I Don't Know Why Fox Fired Tucker Carlson, But I Can Explain When

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

This is one of those things that you never think about in advance, but is self-evident after you hear it.

Smart corporations do not fire before trial employees who will be critical witnesses at that trial. Smart corporations retain those employees, let the employees play their role for the corporation (without any animosity) at trial, and only then fire them.

That may not be nice, but it’s smart — and it’s true.

Why did Fox fire Tucker Carlson on April 24? Because Carlson would have been a critical witness at the trial of the defamation case that Dominion had brought against Fox. When Fox thought that case was heading to trial, it retained him. As soon as Fox settled with Dominion, it could fire him.

Once you accept that truth, you can continue this mental experiment a little further.

The other defamation case — the one that Smartmatic brought against Fox — is still pending. Carlson will presumably be a critical witness in that case, just as he was in the Dominion case. Why didn’t Fox postpone firing Carlson until after it settled with Smartmatic?

Here are two possibilities: First, Fox may, for some reason, view the Dominion case as more dangerous than the Smartmatic case. I’m not very close to the facts, but perhaps Fox defamed Dominion more often, or more violently, or to worse effect than it defamed Smartmatic. If so, then Fox would postpone firing Carlson until the Dominion case was settled, but it wouldn’t matter as much to wait for the end of the Smartmatic case.

Second, there could be some other reason that necessitated the early firing of Carlson. I’m really just guessing here; I have no idea if this is true. But Fox was recently sued by Abby Grossberg for Carlson having encouraged a discriminatory workplace environment. As Fox was looking into those allegations, Fox may have discovered something nasty about Carlson. If so, Fox may have wanted to fire Carlson immediately, thinking that it couldn’t let him remain on staff after having learned whatever it learned; that would look terrible to the jury considering the Grossberg case. Fox had to fire Carlson immediately.

But Fox couldn’t fire Carlson immediately; it had to wait until the Dominion case was over, because Fox needed Carlson’s cooperation at the Dominion trial. Thus, Carlson didn’t get fired until the Dominion case settled. Under this theory, Fox would have preferred to retain Carlson until after the Smartmatic case was over, too, but Fox couldn’t wait another year or two before firing Carlson. It had to act relatively promptly.

Reporters will do a better job than I do at unearthing these facts. Reporters do actual reporting; I rely on absolutely unsupported mental gymnastics. My suggestions may or may not be true.

But reporters ought to consider this. Sometimes guesswork sheds light on reality.