Tucker Carlson announces vacation after his top Fox News show writer resigns for racists posts
The announcement came after Blake Neff, the show’s top writer, was exposed for his history of racism

TOM BOGGIONI
JULY 14, 2020

This article originally appeared on Raw Story

Minutes after Fox News was called out on MSNBC, the embattled host of The Tucker Carlson Show announced that he would be going on a "long-planned" vacation.

The announcement came after Blake Neff, the show's top writer, was exposed for his history of racist, homophobic and misogynistic social media posts.

"We're out of time — gonna spend the next four days trout-fishing. Long-planned," Carlson claimed. "This is one of those years where if you don't get it in now, you're probably not going to."

CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy thought it was quite the coincidence how Fox News hosts always go on vacation during major scandals.

"Really remarkable how all these Fox News hosts coincidentally always seem to have pre-planned vacations RIGHT when they ignite controversy!" Darcy tweeted.

Sending hosts who get in PR trouble on vacation is a classic Fox PR tactic, Carlson had one after calling white supremacy a hoax, Hannity amid the Seth Rick conspiracy theories, Ingraham after attacking David Hogg, etc.
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) July 14, 2020

Tucker Carlson Announces ‘Vacation’ After Top Writer’s Racist, Sexist Posts Revealed

The Fox News host said the show didn't "endorse" Blake Neff's anonymous posts, then he announced he'd be going trout fishing for the rest of the week.

By Carla Herreria Russo, HuffPost US

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson addressed the resignation of Blake Neff, a writer for Carlson’s show who quit soon after a CNN report revealed racist and sexist comments he had posted online.

Carlson admitted to the viewers of his show on Monday night that “what Blake wrote anonymously was wrong.”

“We don’t endorse those words,” Carlson said. “They have no connection to the show. It is wrong to attack people for qualities they cannot control.”

At the end of his show, the Fox News host announced that he would be going on a previously planned trout-fishing vacation for the next few days.

Tucker Carlson responds to his head writer being a white supremacist ghoul by threatening the people who exposed him pic.twitter.com/FBb02PmpUn— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) July 14, 2020

According to a report from CNN Business, Neff had been posting messages under a pseudonym on the AutoAdmit message board.

His posts included racial slurs and rants against Black people, as well as continuous posts sent over five years about a woman he mocked and insulted, CNN Business reported.

While Carlson distanced himself and Fox News from Neff, the Fox News host also denounced people who criticized Neff for his explicit posts.

“We should also point out to the ghouls now beating their chests in triumph at the destruction of a young man that self-righteousness also has its costs,” Carlson said, in part. “We are all human. When we pretend we are holy, we are lying.”

Carlson’s fishing trip announcement isn’t the first time he’s said he was taking a break amid controversy. In August 2019, he claimed that white supremacy was a “hoax” and not a real problem in the U.S., sparking calls for his firing. In the face of that backlash, Carlson announced at the end of his show he would be taking more than a week off the air.

Other Fox News hosts have taken similar breaks in the face of controversy.

Bill O’Reilly went on vacation after news broke of his sexual harassment settlements, and he eventually left Fox News without returning to his show.

Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and President and Executive Editor Jay Wallance sent out an internal memo to all employees condemning racist, misogynistic and homophobic behavior.

“We want to make abundantly clear that Fox News Media strongly condemns this horrific racist, misogynistic and homophobic behavior,” the memo said. “Neff’s abhorrent conduct on this forum was never divulged to the show or the network until Friday, at which point we swiftly accepted his resignation. Make no mistake, actions such as his cannot and will not be tolerated at any time in any part of our work force.”

Tucker Carlson lashes out at those who exposed writer’s racist posts

Fox News host’s supposed apology turns into screed against self-righteous ‘ghouls’

BEFORE RUNNING AWAY TO GO ON VACATION

Published: July 13, 2020 at 10  Associated Press

Tucker Carlson, host of "Tucker Carlson Tonight " on Fox News. AP

NEW YORK — Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said Monday that his former writer who posted racist comments online was wrong but criticized “ghouls now beating their chest in triumph” after his staffer’s resignation.

“When we pose as blameless in order to hurt other people, we are committing the gravest sin of all,” the Fox host said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Carlson, who said the online commentary by Blake Neff had no connection to his show, said he would be taking the rest of the week off to go trout fishing.

Neff resigned Friday after CNN reported that he used the pseudonym CharlesXII to post bigoted remarks about Black and Asian people on the online forum AutoAdmit. He also repeatedly mocked a woman about her dating life.

Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and President Jay Wallace said Saturday in a memo to staff that the company “strongly condemns this horrific racist, misogynistic and homophobic behavior.”

Neff began working on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in 2016 and was known as Carlson’s top writer. Neff previously worked as a reporter for the conservative news outlet The Daily Caller, which Carlson co-founded.

The Dartmouth College graduate was recently written about in the college’s alumni magazine, saying about Carlson that “anything he’s reading off the TelePrompter, the first draft was written by me.” He said he and Carlson “see eye-to-eye on most issues.”

Carlson addressed the story toward the end of his show Monday, noting that Neff was horrified and ashamed by the story.

“What Blake wrote anonymously was wrong,” Carlson said. “We don’t endorse those words. They have no connection to the show. It is wrong to attack people for qualities they cannot control. In this country, we judge people for what they do, not for how they were born.”

He added, though, that “we should also point out to the ghouls now beating their chests in triumph at the destruction of a young man that self-righteousness also has its costs.

“We are all human,” Carlson said. “When we pretend that we are holy, we are lying. When we pose as blameless in order to hurt other people, we are committing the gravest sin of all. And we will be punished for it. There’s no question.”

Carlson joined Fox’s prime-time lineup in 2016 and has made several controversial comments. He has said immigration makes the country dirtier and, following a mass shooting in 2019 by a man who targeted Latinos, said white supremacy was “not a real problem” in America.

He has been sharply critical of the Black Lives Matter movement, saying “they flood the street with angry young people who break things and they hurt anyone who gets in their way.”

Last week, he took on Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who lost two legs in Iraq, calling her a “deeply silly and unimpressive person.”

On many nights lately, he’s been the most popular host on cable news, routinely drawing more than 4 million viewers a night, and he has had one of the top-rated shows in all of television.

Yet he’s seen an exodus of prominent national advertisers. Monday’s show featured three ads from Fox fan Mark Lindell and his MyPillow.com site, as well as ads touting Bible bedtime stories, medicine to cure toe fungus and a website selling coronavirus masks.

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