Fox News is going out of its way to defend Tucker Carlson as criticism grows over his promotion of white supremacist rhetoric

Fox News weekend host Howard Kurtz dedicated a segment on his Sunday show to defending colleague Tucker Carlson, marking the latest example of the network taking a top-down approach to backing its star.

Carlson, the face of the nation's most viewed cable news show, is again facing backlash and the heightened attention he's become accustomed to, this time following the May 14 Buffalo mass shooting.

His comments on immigration and politics and those of anyone at this network are fair game for public debate, according to Mediaite first cataloging the segment. The latest case of a blood on your hands.

He also compared Carlson to the suspect, and dismissed comparisons to the suspect's online writings with Carlson's on-air rhetoric.

The New York Times recently analyzed 1,150 episodes of Tucker Carlson Tonight and found that he mirrored the racist theory and baselessly alleged that Democrats and the nation's elites have been bringing in.

Despite several ad boycotts and PR headaches for the network following a range of Carlson controversies, he has proven too big to cancel with his pace-setting ratings as one of the only hosts attracting three to four million viewers per night.

During the Roger Ailes era at Fox, it was common for hosts to take an extended break. Glenn Beck went off-air several times after landing himself in hot water, though the network would announce the absences as vacations and not suspensions, such as after he called former President Barack Obama racist.

The news of Beck's departure in April 2011 was the subject of half the headlines. We are pretty happy with both of them.

When dealing with employees, Ailes sometimes showed more of an iron fist. An anchor at the network who spoke on the condition of anonymity for a book said that current CEO Suzanne Scott has taken a different approach.

Scott gave the network's top-viewed hosts more independence, according to the frustrated host.

An anonymous Fox anchor said that Scott preferred programming.

Brian Kilmeade, a co-host of the Fox show "Fox and Friends", said that the same has happened for Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO of the Fox Corporation.

I had more interaction with Murdoch than I had with Roger Ailes, according to Kilmeade.

Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow for left-leaning Media Matters for America and a Fox News expert, explained that Carlson has solidified his status at the network as other high profile but less ideological hosts have since departed.

The staff knows that Murdoch gave Carlson the green light to promote these blood-soaked conspiracy theories. Anyone who was not comfortable with that has already left.

Carlson's work behind a paywall on the FOX Nation streaming app gives him more freedom. He doesn't face the same risks about ads being pulled and has waded further into conspiracy theories such as the January 6 insurrection being a false flag operation orchestrated by the US government.

Fox became the subject of criticism due to the fact that 11 of the 13 victims were black, and that's what Kurtz mentioned in his monologue. There were 10 people killed at the supermarket.

People who don't like this network or compete with it unleashed a constant barrage after most Black shoppers were killed in a Buffalo supermarket.