The Murdoch’s have not revealed which of Carlson’s many provocations triggered his firing, and there’s no particular suggestion that Zelenskyy — whom Carlson had called a “dictator” — delivered the final blow.
But Carlson’s firing will immediately relieve pressure on key Capitol Hill Ukraine supporters whom Carlson had criticized on air — and sometimes pressed behind the scenes to change their positions on the war.
Texas Rep. Michael McCaul has been one of the most outspoken Republican supporters of the US support for Ukraine, stepping out of line to occasionally reprimand figures in his own party who do not share his views on the subject.
In a segment last year, the Fox News host told viewers that the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee had privately called his show “Russian disinformation.”
“In other words, not only are we wrong — which is fine — we are disloyal Americans. We’re doing the bidding of a foreign power,” Carlson said. “That is not fine, that is slander.”
According to two people familiar with the conversation, the then-Fox News host also made his displeasure to McCaul known in a tense private conversation in which Carlson criticized the congressman’s comments, describing the congressman as having a low IQ. (Both Carlson and McCaul’s office declined to discuss the conversation).
The populist Republican right remains hostile to the war effort and at times openly sympathetic to Russia. But none of Fox’s other top figures seem to share Carlson’s zeal.
"Clearly, he spooked a lot of members into not being fully supportive of Ukraine," a senior Republican congressional aide told Semafor. Carlson's ouster, the aide added, "probably reduces the loudest voice out there against U.S. support."
Regardless of the reason for Carlson’s departure, more moderate pro-Ukraine members of the Republican caucus on the Hill are not hiding their relief.
“There have been some that have argued that he was setting foreign policy for the Republican Party, which I find to be bizarre. Certainly not for me,” Sen. Mitt Romney told the Hill. “To the primary [Republican] voter, the active participant, the grassroot voter, he’s a person they listen to and has a big influence.”