Fox News has issued a cease and desist letter to Tucker Carlson over his new online show Tucker on Twitter, and Carlson is taking it about as well as you would expect.
According to NBC, a source familiar with the matter said that the network sent the letter because they say Carlson breached his contract by starting the online show.
Carlson was fired by Fox News at the end of April, shortly after the network agreed to pay a nearly $18 million settlement to Dominion Voting Systems to avoid going to trial over Dominion's assertion that they spread Donald Trump's big lie that the election was stolen from him.
One of Carlson's attorneys, Harmeet Dhillon, insisted that Fox News was trying to silence Carlson until the 2024 election.
"Fox News continues to ignore the interests of its viewers, not to mention its shareholder obligations. Doubling down on the most catastrophic programming decision in the history of the cable news industry, Fox is now demanding that Tucker Carlson be silent until after the 2024 election.
She concluded:
"Tucker will not be silenced by anyone."
Carlson seems to be continuing to produce more of the same kind of content that he did on his Fox News show, just on Twitter.
In his first episode of Tucker on Twitter, Carlson claimed, without providing any evidence, that Ukraine attacked a dam in Russian-occupied territory. He also referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy using hateful and antisemitic language.
In the third episode, set to debut on Tuesday, Carlson plans to talk about Donald Trump's most recent indictment related to his mishandling of classified documents.
Trump is scheduled to be arraigned on those charges in Miami on Tuesday afternoon.
Many Carlson supporters echoed Dhillon's sentiments that Fox News was attempting to silence Carlson in the lead-up to the 2024 Presidential election.
Others said Fox News was just upset that they lost viewers when they fired Carlson.
Some called for a boycott of Fox News over the letter.
Meanwhile, among those who don't support either Carlson or Fox News, the reactions ranged from apathy to agreement with Fox News' letter, to eager anticipation of the upcoming drama and conservative infighting.
A separate letter sent by Fox News earlier in the week, which did not contain a cease and desist order, stated that Carlson was in breach of his contact with the network by hosting his Twitter show.
The contract reportedly contains language that forbids Carlson to work with other networks while under contract with Fox News.
Another of Carlson's attorneys, Bryan Freedman, asserted that the network's challenge of Carlson's new show was a challenge to his right to freedom of speech.
Freedman said:
"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."
Carlson and his attorneys have not given any indication that they plan to comply with the cease and desist letter, so he will presumably be back on Twitter tomorrow as planned.
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