Two Fox News contributors have resigned from the network in protest over “Patriot Purge,” which is host Tucker Carlson’s special about the January 6 riot.

Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes announced on Sunday night that they would be leaving Fox because of Carlson’s special.

“Fox News still does real reporting, and there are still responsible conservatives providing valuable opinion and analysis,” the men said in a statement. “But the voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible.”

They see Carlson as being an example of this.

“The special—which ran on Fox’s subscription streaming service earlier this month and was promoted on Fox News—is presented in the style of an exposé, a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism,” they added. “In reality, it is a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery, and damning omissions. And its message is clear: The U.S. government is targeting patriotic Americans in the same manner —and with the same tools—that it used to target al Qaeda.”

“The domestic war on terror is here. It’s coming after half of the country,” they quoted one protagonist as saying. “The left is hunting the right, sticking them in Guantanamo Bay for American citizens—leaving them there to rot.”

“This is not happening,” Goldberg and Hayes continued. “And we think it’s dangerous to pretend it is. 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.”

Goldberg and Hayes went on to say that they felt like they had no choice but to leave Fox over this special.

“With the release of ‘Patriot Purge,’ we felt we could no longer ‘do right as we see it’ and remain at Fox News. So we resigned,” they said. “We remain grateful for the opportunities we’ve had at Fox and we continue to admire many of the hard-working journalists who work there. This is our last recourse. We do not regret our decision, even if we find it regrettably necessary.”

Goldberg later doubled down on this by telling The New York Times, “Whether it’s ‘Patriot Purge’ or anti-vax stuff, I don’t want it in my name, and I want to call it out and criticize it. I don’t want to feel like I am betraying a trust that I had by being a Fox News contributor. And I also don’t want to be accused of not really pulling the punches. And then this was just an untenable tension for me.”

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Carlson fired back by saying that their resignations were “great news,” adding that “our viewers will be grateful.”

This piece was written by James Samson on November 22, 2021. It originally appeared in RedVoiceMedia.com and is used by permission.

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