Tucker Carlson infuriated network executives when he announced a new Twitter-based program in a video posted to the social media site earlier this month, just weeks after being dismissed from his Fox News position.
Fox employees purportedly “swooped in and dismantled” a studio the network constructed for him in a barn in a secluded Maine town where he owns a home. According to the UK’s Daily Mail, this is the case.
According to Patrick Feeney, Carlson’s construction manager, “Fox came in last week and got all their sh*t out of there,” adding that the set will now need to be entirely rebuilt after leaving the barn in “a shambles,” as reported by the Daily Mail.
“They took the set and everything, all the equipment, the chairs, the desk, the fake walls, everything,” Feeney added.
The disassembled studio is presently being reconstructed in the barn in downtown Woodstock with the help of Carlson and a three-person work staff, according to the news source, which added:
Carlson, 54, spends his summers in the rural town, 55 miles west of the state capital Augusta, where Fox had built a set in an old barn so he could broadcast the show remotely. He was due to start filming from the satellite studio within a few weeks when he was suddenly fired by the network on April 24.
Tucker has since given his own crew a new job, to get the studio back up and running. But the removal of the original set meant they had to repair the infrastructure.
“There’s no hardware in place at all. There’s not even infrastructure for a TV studio for a long time,” Feeney told the Daily Mail.
Carlson also has a residence in Florida, where he spends a significant portion of the year, but Feeney reported that the former Fox News star had recently returned to Woodstock to assist with cleansing and restoration efforts.
“He just got back late last night after meeting with lawyers and all that stuff,” Feeney said, adding: “As you can imagine, he’s very, very busy right now.”
Although Fox News has not publicly stated the reason for removing Tucker Carlson from its lineup, many believe it may be related to the network’s recent $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in a defamation case.
During an interview with Chris Cuomo of News Nation, Bill O’Reilly, a former Fox News host who once held the coveted 8 PM primetime position, stated that he believes Tucker Carlson was fired because the network is facing a number of litigation related to its coverage of the 2020 election.
Former Fox News booker Abby Grossberg has also lodged a lawsuit against the network.
“Because the pending litigation was harpooned this morning. Carlson didn’t know. It just happened. And that’s the nature of television news, the most wicked industry in the United States of America,” O’Reilly said.
“Tucker Carlson took over from me. For the first three years, his ratings were soft. He lost about a million, maybe a little bit more of my audience, and then in 2020, he took a hard right turn,” O’Reilly said. “Carlson basically programmed for a very hard right audience, and his numbers came up.”
Reports that surfaced shortly after the dismissal of Carlson clarified who had the final say in severing ties with the leading host.
According to a report, Lachlan Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation, and Suzanne Scott, the chairman and CEO of Fox News Media, made the decision to fire Tucker Carlson on a Friday evening.
The following Monday morning, Scott informed Carlson of his decision.
“The power that Mr. Carlson, 53, wielded outside Fox News could not insulate him from a growing list of troubles inside the network related to his conduct on and off the air, some of which had been grating on Mr. Murdoch and his father, Rupert Murdoch,” the New York Times reported.