Fox News host Tucker Carlson set off a wave of anger and revulsion last week when he suggested that if any of his viewers saw children wearing COVID-19 protective masks, they should call child protective services and report the parents for abusing their kids, remarking:

“Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response when you see someone beat a kid in Walmart. Call the police immediately. Contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse, and you’re morally obligated to attempt to prevent it.”

That call for the harassment of parents across the country led to many Fox staffers urging the network to dump Carlson immediately. But nothing happened, and nothing is going to happen, according to a report from The Daily Beast:

Yet, as numerous Fox News staffers, insiders and former employees pointed out to The Daily Beast, “Tucker is invincible” and “untouchable.” The top-rated primetime host will never “suffer any repercussions” for his actions and comments, these sources emphasized. Fox News declined to comment on this story.

Another staffer was even more direct, noting that the real problem is Carlson’s too popular and too deeply entrenched at the network to ever face being yanked off the airwaves at Fox:

“He’s a good example of how much you can get away with at Fox if your ratings are high. Aside from that, he just perpetuates the right’s catastrophe platform. They cannot win with their supposed limited government, fiscal conservatism, because not even they really believe in it. So all they do is fear monger.”

Not only does Carlson help provide ratings and ad revenue for the network, he’s also a favorite of the Murdoch family:

“The Murdochs love him,” one former Fox News personality said. “Like them, he is a rich, prep school kid born with a silver spoon who traffics in populism while living in an expensive ivory tower and never meeting in real life the people he gins up for ratings.”

Some suggest that Carlson has a lot in common with a former host at the network: Bill O’Reilly:

“He’s the new Bill O’Reilly. The dirty little secret is that FNC doesn’t care about losing advertisers. They make their money via cable conglomerates that pay them much money so that dumb fucks who worship FNC can continue being told what, in their heart of hearts, they want to believe. And that’s a lot of people.”

But perhaps the most accurate and cogent description of Carlson was provided by a current Fox employee:

“It’s so stupid. I’m at a point where I can’t even be outraged anymore for the sake of my mental health. He’s just a trash human being.”

A trash human being who fits in perfectly at a trash “news” network.

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