Brian Kilmeade.Credit : Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

The bombshell announcement that Tucker Carlson has left Fox News was only briefly acknowledged during his now-former show Monday, with Brian Kilmeade — who is occupying Carlson’s chair this week — devoting just a few seconds to the news while on-air.

“As you probably have heard, Fox News and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” Kilmeade said on Fox News Tonight. “I wish Tucker the best. I’m great friends with Tucker and always will be.”

Tucker Carlson Departs Fox News, Effective Immediately

In a statement on Monday morning, Fox News said the network and Carlson “have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”

Carlson’s last program was Friday. Beginning Monday evening, the network will air Fox News Tonight as an interim show helmed by rotating FOX News personalities until a new host is determined.

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Carlson, 53, was featured prominently in the network’s recent legal battle with voting company Dominion, though it’s unclear if that could have played a role in his exit.

The $1.6 billion lawsuit brought against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems targeted the conspiracies of widespread election fraud and other wrongdoing in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.

A Timeline of Tucker Carlson’s Controversies

The voting company recently settled with the network, but not before text messages and emails by Carlson and other network personalities were made public as part of court filings.

In one of the exchanges made public, Carlson texts a colleague: “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait.”

“I hate him passionately,” Carlson added.

The text exchange was dated Jan. 4, 2021, two days before pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. Rioters believed that the election had been rigged against Trump, a lie spread by many conservatives without supporting evidence.

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In another exchange made public in March, Carlson wrote: “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”

Carlson’s text messages are among a large tranche of private conversations and under-oath testimony from executives and hosts at Fox News, which Dominion argued in its complaint “sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process.”

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Fox argued, in a counterclaim, that Dominion “mischaracterized the record” and “cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context.”