America's Newest Parlor Game: What Happened To Tucker Carlson?

As of this writing - 11:30 on Monday night - no one seems to know exactly why Tucker Carlson was unceremoniously fired by Fox News earlier in the day.

Naturally, theories abound as they always do in the absence of facts.

We’ll know the truth soon enough because no one in the media can keep his or her mouth shut.

Here’s what we do know: Tucker Carlson’s last show on Fox was Friday night and he signed off as usual. Not a hint that he wouldn’t return on Monday.

On Sunday night, Fox replayed Tucker’s recent interview with Elon Musk. And Monday morning  Carlson’s staff was reportedly preparing for that night’s show, unaware that it was about to be cancelled.

The bombshell-but-bloodless announcement was made by Fox News Host Harris Faulkner who looked as if she was recording a hostage video. The terse statement said little except that Fox and Carlson were “parting ways.”

That’s code for “Tucker was terminated.”

What happened next was telling: Some of the most odious people in the world began celebrating. The Crew of Shrews on The View began singing “Goodbye” and waving gleefully.

Liz Cheney - ugh - did her happy dance: “After all Tucker’s lies and defamation, it’s about time,” she gleefully Tweeted.

Over on CNN, Andersoon Cooper and Clinton flunky Paul Begala snickered about the sacking and wondered if Maria Bartiromo was sleeping all right.

Those who weren’t celebrating were speculating. Talk radio co-hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton at noon wondered if Tucker was getting ready to run for office when the network found out and canned him.

Unlikely, guys.

If Tucker were running for president Fox would have allowed him to at least say sayonara.

Others speculated that Tucker was fired because of complaints by a woman staffer about some sort of a toxic atmosphere around his show.

Robert F. Kennedy had an entirely different theory: The presidential hopeful Tweeted that “Fox fires Tucker Carlson five days after he crosses the red line by acknowledging that the TV networks pushed a deadly and ineffective vaccine to please their Pharma advertisers….for many years, Tucker has had the nation’s biggest audience averaging 3.5 million - 10 times the size of CNN. Fox just demonstrated the terrifying power of Big Pharma.”

More likely the sacking arose out of the Dominion Voting Systems settlement payout that cost Fox almost $800 million dollars. It’s been reported that among the thousands of emails in court documents were a slew from Carlson criticizing Fox brass.

Whatever the reason behind the firing, Fox Corp. stock took a hit Monday. CNBC reports that at the close of the bell, the stock was down about 3%.

Tucker’s contract is worth about $20 million a year and The Wall Street Journal claims that he will be paid for the rest of his contract, which was renewed in 2021.

The Journal also reports that the decision to “part ways” was made last Friday, yet Tucker Carlson was only informed of the decision about 10 minutes before Harris Faulkner made the on-air announcement.

One thing lovers and haters of Tucker Carlson agree upon: It will be hard - if not impossible - to find anyone to take the place of the immensely popular conservative.

Next parlor game: Can anyone really replace Tucker?

Added bonus for Tucker fans: Here’s his Saturday address at the Heritage Foundation.