Tucker Carlson, on leaked video, derides Fox streaming service

Ousted Fox News host Tucker Carlson is seen on newly revealed video bashing the network’s streaming service, which he produced a bevy of content for during his tenure at the company.

“I don’t want to be a slave to Fox Nation, which I don’t think that people watch anyway. We’re gonna, because, you know, I’m like a representative of the American media now, speaking to an exile in Romania and welcoming him back into the brotherhood of journalists,” Carlson says on video footage from 2022 leaked to Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog that tracks Fox and other conservative media. “But nobody’s going to watch it on Fox Nation. Nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks.”

Carlson was apparently speaking to a representative for internet personality Andrew Tate, who was recently detained in Romania on charges of human trafficking.

The Fox host, who is arguing with the representative for Tate about what the two men should wear during the interview, says he’d “really like to just put the — dump the whole thing on YouTube.”

“I’m just frustrated with,” he says of Fox’s streaming service, Fox Nation. “It’s hard to use that site. I don’t know why they’re not fixing it. It’s driving me insane. And they’re like making, like, Lifetime movies. But they don’t, they don’t work on the infrastructure of the site. Like what? It’s crazy. And it drives me crazy because it’s like we’re doing all this extra work and no one can find it. It’s unbelievable, actually.”

Fox has not publicly disclosed how many subscribers it holds on Fox Nation, for which Carlson produced a number of specials and segments, including a controversial miniseries on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The platform also is home to a number of faith, crime and nature documentaries. Fox recently released a one-hour comedy special with Roseanne Barr on Fox Nation.

Carlson was ousted from the network last week in a move that sent shockwaves through the media and political ecosystem. Fox has not commented on what led to his departure beyond a statement thanking him for his contributions to the network. A number of unconfirmed reports have surfaced in recent days suggesting Carlson was shocked by his ouster and his private comments about network leadership were a factor in his being pulled off the air.