MSNBC
Rachel Maddow on Monday offered some context for Tucker Carlson’s stunning split with Fox News, depicting it as just the latest instance of conservative media figures who dominate that right-wing ecosystem yet struggle to generate broader appeal. In Carlson’s case, Maddow said, you could sum up the entire situation by looking at his ill-fated promotion of testicle tanning.
The MSNBC host first compared Carlson’s rise and fall to that of 1930s priest Father Coughlin, whose radio presence ended after he made antisemitic remarks regarding Nazi Germany. Maddow then drew a more recent parallel to radio host Rush Limbaugh and his brief foray into television, including his few weeks as an ESPN commentator.
Former Fox News host Glenn Beck, who in 2010 held a rally at the Lincoln Memorial to promote his 100-year plan to “save the country,” was the next example. And then there was Carlson’s predecessor, Bill O’Reilly, who was fired in 2017 amid costly sexual harassment allegations and has since made occasional appearances on NewsNation and Newsmax while hosting a radio show.