OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld appears to be offering his support to his longtime colleague Tucker Carlson, who was suddenly fired on Monday from the network.
Gutfeld took to Twitter to defend Carlson and hit back at his colleague Geraldo Rivera, who had issued some seething comments about Carlson after his departure.
Rivera tweeted: “I don’t wish ill on anybody, but there is no doubt – as I said at the time-Tucker Carlson’s perverse January 6 conspiracy theory was ‘bullsh*t.’ Having lost the election President Trump incited an insurrection that sought to undermine our Constitutional process.”
In response, Gutfeld hit back at Rivera for taking a shot at Carlson, which came across as Gutfeld was offering support to his former colleague.
“You’re a class act Geraldo. A real man of the people,” Gutfeld tweeted.
You’re a class act Geraldo. A real man of the people. https://t.co/20LOwVzXwS
— GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) April 26, 2023
Earlier this week, Gutfeld made headlines when he mentioned Carlson on-air after the news broke that Fox News had “parted ways” with the top-rated host.
During a segment on “The Five,” Gutfeld joked that Carlson will now run for president — and several of the hosts did not say a word.
Dana Perino took a sip of her drink, Jason Chaffetz laughed, and Jeanine Pirro immediately moved on and kicked the show over to a new segment on a different topic.
It seemed as if no one wanted to talk about Carlson or the explosive news, which could suggest that on-air hosts may have been told to not discuss the situation.
But Gutfeld was not afraid to mention Carlson and appeared defiant.
The conversation at the table began when they discussed President Joe Biden’s re-election prospects. Chaffetz predicted that even though Biden will likely announce re-election, he will ultimately not run. Biden did announce early on Tuesday morning that he is running for a second term.
“I think she actually might be a candidate,” Chaffetz said. “I don’t think Joe Biden – even though he may announce tomorrow – I don’t think by the time he gets to the end of the year he’s actually going to run.”
As the end of the segment neared, Gutfeld joked about Carlson by saying: “And then so in 2024, it’ll be Susan Rice versus Tucker Carlson.”
“Ok,” Pirro said before teasing the next segment and kicking the show to commercial.
WATCH:
Gutfeld Jokes Tucker Carlson Will Run for President After Getting Fired by Fox Newspic.twitter.com/CDcbMfpdZP
— Patriot Alerts (@alerts___) April 25, 2023
Soon after news of Carlson’s firing, reports shed light on who made the final decision to cut ties with the top host.
A new report reveals that Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of Fox Corporation, and Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, decided on Friday night to fire Carlson. Then, Scott informed Carlson on Monday morning of the decision.
“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 New York Times reported.
“The host, a polarizing and unpopular figure at the network outside of his own staff, was exposed as part of a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems as a bully who denigrated colleagues and sources, often in profane and sexist language and called for the firing of Fox journalists whose coverage he disliked. He has also drawn condemnation from the right and left for his role in fostering a revisionist account of the assault on the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” the outlet added.
The NYT report then suggests Carlson’s segment detailing the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was a “point of contention.”
“One early point of contention was Mr. Carlson’s 2021 documentary, ‘Patriot Purge,’ which advanced the conspiracy theory that the attack that day was a so-called false flag operation designed to discredit the former president and his political movement. Lachlan Murdoch was said to have been caught off guard by the program, which also led two conservative Fox News contributors to quit in protest, Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes,” the NYT reported.
“In March, Mr. Carlson edited down tens of thousands of hours of footage from the attack given to him by Speaker Kevin McCarthy and used them to falsely portray the rioters as people Mr. Carlson called ‘mostly peaceful’ onlookers who had innocently ambled into the Capitol. The broadcast drew a rebuke from Senator Mitch McConnell, who is a friend of Rupert Murdoch’s and said Mr. Carlson had drawn ‘offensive and misleading conclusions,'” the outlet continued.
Last week, Fox News announced that host Dan Bongino had parted ways with the network.
