Two Fox News contributors since 2009, Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg have resigned from the network, as they protest over Fox News star Tucker Carlson’s recent Patriot Purge documentary series, which is currently airing on Fox’s online streaming service Fox Nation.
The series shows a lot of conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, including the baseless claim that the deadly riot was a “false flag” orchestrated by the federal government.
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Hayes and Goldberg founded the center-right Never Trump publication The Dispatch in 2019, and they called Carlson’s documentary “truly dangerous” and “factually inaccurate.” This is what Goldberg had to say about the documentary: “Whether it’s ‘Patriot Purge’ or anti-vax stuff, I don’t want it in my name, and I want to call it out and criticize it. I don’t want to feel like I am betraying a trust that I had by being a Fox News contributor.”
But the pair’s views have actually fallen by the wayside of the Republican mainstream in recent years, and they have been unwelcome on the network’s primetime opinion shows while being seen only occasionally on Fox’s so-called straight news programs like Special Report and Fox News Sunday.
Goldberg also added: “I had some hope that Fox News would “right the ship” after Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat but that Patriot Purge was a sign that people have made peace with this direction of things, and there is no plan, at least, that anyone made me aware of for a course correction.”
On the other side, Tucker Carlson celebrated their departure after 12 years, saying: “It was great news, the network’s viewers will be grateful.”