Fox News host Sean Hannity said on his daily radio show he was “shocked” to hear the news that longtime colleague Tucker Carlson had been axed by the network.
Hannity’s comments appear to highlight how far up the ladder the decision was made to nix the highly rated “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
On Monday’s “The Sean Hannity Show,” the host addressed the elephant in the room when he touched on the country’s biggest story: Carlson’s unexpected ouster that morning.
“It’s very, very hard,” Hannity told his audience. “My phone has been blowing up all day about the news that Tucker Carlson and the Fox News Channel have parted ways. And the hard part for me is I don’t have a clue.
“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know anything about it. … I have no idea.”
He said he was so out of the loop about Carlson’s separation from his network that he had no other details other than what had been reported.
“Was it Tucker’s decision?” Hannity asked his radio audience. “Was it Fox’s? Was it a mutual agreement that they had? I don’t know.”
Hannity joined Fox News in 1996 as co-host of “Hannity and Colmes” alongside his liberal friend and colleague Alan Colmes.
In 2009, Colmes departed the show, which then became “Hannity.”
Given the fact Hannity has been with Fox News for almost three decades — since it was founded — he said people expected him to have inside information.
If he did, he certainly did a good job at hiding it.
“I guess people think that because I’ve been there the longest, that I’d have some knowledge or understanding of what went on,” Hannity said. “I just don’t.”
On the topic, he concluded, “For people who think I should know [what happened], I don’t own the channel.”
Aside from one viral and awkward exchange between the pair on the air nearly three years ago, Hannity and Carlson appeared to get along well during their time on the network.
Like the rest of us, Hannity seemed to be in the dark about what led to Carlson’s termination — for which Fox News has offered no real explanation.
The network ended Carlson’s tenure with a whimper of a statement.
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the network said in a statement Monday morning. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
Perhaps at some point, we might know more.
But people in Carlson’s position typically sign binding non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements, so he is likely prevented from ever offering a full accounting of what happened, why it happened and what he was told by his superiors.
Sources who claimed to be close to Carlson told Vanity Fair on Monday the star broadcaster was “blindsided” by what was an abrupt termination and not a mutual decision to part ways.
According to Hannity’s radio remarks, he was equally as shocked.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.