Sean Hannity doesn’t know any more about what happened with Tucker Carlson than the next guy, and if you think he should, well, “I don’t own the company,” the radio host said Monday.
Hannity opened his 3 p.m. syndicated show freshly shocked by the news that Carlson was no longer with his home network. Though the two have hosted back-to-back news hours on TV for years now, Hannity repeatedly insisted that he had no idea what went on behind the scenes at Fox.
“It’s very hard,” Hannity said. “My phone has been blowing up all day. The hard part for me is I don’t have a clue.”
That can’t be an easy thing to admit for Hannity, who fancies himself something of a media and beltway insider, and surely has easy access to in-the-know people at his company, no? Doesn’t Tucker pick up your calls?
“I have no idea,” Hannity continued. “Was it Tucker’s decision? Was it Fox’s? Was it a mutual agreement that they had? I don’t know.”
“I guess people think that because I’ve been there the longest that I’d have some knowledge or understanding of what’s going on, but … I just don’t,” Hannity said. “For those who think I should, I say to those people, I don’t own the company.”
The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that Carlson’s ouster came at the direction of Rupert Murdoch himself, and is related to a discrimination lawsuit filed earlier this year by former booker Abby Grossberg. TheWrap reported Monday that the firing was not in any way related to the Dominion lawsuit settlement.