The trailer for Tucker Carlson's special about the mob at the Capitol went online on October 27th, and that night, Jonah Goldberg sent a text to his business partner, Stephen, saying he was tempted to quit Fox over this.
Mr. Hayes said he was game. Absolutely outrageous. It will lead to violence. We are not sure how we can stay.
The full special appeared on Fox's online subscription streaming service days later. Last week, the two men, both paid Fox News contributors, resigned from the network.
It is part of the new right's mopping up operation in the corners of conservative institutions that still house pockets of resistance to Donald J. Trump's control of the Republican Party. The stars of the pre-Trump conservative movement were Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Hayes. They staked out their positions when they founded The Dispatch, an online publication that they described as a place that thoughtful readers can come for conservative, fact-based news and commentary. It has over 30,000 paying subscribers.
It is strange that this is for outsiders to understand, but some at Fox News still believed that the channel would return to a pre-Trump reality that was often hyperpartisan, but that kept some distance from Republican officials. Murdoch acted as though he didn't run the company when he deplored Trumpism.
Many of the leaders of Fox and similar institutions feel that the tight bond between Mr. Trump and their audience leaves them little choice but to support him. Fox employees say they respect the audience. The extreme edges of American politics are where the greatest opportunities for ratings, money and attention can be found.
Mr. Carlson became the network's most-watched prime-time host by playing explicitly to that fringe, and "Patriot Purge" explored an alternate history of Jan. 6 in which the violence was a "false flag" and the consequence.
Mr. Goldberg said that he and Mr. Hayes stayed on at Fox News because of a sense that the network would try to recover some of its independence after Mr. Trump's defeat.
Mr. Goldberg said that there was no plan for a course correction and that the people had made peace with the direction of things.
The image is.
Tucker Carlson became Fox's most-watched prime-time host by playing explicitly to the right-wing fringe.
Righting the ship is an academic question. The idea of the "Patriot Purge" was that we hit the big one now and I can't do the rationalizations anymore.
Both Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Hayes are dressed in a variety of styles, and both spoke to me over video from their homes. When they joined Fox News in 2009, they were leading ideological players in the different conservative movement of the George W. Bush years. Mr. Goldberg had just published a book about liberalism, while Mr. Hayes had advocated the invasion of Iraq.
They are in a group of Americans who think that the threat of Mr. Trump is more important than other political differences. Mr. Hayes was concerned that Fox was in favor of the idea that there was a domestic war on terror. That is not true. He said that the imagery of waterboarding and the suggestion that half the country is going to be subject to this kind of treatment was disturbing.
Mr. Carlson made that stuff out to be 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465, and you need one person out of every 50,000 people to watch 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 to believe that it is 888-282-0465 888-282-0465. That is dangerous in a way that the usual hyperbole that you get on a lot of cable news isn't.
The man at the conference asked the leader of the group when they would get to use the guns.
Mr. Hayes said that was a scary moment. I think we would do well to have people who are not putting stuff out that would encourage that kind of thing.
Mr. Goldberg said he has been thinking about William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review, who wanted to impose seriousness on conservative arguments and purge some extreme fringe groups from the right.
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The issue is yet to be tested. The House is investigating the Capitol riot and the power of the former president to keep secrets. There is a breakdown of executive privilege in the indictment of Stephen K. Bannon for contempt of Congress.
Executive privilege is something. It is a power claimed by presidents under the Constitution to prevent the other two branches of government from gaining access to certain internal executive branch information, especially confidential communications involving the president or among his top aides.
What is Trump's claim? The former President has filed a lawsuit to stop the disclosure of White House files related to his actions. He believes that these matters should be kept a secret.
Is Trump's claim valid? The line between a president's secrecy powers and Congress's investigative authority is not clear. The case is likely to be decided by the Supreme Court after a judge rejected Mr. Trump's bid to keep his papers secret.
Is executive privilege an absolute power? No. A legitimate claim of executive privilege may not be accepted in court. The Supreme Court upheld an order requiring President Nixon to turn over his tapes during the Watergate scandal.
Is executive privilege invoked by ex-presidents? Courts may view claims differently than current presidents. The Supreme Court ruled against Nixon in the case, but he was allowed to make a claim of executive privilege even after he left office.
Is Steve Bannon covered by executive privilege? This is not clear. The legal question of whether or not a claim of executive privilege may extend to communications between a president and an informal adviser outside of the government could be raised by Mr. Bannon.
What is contempt of Congress? People who defy congressional subpoenas are subject to a sanction. Congress can refer contempt citations to the Justice Department. Mr. Bannon was indicted on contempt charges for not complying with a subpoena.
Mr. Goldberg wants to call out and criticize the anti-vax stuff, regardless of whether it is called the "Patriot Purge" or not. I don't want to feel like I'm betraying my trust by being a Fox News contributor. I don't want to be accused of not pulling the punches. This was an intolerable tension for me.
Their views have put them outside of the current Republican mainstream, or at least outside what mainstream right-wing institutions and politicians are willing to say. It has been years since Mr. Goldberg and Sean appeared on the prime-time show at Fox.
Fox has kept Mr. Trump's line despite the former contributors' hopes. The veteran political editor was fired by the network and the former White House press secretary was hired.
The first members of Fox's payroll to resign over "Patriot Purge" are Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Hayes. Geraldo Rivera, a Fox News correspondent since 2001, was able to capture the difficulty of internal dissent at the network when he voiced cautious criticism of Mr. Carlson and "Patriot Purge" to my colleague Michael Grynbaum. I worry that I will get in trouble for this, but I am wondering how much is done to provoke, rather than illuminate.
Two programs with smaller audiences than Mr. Carlson scrambled after his special to rebut the false theories presented in "Patriot Purge." A former C.I.A. officer was called in to debunk false flag theories. Chris Wallace asked the same question on "Fox News Sunday" about Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
Mr. Carlson said that the resignations of Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Hayes were great news. Our viewers will be happy.
Irena Briganti, a spokeswoman for Fox News, shared details of the network's strong ratings but declined to comment on the resignations.
Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Hayes resigned from Fox. Cable contributor jobs are lucrative and open doors to book deals and speak. Senior journalists and producers at Fox get a salary premium for being in New York, Washington or Los Angeles. There aren't easy ways to leave without taking a pay cut.
There are a lot of people there that I like and consider friends, and they are making a decision based on how to provide for their families and deal with their careers. Mr. Goldberg said he was not going to second-guess them. There are a lot of people who think the Fox opinion side is great.
