Aftermath
By January 2005, CNN then suddenly announced that they were ending their relationship with Carlson and that Crossfire was soon to be canceled. After which, Carlson was approached by the CNN chief Jonathan Klein who informed him that the network had also decided not to renew his contract. Carlson said that before this talk, he had already resigned from CNN and Crossfire well before Stewart had been booked as a guest, furthermore, Carlson told host Patricia Duff: “I resigned from Crossfire in April, many months before Jon Stewart came on our show, because I didn’t like the partisanship, and I thought in some ways it was kind of a pointless conversation …
Each side coming out, you know, ‘Here’s my argument’, and no one listening to anyone else. [CNN] was a frustrating place to work.”
MSNBC’s Tucker
A few months after Carlson left CNN behind, his new early evening show premiered on MSNBC, Tucker. However, the show was only on air for about three seasons when it was canceled due to poor ratings. The New York Times reporter Brian Stelter said that “during Mr.
Carlson’s tenure, MSNBC’s evening programming moved gradually to the left. His former time slots, 6 and 9 p.m., were then occupied by two liberals, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow.”