Tucker Carlson to Twitter

Yesterday late afternoon, Tucker Carlson announced his comeback plans – he will come to Twitter. He made the announcement in a three-minute video, during which he also attacked the legacy media for having serious and apparently irreparable problems with the truth. And in apparent recognition of the reality, and the strength, of the covenant-not-to-compete under which he labors, his lawyers went after that covenant with a legal battering ram.

Tucker Carlson makes another announcement

Tucker Carlson announced his plans in this tweet, which he left at 4:45 p.m. EDT yesterday. He had a very simple text: “We’re back.” The video give far greater detail.

In his speech he gave his opinion that the last “big” platform remaining, that respects freedom of speech, is Twitter. He then said that “starting soon” he would stream, on Twitter, “a new version” of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the program he ran at Fox News. As in this earlier video,

he did not say how soon.

Todd Starnes offered more excerpts from Carlson’s speech, and also offered an apparent complete capture of the Twitter video. He offered the latter on his Rumble channel.

Great American News Desk offered a not quite complete transcript, but close. Tucker Carlson leads by introducing the major drawback of his competition: that conventional news lies. It might be more accurate to say, to paraphrase Herman Wouk, that the legacy media report the external facts. But slight shadings of things people say and do, and often complete omissions of other key facts, perspective, and context, suffice to turn the whole picture inside out. (Cf. The Caine Mutiny, Doubleday Publishers, 1952.) Carlson illustrates with a hypothetical, not a real-life, example.

The video ends with a listing of Tucker Carlson’s new site address.

Tucker Carlson beats them to the punch!

Recall that Axios spread a rumor Sunday that Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk had conversed together. Exactly about what, Axios never said. But if those two men did converse, then perhaps we know the subject of their conversation. Elon Musk might have suggested to Carlson that his account, with its seven million followers, would monetize easily. Tucker could build a subscriber base (at $4 per month) that could pay a good portion of what Fox was paying him, assuming a reasonable conversion rate.

In fact, Axios issued another report on the heels of Tucker’s three-minute post to Twitter. The outlet reports that Carlson’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, has sent a letter to Fox accusing it of breach of contract. The sourcing of the latest Axios report is less than clear – specifically, Axios does not link to the letter. They also quote anonymous sources as saying Mr. Freedman’s team sent the letter before Tucker Carlson released his tweet yesterday.

Freedman’s letter – addressed to Viet Dinh and Irena Briganti of Fox – accuses Fox of breaking several promises to Carlson. It speaks of “intentional” breach “with reckless disregard for the truth.” The letter accuses “Fox executives” of “material misrepresentations” to Carlson – meaning they lied to him, an offense tantamount to fraud. Axios’ sources named Viet Dinh and Rupert Murdoch as the specific liars.

Then the letter makes this key accusation: that Fox violated its understanding with Carlson by leaking his private communications to other media.

The Dominion settlement again

Freedman also takes Fox to task for its settlement with Dominion Voting Services. He directly accuses Fox of muzzling Carlson to appease Dominion. Two of Axios’ sources make that direct claim – but Fox and Dominion both deny it. The Axios sources say Tucker Carlson heard this directly from a member of Fox’ board of directors.

Freedman also wrote of his intention to subpoena the telephone records of Ms. Briganti, in her role as communications and public-relations chief at Fox. “Make no mistake,” Axios quotes from the letter.

We intend to subpoena Ms. Briganti’s cell phone records and related documents, which evidence communications with her and all media, including, but not limited to The New York Times.

Naturally the letter concluded with a demand for preservation of documents and data.

CNBC reports that Fox’ representatives failed to comment before a posting deadline.

The latest Axios report came to CNAV’s attention through this tweet by Dylan Byers of Puck News.

Analysis

Why Axios should continue to be the primary source for half the Tucker Carlson news, is as clear as mud. After all, Axios is anything but sympathetic to Carlson or his point of view. Nevertheless, the events they depict, if true and correct, make sense. Returning to the public stage at any medium would constitute a violation of any covenant not to compete. And contrary to Dylan Byers’ statement, Tucker would forego more than $25 million. At a rate of $20 million a year, he would be foregoing $33 million – the contract has a year and eight months to run.

But foregoing all that money wouldn’t be enough to break the covenant. Hence the opening salvo from his lawyer, saying Fox is already in breach of the contract they hope to enforce. Beside, Fox has leaked information about Tucker Carlson they thought would embarrass him. But the embarrassment has been to Fox, not Carlson. In one case, Carlson criticized the Fox Nation app as buggy and inadequately supported. And he is absolutely right on both counts, if the app’s reviews are even half correct.

So we can regard much of what Axios is saying, as correct. Tucker Carlson has gone to war with Fox, and appears to understand warfare. He has an objective, has gone on the offensive, and is deploying mass – getting in first with the most. And the entertainment value alone will guarantee him a large following, moving forward.