Tucker Carlson announces vacation after racist writer resigns from Fox News

Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced he’s taking a vacation Monday night after addressing the resignation of his show’s former writer over racist remarks online.

According to the Daily Beast, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” writer Blake Neff resigned last week after CNN reported Neff had been posting racist, sexist and homophobic comments on the online forum AutoAdmit under a pseudonym. Neff used the message board for law school students and “supporters of the marketplace of ideas and freedom of expression” to criticize Black and Asian people, the Mormon church, immigrants and more.

“First, what Blake wrote anonymously was wrong,” Carlson said on his top-rated show Monday night. “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.”

Carlson offered no apology and criticized others in the media for their “self-righteousness.”

“Blake fell short of that standard and he has paid a very high price for it but we should also point out to the ghouls now beating their chests in triumph of the destruction of a young man, that self-righteousness also has its costs,” Carlson said. “We are all human. When we pretend 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.”

CNN’s Oliver Darcy points out Carlson also didn’t describe any of the remarks by Neff or condemn them as racist or sexist.

“The average viewer tuning in who had not seen our reporting may have come away with the impression that Neff had made some edgy remarks years ago and was forced out by a cancel culture mob. That’s *NOT* what happened, but Carlson structured his remarks leaving room for that interpretation,” Darcy wrote. “As Erik Wemple tweeted, ‘Viewers who hadn’t seen the stories might have no idea what he was saying.‘”

In a statement Saturday, Fox News Chief Executive Suzanne Scott and Fox News Media President and Executive Editor Jay Wallace condemned Neff’s remarks as “horrendous and deeply offensive.”

“We want to make abundantly clear that Fox News Media strongly condemns this horrific racist, misogynistic and homophobic behavior,” they said in a statement. “Neff’s abhorrent conduct was never divulged to the show 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.”

Meanwhile, Deadline reports Carlson’s claim that Neff’s words “have no connection to the show” are also being disputed.

“Anything he’s reading off the teleprompter, the first draft was written by me,” said Neff, who’d been writing for the show since it took over Bill O’Reilly’s time slot in 2017, in the most recent issue of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. “We’re very aware that we do have that power to sway the conversation, so we try to use it responsibly.”

Carlson ended the broadcast by announcing he would take a pre-planned vacation.

“Going to spend the next four days trout fishing,” he said. “Long planned, this is one of those years where if you don’t get it in now, you’re probably not going to do if something dramatic happens, of course. We’ll be back.”