Tucker Carlson has come under attack from the left after a member of his staff, Black Neff. was fired last week. Neff left the top primetime show after he was outed for making racist and homophobic posts on an anonymous online chat.

On Monday evening, Carlson announced that he would be leaving on a vacation immediately. Carlson said that he would return to the show next week. But many are speculating that the time away was not pre-planned, and that Carlson is battling forces at Fox that are trying to rid the network of him.

From the New York Times:

It was not the first time that Mr. Carlson has announced that he would take a break from the anchor chair in the immediate aftermath of a sensitive moment for his prime-time program. Last August, Mr. Carlson went on vacation two days after he likened white supremacy to a “hoax,” saying it was “actually not a real problem in America,” remarks that prompted some advertisers to distance themselves from his show.

In response to an inquiry on Monday, Fox News said that Mr. Carlson’s vacation was “preplanned.”

Mr. Neff, who had written for “Tucker Carlson Tonight” since 2017, resigned last week after Fox News learned of his activity on AutoAdmit, an online forum popular with law students. There, Mr. Neff had written messages that denigrated African-Americans, Asian-Americans and women. Fox News’s top executives condemned Mr. Neff’s conduct as “abhorrent” in a memo to staff and said the show had not previously been aware of his writings.

On Monday, Carlson told viewers, “What Blake wrote anonymously was wrong. We don’t endorse those words. They have no connection to the show. It is wrong to attack people for qualities they cannot control.”He added that Neff paid “a very heavy price” for what he did “but we should also point out to the ghouls now beating their chests in triumph at the destruction of a young man, that self-righteousness also has its costs.”

He continued, “We are all human. When we pretend we are holy, we are lying. When we pose as blameless in order to hurt other people, we are committing the gravest sin of all, and we will be punished for it, there’s no question.”

Carlson’s show has seen its ratings soar during recent weeks, as many of the nation’s top cities are being ravaged by crime and looting. The left continues to try to attack Carlson for pressuring advertisers to pull out of his show.

 

Tucker Carlson’s biggest advertiser, the MyPillow guy, doesn’t think he needed to apologize for writer’s hate speech https://t.co/oM57J9ri5b

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 15, 2020

On Friday night, Tucker Carlson’s show included an ad for the online education portal Connections Academy. But, a company spokesperson condemned “hate speech” and told me that the spot shouldn’t have run. https://t.co/GXRphH2GEE pic.twitter.com/ZgjWENrcZu

— Jeremy Barr (@jeremymbarr) July 15, 2020

I am not surprised by anything when it comes to Tucker Carlson. https://t.co/1appRABNso

— James Kosur (@JamesKosur) July 15, 2020