Former Fox News stalwart Tucker Carlson has issued a short response in public after being let go unexpectedly by the network on Monday.
Carlson responded to a Politico report that several senior officials at the Pentagon were ecstatic that he was fired by Fox.
The officials reportedly said “good riddance” and expressed relief that Carlson could no longer use his show to criticize the Pentagon.
“We’re a better country without him bagging on our military every night in front of hundreds of thousands of people,” one anonymous official remarked.
“Good riddance,” said a second DoD official.
Carlson “made a mockery” of the free press and “repeatedly cherry-picked department policies and used them to destroy DoD as an institution,” said the first senior DoD official.
When contacted by the news outlet, Carlson responded this way via text: “Ha! I’m sure.”
Trump-backed Sen. J.D. Vance was clearly upset with “anonymous” U.S. military officials who spoke to Politico.
Mediaite reported that he took to social media and criticized the officials for speaking to the press about Carlson’s departure, writing on Twitter that “every ‘senior Pentagon official’ who commented on this story while hiding behind anonymity is a coward.”
“Call me old fashioned, but senior military officials should maintain neutrality about hot button political topics. And they certainly shouldn’t run to one media outlet to gossip—anonymously—about another,” he noted further.
Call me old fashioned, but senior military officials should maintain neutrality about hot button political topics. And they certainly shouldn’t run to one media outlet to gossip—anonymously—about another.
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) April 26, 2023