Fox News has handed Tucker Carlson a cease-and-desist letter for allegedly breaching his contract by launching a Twitter show, titled Tucker on Twitter, which debuted last week on June 6. Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar stated that Carlson had signed a contract in November 2019 that restricts his ability to appear on competing media outlets.

Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Carlson, said that Fox News was attempting to violate the former anchor’s First Amendment rights.

Fox’s ratings for the 8 p.m. time slot that once belonged to Carlson’s show have dropped significantly since his firing from the network. Fox is currently competing with new right-wing news sources like Newsmax and One America News Network.

In his show’s first episode, a 10-minute video, Carlson asserted that Ukraine carried out an attack on a dam in Russian territory and referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a way that the Anti-Defamation League considered antisemitic. The show has received almost 170 million views after just two episodes.

Episode 3 is scheduled to come out on June 13, where Carlson will discuss former President Donald Trump‘s second indictment. Trump is expected to be called to federal court in Miami on Tuesday afternoon.

Carlson, a right-wing media personality, was dropped by Fox News in late April, just days after the network agreed to pay $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems to avoid a high-profile defamation case.

Harmeet Dhillon, another one of Carlson’s lawyers, stated, “Fox News continues to ignore the interests of its viewers, not to mention its shareholder obligations. Doubling down on the most catastrophic programming decision in the history of the cable news industry, Fox is now demanding that Tucker Carlson be silent until after the 2024 election.” Carlson’s contract with Fox runs until January 2025.

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Alex Nguyen

Article by Alex Nguyen

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