Fox stands behind Tucker Carlson

Fox Corp. is standing behind Tucker Carlson after the AntiDefamation League last week called for the company to fire the opinion host for his on-air defense of the white-supremacist “great replacement” theory.

In a letter sent Sunday to the civil rights group and shared with The Associated Press, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said Carlson had “decried and rejected replacement theory” when he said during the Thursday evening segment, “White replacement theory? No, no, this is a voting rights question.”

The ADL argued in a reply sent Monday to Murdoch that Carlson used white-supremacist language even if he claimed he didn’t.

“Mr. Carlson’s attempt to at first dismiss this theory, while in the very next breath endorsing it under cover of ‘a voting rights question,’ does not give him free license to invoke a white supremacist trope,” wrote ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.

The replacement conspiracy theory holds that people of color are replacing white people in the West, enabled by Jews and progressive politicians.

During a guest appearance Thursday on “Fox News Primetime,” Carlson “embraced a foundational theory of white supremacy,” the ADL said.

Murdoch noted in his letter that the ADL had once honored his father, Rupert Murdoch, with a leadership award. The ADL’s Greenblatt replied that the award was granted “over a decade ago, but let me be clear that we would not do so today, and it does not absolve you, him, the network, or its board from the moral failure of not taking action against Mr. Carlson.”