Big changes are afoot at Fox News after Tucker Carlson was shown the door.
The network is in the middle of a major ideological shift.
And Megyn Kelly asked one question about Fox News that the network was trying to avoid.
Tucker Carlson wasn’t the only prominent conservative to exit Fox News as the cable news giant reshuffled its lineup.
Dan Bongino, the host of the most watched weekend show on cable news, Unfiltered with Dan Bongino, also left the network shortly before Carlson.
He appeared on The Megyn Kelly Show to talk about his departure from Fox and the changes at the network.
Bongino explained that he wasn’t fired by Fox for his views but that he and the network couldn’t come to an agreement on a contract extension.
The former Unfiltered host said the sudden decision to pull Carlson off of the air was “an enormous catastrophic mistake” by Fox News.
“They really do need to provide some kind of an explanation,” Bongino said. “It’s just it’s not going to work to keep it out there like that like this didn’t happen, because I think a lot of people think this may be some kind of anti-Trump thing.”
Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch is reportedly not backing Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign and the Carlson departure is seen by some insiders as a sign of the network’s growing hostility to the former President’s movement.
Host Megyn Kelly theorized that Fox News was moving in a more “establishment” direction and shedding pro-Trump personalities.
“You’re gone, Tucker’s gone, you know there are a lot of questions over there now about what Fox is doing, because they also cut ties with people like Lara Trump,” Kelly said.
Lara Trump left Fox News shortly after her father launched his latest Presidential campaign last year.
Donald Trump, Jr. said on a podcast that Fox has stopped inviting him on shows after he spent years as a frequent guest on the network as a top surrogate for his father.
Donald Trump didn’t appear on Fox News for an interview until months after he launched his Presidential candidacy, despite being the Republican frontrunner.
“A lot of people are wondering whether Fox is doing this intentionally without owning the fact that they’re trying to cleanse themselves of people who were openly supportive of Trump or MAGA world,” Kelly speculated.
Some of the strongest Trump supporters are gone from the network or haven’t been invited back on the air.
Bongino said that he thought his departure from the network didn’t have anything to do with his support for Trump.
“I was not targeted,” Bongino said. “My show, they were dying to re-up. We negotiated for an entire year.”
Kelly, who has ripped Fox for letting Carlson go, isn’t optimistic about the network’s future.
“They’re on the way down,” Kelly said. “They’re not on the way up anymore in terms of audience share and popularity, and they no longer have a monopoly.”
The direction of Fox News’ coverage is a major question mark heading into the GOP primary.
