Tucker Carlson's false accusations against Ray Epps may have gotten him fired
For all the speculation about why Carlson got booted, his potentially libelous attacks against an innocent man may have been the tipping point.
Just before lunchtime on Monday, Fox News announced that it had parted ways with Tucker Carlson, the host of its flagship primetime talk show. To put it mildly, this was a shocker. After all, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was far and away the highest-rated cable news show in the country.
Equally shocking was the manner of Carlson’s departure. While officially couched as a mutual decision, this has all the earmarks of a firing. For one, Carlson signed off on Friday night fully expecting to be back on Monday. Indeed, Fox News was teasing the Monday night edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” as early as Monday morning. But most telling of all, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott peremptorily called Carlson on Monday morning and told him that he was being fired, then shut off his email.
There has been a lot of speculation as to why Fox dropped the hammer when it did. According to The Washington Post, at least one factor was a tranche of Carlson’s text messages that became public as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ suit against Fox. Among other things, Carlson went ballistic after Fox joined the rest of the American media in declaring Joe Biden president-elect in 2020, saying they had helped erode Fox’ credibility with its heavily conservative audience. The Los Angeles Times reported that the decision was made by Rupert Murdoch himself, and also speculated that Fox wanted to get out in front of a discrimination lawsuit filed by Carlson’s former producer, Abby Grossberg. And The Daily Beast suggested that Carlson’s admission that he repeatedly called rabidly pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell the c-word was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
But as near as I can tell, there’s something that isn’t being discussed—and it may very well have been the dealbreaker for Carlson. Namely, his bogus claims that former Donald Trump supporter Ray Epps was an FBI provocateur in the run-up to a pro-Trump mob storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Those claims have driven Epps into hiding.
Epps discussed his ordeal on Sunday night’s edition of “60 Minutes.” Watch here.
For some time, Epps has been the target of a groundless conspiracy theory claiming that he incited the horror that unfolded on Jan. 6. Epps, for those who don’t know, was an ardent Trump supporter from the Phoenix area who traveled to Washington for the “Save America” rally. As the story goes, Epps was an FBI plant who pushed people on hand for the rally to go to the Capitol. Supposedly, the FBI wanted to create something akin to a Reichstag fire and use it as an excuse to crack down on hardcore Trump supporters.
As near as can be determined, the rumors center around a video shot on Jan. 5 showing Epps urging a crowd of Trump supporters to go to the Capitol the following day—”peacefully,” he emphasizes. This led right-wing provocateur Tim “Baked Alaska” Gionet” to start a chant of “Fed! Fed! Fed!” Another video shows Epps the following day telling people to “go the the Capitol, where our problems are.” Epps was later seen going past a barricade, but he never entered the Capitol itself. According to one of Epps’ lawyers, John Bilschak, Epps never intended for things to get violent. Indeed, there is no evidence he ever committed or urged violence.
A number of rabid Trumpers—as far up as Trump himself—have speculated that since Epps hasn’t been arrested, he must be under FBI protection. Never mind that a slew of people who merely breached the barricades have never been charged. Epps himself told The New York Times that he actually reached out to FBI agents after learning that a BOLO had been released in his name two days after the riot. He spent an hour on the phone with the FBI, and also sat down for a formal interview in March. During those interviews, agents were satisfied by his claims that he was actually trying to calm the rioters down. At least one rioter arrested by the FBI said that Epps pulled him aside and tried to stop him from attacking cops.
But none of that mattered to the deplorables. As a result of relentless harassment and threats, he and his wife had to flee to an undisclosed location somewhere in the Rockies. In the process, he has lost his event-hosting business and has been shunned by a number of relatives and former friends. To this day, he is still the target of false accusations from a number of pro-Trump figures—including Carlson, who continued attacking him even after one of Epps’ lawyers, Michael Teter, demanded an on-air retraction and apology from Carlson. On the contrary, Carlson referred to Epps at least half a dozen times in 2023 alone.
Epps told “60 Minutes” that he believes Carlson is “obsessed” with him, and is trying to deflect responsibility for Jan. 6. He noted—as we all know—that there was a near-constant drumbeat from “Fox News, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, (Matt) Gaetz” and others about the election being stolen. It led him to wonder—”who has more impact on people: them or me?”
When I first saw Epps’ story roll across my Facebook feed soon after the news broke of Carlson’s ouster, I suspected that this may have been the tipping point. After all, the abrupt nature of Carlson’s ouster contrasts sharply with the ouster of Carlson’s predecessor in the 8 pm Eastern slot, Bill O’Reilly. You may recall that O’Reilly was forced out in April 2017, soon after we learned that Fox News had coughed up millions over the years to settle allegations that O’Reilly harassed several female guests.
When O’Reilly signed off just before Easter 2017 for his customary vacation, Gabriel Sherman—then of New York magazine, now of Vanity Fair—reported that there was already talk O’Reilly wouldn’t be back despite both Fox and O’Reilly insisting he would return in two weeks. Sherman revealed why on MSNBC’s “The Last Word.”
Sherman argued that O’Reilly had become radioactive to advertisers. While his ratings had held steady in the days after the scandal broke in full, so many advertisers had bailed that Fox had no way of making money off of those ratings. If that wasn’t enough, Lisa Bloom revealed that she had asked the New York State Division of Human Rights to investigate sexual harassment at Fox News.
As it turned out, only eight days after O’Reilly signed off, Fox News announced he was gone for good. Apparently the two sides used that time to hammer out the terms of O’Reilly’s departure. Carlson didn’t even get that. Something had to have happened that convinced Murdoch that Carlson had to go and go right away—and the “60 Minutes” story certainly qualifies.
How’s that, you ask? Well, on the face of it, Epps has grounds for one whopper of a libel suit—one in which he’d have a substantial advantage at trial. Epps is a private person, and thus only has to prove Fox News acted with negligence. While he has told his story a number of times over the last two years, it’s quite another thing to see the impact these smears have had on him. Fox would be suicidal to let such a suit go to trial, especially after that interview. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in settlement talks already. If that’s the case, chances are that they would sacrifice Carlson as a show of good faith—and ratings be hanged. One would think that the Murdochs, unlike Alex Jones and Jim Hoft, aren’t dumb enough to let a libel suit filed by a private person go to trial.
Reportedly, the decision was made to fire Carlson on Friday night. But how does that track with promotions still running on Monday morning, or with none of the on-air personalities having an inkling this was going to happen? Why not just call him on Saturday morning? The only way this makes sense is that the Fox brain trust knew Epps was going on “60 Minutes” on Sunday, and wanted to see just how bad it was going to be before pulling the trigger.
A libel suit from Epps would potentially be the fourth potential legal action against Fox in which the plaintiffs have a substantial edge. There’s a reason Smartmatic isn’t backing down from demanding a payout at least as large as the $787 million payout to Dominion, as well as a full apology. The documents released in the Dominion suit more than made Smartmatic’s own case. We now know beyond all doubt that Fox lied to the American people and damned well knew it was lying. Those lies are why a shareholder sued Fox in mid-April, and why another group of shareholders has all but announced they will sue as well. Now add a libel suit filed by a private person to the list. From where I’m sitting, if Fox were thinking about cutting its losses, an Epps suit is probably the easiest to make go away.
There may be a lot of reasons why Carlson was defanged on Monday. But don’t underestimate the Epps ordeal as a factor. With everything being considered, especially its abrupt nature, it’s very likely that Epps may have very well succeeded in cutting Carlson down to size.