Fox News has reportedly accused Tucker Carlson of breaching his contract with his new show on Twitter.
According to a letter obtained by Axios, Fox News informed Carlson’s legal team that the network’s former primetime anchor has breached his contract with Fox News by starting his own Twitter show.
“In connection with such breach and pursuant to the Agreement, Fox expressly reserves all rights and remedies which are available to it at law or equity,” Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar said in the letter.
“This evening we were made aware of Mr. Tucker Carlson’s appearance on Twitter in a video that lasted over 10 minutes,” the letter read. “Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, Mr. Carlson’s ‘services shall be completely exclusive to Fox,’” the letter continued, citing Carlson’s contract.
Bryan Freedman, Carlson’s lawyer, has since said that any legal measures taken by Fox would infringe upon his First Amendment rights.
“Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events,” Freedman said in a statement.
This comes after Carlson was forced out of Fox News last May in an apparent effort to rebuild the network’s audience.
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the network said in a statement. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
Shortly after his departure, Carlson announced that he will launch his new show on Twitter.
“Much of what you see on television or read the New York Times is, in fact, true in the literal sense,” he said in the video announcement. “It could pass one of the media’s own fact checks, lawyers who’d be willing to sign off on it. In fact, they may have, but that doesn’t make it true. It’s not true. At the most basic level, the news you consume is a lie, a lie of the stealthiest and most insidious kind. Facts have been withheld on purpose, along with proportion and perspective. You are being manipulated.”
Carlson then praised Twitter for allowing free speech, promising that his new show would be more transparent and unbiased. “The last big one remaining in the world—the only one—is Twitter, where we are now,” he said.
