This week’s dismissal of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson caught him completely off guard, according to a new report that lends credence to earlier claims to that effect.

According to prior reports, Carlson was in contract negotiations with the network through 2029. And, according to another former top-rated Fox host, Bill O’Reilly, Carlson and his staff were preparing for Monday’s program when he received the news that he was being fired.

“Each morning TV News producers around the country hold meetings to figure out what to put on the air. On Monday, the Tucker Carlson production team was smack in the middle of their meeting when they learned that their host was not coming to work. Ever again,” O’Reilly wrote on his blog. “Stunning is the appropriate word.”

“Six years ago, I left Fox News, so the timing of Tucker’s departure was interesting as he took my place at 8 pm. As I mentioned on the No Spin News last night, the television news industry is a brutal place to work. Always has been, but now it’s worse because media corporations have no loyalty to anyone but the bank teller,” he noted on Tuesday.

“Fox News is a far different place than it was when I spent 20 years there. And by this time next year, it will be a far different place again, of that I am certain,” O’Reilly said, adding: “The change at Fox News will affect the Republican Party deeply. It will be much tougher for the GOP to get messages out.”

An earlier Vanity Fair report appeared to corroborate O’Reilly’s speculation that Carlson was “blindsided” by the decision to part ways with him:

Monday morning, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott called Tucker Carlson to inform him that he was being removed from air and that his Fox News email account would be deactivated. According to a source with knowledge of the conversation, Carlson was astonished by his abrupt dismissal from his 8 p.m. show, which was the most-watched cable news program last month. Carlson was in the process of renewing his contract with Fox News through 2029, according to the source. Carlson had informed others that he anticipated the contract to be renewed as of the previous week.

“Carlson has told people he doesn’t know why he was terminated. According to the source, Scott refused to tell him how the decision was made; she only said that it was made ‘from above.’ Carlson has told people he believes his controversial show is being taken off the air because the Murdoch children intend to sell Fox News at some point,” Vanity Fair added.

The New York Times also reported that Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO of Fox Corporation, and Scott, the CEO of Fox News Media, decided to terminate Tucker Carlson on Friday night.

More on this story via Conservative Brief:

“The power that Mr. Carlson, 53, wielded outside Fox News could not insulate him from a growing list of troubles inside the network related to his conduct on and off the air, some of which had been grating on Mr. Murdoch and his father, Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corporation, who co-founded the network in 1996, according to the two people with knowledge of the company’s decision,” the Times added. CONTINUE READING…