By DAVID BAUDER | AP Media Writer
In a recent development, a longtime producer for Tucker Carlson at Fox News has parted ways with the network after being held responsible for an on-air headline that labeled President Joe Biden as a “wannabe dictator” in connection with the indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Confirming his departure, producer Alex McCaskill shared the news on Instagram while Fox News refrained from commenting on the matter.
McCaskill had stayed with Fox even after Carlson, the network’s most popular personality, was fired on April 24. The exact reason behind Carlson’s abrupt removal, which occurred less than a week after Fox settled a defamation case with Dominion Voting Systems by paying $787 million, has yet to be publicly explained.
During the final minutes of Carlson’s former time slot, a message appeared on screen underneath separate boxes featuring Biden and Trump. The message read as follows: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”
Carlson, in a Twitter monologue posted on Thursday, blamed the network’s female executives for panicking and scolded the person responsible without explicitly naming McCaskill, but did mention his reputation as a highly capable individual within the organization.
The producer offered to resign with two weeks’ notice, but instead was instructed to immediately clean out his desk and leave the premises, he claimed.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Fox announced that the controversial message had been removed and the issue had been “addressed,” though no further clarification was provided.
A picture of McCaskill outside of Fox’s Manhattan office holding a box was shared on Instagram by Justin Baragona of The Daily Beast, along with a caption that read: “Today was my last day at Fox. It’s been a wild 10 years and it was the best place I’ve ever worked because of the great people I met. But the time has come. I asked them to let me go, and they finally did. To all my friends there: I will miss you forever.”
As of now, there has been no response from McCaskill to calls and text messages.
Many critics of President Biden have suggested political motivations behind Trump’s indictment by special prosecutor Jack Smith on charges of classified document hoarding and obstructing government retrieval efforts. President Biden has refrained from commenting on the case.
McCaskill was recently named in a lawsuit filed by former Fox producer Abby Grossberg, who also worked on Carlson’s staff. Grossberg’s lawsuit alleges that McCaskill consistently belittled female employees at Fox. According to the lawsuit, he even went as far as stating that a room designated for employees to pump breast milk was a “waste of space” and should be replaced with a room for men to tan their testicles.
Fox has denied all allegations made in Grossberg’s lawsuit.
Contributions to this report were made by Associated Press correspondent Beatrice Dupuy and researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York.
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