Fox News viewers can no longer tune into the network for Tucker Carlson’s polarizing opinions on topics like gas stoves or the Green New Deal.
The cable network abruptly announced that Fox and Carlson “have agreed to part ways” in a brief statement issued Monday.
Carlson had been with the network since 2009 and hosted his own show since 2016, where he became a dominant fixture in conservative media and regularly weighed in on environmental and energy issues.
Here’s a look back at eight times the polarizing cable host waded into environmental and energy topics on his show in recent years:
1. Whales and wind
Carlson earlier this year slammed “self-proclaimed environmentalists” and the Biden administration following whale deaths on the Atlantic coast, which Carlson blamed on the construction of offshore wind turbines. NOAA Fisheries said there was no evidence that preparations to build offshore wind facilities were the cause of the deaths (E&E Daily, March 31).
2. Ohio train derailment
Carlson fueled conservative fury over the Biden administration’s response when a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, in February. He suggested that the administration’s response was racially motivated.
“East Palestine is overwhelmingly white, and it’s politically conservative. … That shouldn’t be relevant, but as you’re about to hear, it very much is,” Carlson said on his show. He added, “Imagine if this happened in, well, the favored cities of Philadelphia and Detroit” (Climatewire, Feb. 23).
3. Gas stove uproar
The Fox News host waded into the hot-button debate over gas stoves during a segment in January, when he warned that the Biden administration “is taking a major step to ban fossil fuels and control your personal life” (Greenwire, Jan. 11).
4. ‘Disaster’ EVs
Carlson last August said, “Electronic vehicles are a disaster for the energy grid, a disaster for the environment and a disaster for your personal autonomy.”
The Fox host ran a segment that summer criticizing California officials who asked EV owners to wait to plug in their vehicles during a heat wave. EVs are a “new way to overburden California’s already collapsing energy grid,” he said (Climatewire, Sept. 19, 2022).
5. Pebble opposition
Carlson joined high-profile conservatives who pushed for the government to veto Pebble Partnership’s giant proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.
“It’s like the Grand Canyon or something; it’s like the Tetons — this is something that’s unusual that we should preserve,” Carlson told E&E News in a 2020 interview (Greenwire, Aug. 24, 2020).
6. Immigrants and pollution
The Fox News host in 2019 prompted outrage when he blamed immigrants for polluting the Potomac River.
“It has gotten dirtier and dirtier and dirtier and dirtier. I go down there, and that litter is left almost exclusively by immigrants, who I’m sure are good people, but nobody in our country,” Carlson said in an interview published in The Atlantic (Greenwire, Dec. 17, 2019).
7. Attacks on the park service boss
Carlson called David Vela, the acting director of the National Park Service, a “moron” in 2020. The Fox host accused Vela of injecting racial politics into the management of national parks after Vela said the park service needed to do more to attract minority employees and visitors. Carlson said Vela should either resign or be fired (Greenwire, Aug. 14, 2020).
8. ‘Lunatics plan to close’ gas stations
During a gas supply shortage in 2021, Carlson accused the Biden administration of secretly approving of the shortages because “soon enough, the lunatics plan to close all” the gas stations. “This is the Green New Deal,” he said. “If you love gas shortages … this is the program for you” (Greenwire, May 13, 2021).
