox Nation as hard to use and not worth the effort.

In the clip, which was also shared to Twitter by Media Matters senior fellow Mathew Gertz, Carlson claims that “nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks,” and that website’s dysfunction was “a betrayal of our efforts.” He further stated that he would rather “dump” his exclusive interview on YouTube than continue promoting them on Fox Nation. The video appears to have been shot on the set of Tucker Carlson Today, one of the host’s Fox Nation exclusive shows, with his comments being made during a phone call with an unknown person.

Newsweek reached out to Fox News media relations team and Carlson’s attorney via email for comment.

During the call, Carlson mentions upcoming plans to interview “an exile in Romania” and welcome “him back into the brotherhood of journalists.” This interview subject, according to Media Matters, was most likely Andrew Tate, a right-wing social media personality based in Romania known for sharing misogynistic views. Tate was interviewed on Tucker Carlson Today last August after being banned from various social network platforms.

“But nobody’s going to watch it on Fox Nation,” Carlson says in the video. “Nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks. So I’d really like to just…dump the whole thing on YouTube…I’m just frustrated with it. It’s hard to use that site. I don’t know why they’re not fixing it. It’s driving me insane. And they’re like making, like, Lifetime movies. But they don’t…work on the infrastructure of the site. Like what? It’s crazy. And it drives me crazy because it’s like we’re doing all this extra work and no one can find it. It’s unbelievable, actually.”

Carlson continued: “We’re like working like animals to produce all this content, and the people in charge of it…they’re ignoring the fact that the site doesn’t work. And I think it’s like a betrayal of our efforts. That’s how I feel.”