Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch responded to the Anti Defamation League’s call for the ouster of Tucker Carlson, concluding that the Fox News host was not advocating for “white replacement theory” in a segment last week.
But the ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt is questioning just how much of a “full review” that the company did of the piece, in which Carlson was conversing with Mark Steyn.
In a letter to Greenblatt, dated on Sunday, Murdoch wrote that they “respectfully disagree” that Carlson was advancing the conspiracy theory, embraced on the far right, that elites are plotting to replace whites with immigrants.
“A full review of the guest interview indicates that Mr. Carlson decried and rejected replacement theory,” Murdoch wrote. “As Mr. Carlson himself stated during the guest interview: ‘White replacement theory? No, no, this is a voting rights question.’” In the letter, Murdoch also noted, “Fox Corporation shares your values and abhors anti-semitism, white supremacy and racism of any kind. In fact, I remember fondly the ADL honoring my father with your International Leadership Award, and we continue to support your mission.”
But Greenblatt wasn’t buying it.
“As you noted in your letter, ADL honored your father 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,” Greenblatt wrote in a letter in response to Murdoch.
He added, “With all due respect, 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. In fact, it’s worse, because he’s using a straw man – voting rights – to give an underhanded endorsement of white supremacist beliefs while ironically suggesting it’s not really white supremacism.”
He also questioned the extent of a “full review” of the segment, writing that “it seems the reviewers missed the essential point here.”
A Fox Corp. spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment on the latest ADL letter.
The day after the Thursday segment, Greenblatt sent a letter to Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott, telling her that Carlson had “to go.” In the letter to Scott and Murdoch, Greenblatt also pointed to other instances where he said Carlson was siding with white supremacist ideology.
(Excerpt) Read more in: Deadline