Two Fox Commentators Resign Over Carlson's Jan 6th Lie-Fest
Stephen Hayes and Jonah GoldbergCredit: composite image screenshots
November 22, 2021

Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg, long-time commentators who have been on Fox News for years, tell NPR they've had enough of the lies that most of the network hosts are spewing and are resigning from Fox News.

C&L readers are very familiar with these two Republicans -- we've covered them since 2009.

The breaking point for the duo came when Tucker Carlson ran a three-part series on Fox Nation called "Patriot Purge," which promotes QAnon conspiracy theories, hosted by nuts and liars to exonerate Trump and his supporters for the seditious attack on the US Capitol on January 6th.

"Totally outrageous. It will lead to violence. Not sure how we can stay.”

"It's basically saying that the Biden regime is coming after half the country and this is the War on Terror 2.0," Goldberg tells NPR. "It traffics in all manner of innuendo and conspiracy theories that I think legitimately could lead to violence. That for me, and for Steve, was the last straw."

Goldberg said that the network executives at Fox told him after Trump left office they would be tamping down on incendiary and over-the-top claims, but instead, they went much more extreme.

OAN and Newsmax attacked Fox for calling Arizona for Joe Biden (the correct call) and instead of rewarding the political analysts for doing their jobs, they fired the leaders off the Decision Desk and then replaced two night-time show hosts with extreme Trump sycophants like Greg Gutfeld.

Fox News barely has any left-leaning voices on anymore.

Stephen Hayes had had enough after watching Carlson's "Patriot Purge" lead with this, "They've begun to fight a new enemy in a new war on terror," Carlson warned his viewers in the first episode. "Not, you should understand, a metaphorical war, but an actual war, soldiers and paramilitary agencies hunting down American citizens."

"I thought it was irresponsible to put that out into the public airwaves," Hayes says.

Goldberg said he and Hayes could no longer tolerate the wild claims beamed, broadcast, and streamed on Fox News.

On their website, Goldberg and Hayes write:

But the voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible.

If a person with such a platform shares such misinformation loud enough and long enough, there are Americans who will believe—and act upon—it.

This isn’t theoretical. This is what actually happened on January 6, 2021.

As Driftglass pointed out in his post today, "The only question still lingering in the air is how long it will take for mighty statues of Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes to be erected over in Never Trumpland declaring them to be Heroes of the Resistance."

And Tengrain: "So the guy who wrote Liberal Fascism found TeeVee Dinner heir, vanity press owner, and notable Black Studies scholar Tucker Carlson had gone too far."

Finally, Digby: "I suppose it’s good news that two more Trump skeptics have finally reached their limit and walked away from Fox News. And yes it’s a positive step that some Republican governors and other officials are criticizing Trump among themselves. But let’s not pretend that this is some kind of trend. We just watched the entire GOP House caucus gather in support of a violent., white nationalist nut, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, and then Trump immediately endorsed him for re-election. It’s obvious which way the wind is blowing. "

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