Did Paul Ryan Get Tucker Carlson Fired?
Is it possible for one man to be the leader of the controlled opposition, conduct a wrecking operation and be a useful idiot to the enemies of constitutional liberty all at the same time?
We may be about to find out if reports that Paul Ryan, the failed former “Republican” Speaker of the House, was behind Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News.
Ryan’s appointment in 2019 to the Fox Corporation Board of Directors and thus owner Rupert Murdoch’s inner circle got conservative media observers’ antenna on high gain when it was announced, but other than raking in $334,986 in total compensation from the cush job no one really knew what Ryan was doing or how much influence he had with Mr. Murdoch.
The Dominion defamation suit against Fox threw back the curtains on Ryan’s shadowy role at Fox and it appears he had the same malign influence there as he had on the Republican Party as Speaker.
The inimitable Kyle Becker unearthed information on Paul Ryan’s role at Fox buried in the pleadings in Dominion’s opposition to Fox’s motion for summary judgement in the defamation case.
It turns out the Dominion Voting System's lawsuit against Fox News documents that Ryan has been an influential force behind the scenes and in particular influenced the network's decision to move on from Donald Trump.
As Kyle Becker documented and explained:
"As a Board Member, Ryan believed that the period immediately following the 2020 Presidential Election 'was a pretty important inflection point, not just for the company Fox, but for the country and for the conservative movement itself,' and shared this 'view as a fiduciary' with Rupert and Lachlan," the document says, citing an exhibit.
"Ryan told Rupert and Lachlan 'that Fox News should not be spreading conspiracy theories'," the document added.
The court filing adds that Paul Ryan was deeply involved in discussions of how to cover the post-2020 election fallout, Kyle Becker concluded.
"On December 6, 2020, Paul Ryan texted Rupert and Lachlan, telling them, we are entering a truly bizarre phase of this where [Trump] has actually convinced himself of this farce and will do more bizarre things to delegitimize the election," the legal document states. "I see this as a key inflection point for Fox, where the right thing and the smart business thing to do line up nicely."
Thus, we can see the obvious implication that as an "inflection point" for Fox News, the "smart business thing" would be to move on from Donald Trump. As Kyle Becker noted, this was reinforced with more explicit statements.
"Paul Ryan also continued to discuss strategic direction with the Murdochs during this timeframe," the court document adds. "Ryan told Dias about his own conversation with Rupert and Lachlan, reporting he told them that this is a huge inflection point to keep Trump down and move on for the future of the conservative movement. Ryan added: Both Rupert and Lachlan agree fully. 'The key is to execute our collective will.' Ryan agreed it was his job as a Board member to weigh in because it was a strategic decision about what to do. Ryan was 'hopeful that the events of January 6 were so shocking that it would help the conservative movement and Fox News move on from Donald Trump'."
Notice that the goal is not to advance a conservative agenda that Ryan could have claimed Donald Trump was not representing or from which Trump had deviated. His goal was (and is) “to keep Trump down.”
That Paul Ryan would presume to speak about how to “help the conservative movement” is so absurd it defies words given that when he was Speaker, he killed every conservative bill that was introduced. Moreover, while Trump was President, and the GOP held the majority in both the House and the Senate, the few longtime items of the conservative agenda that did get done got done through executive action by Trump over the opposition of Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
Kyle Becker deserves a Pulitzer Prize for digging out the information documenting Paul Ryan’s malign influence at Fox News. You don’t have to subscribe to any of the so-called conspiracy theories about how the 2020 election went the way it did and what happened on January 6 to recognize there are major news stories to be investigated.
However, it was not until long after the election was over, and Democrats bragged about how they used the pandemic to manipulate the process, that anyone gave any credence to the warnings conservatives gave Trump about Zuckbuck-funded drop boxes, untracked universal mail-in ballots and other election process issues. The same with J6 – plenty of individuals noticed strange goings on the day of the Capitol protest that contradicted the Pelosi-Cheney “insurrection” narrative, but it wasn’t until Tucker Carlson began to air the video Pelosi kept hidden that solid evidence of the “fedsurrection” began to emerge.
That no major media outlet is investigating any of this can be directly attributed to Paul Ryan’s influence at Fox, which answers the question we asked at the top of this article in the affirmative: It is indeed possible for one man to be the leader of the controlled opposition, conduct a wrecking operation and be a useful idiot to the enemies of constitutional liberty all at the same time.
By the way, as Fox abandons the conservative market and moves toward becoming an establishment Republican Uniparty network, Substack has become an increasingly important source of conservative news, information, and opinion. You can subscribe to Kyle Becker’s Substack through this link.
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