News
Tucker Carlson out at Fox, CNN fires Don Lemon
Firings shook cable news on Monday
The political and media worlds were jolted Monday by news that Fox News host and pundit Tucker Carlson and the network had abruptly parted ways followed by news from Atlanta within an hour that CNN had terminated morning anchor Don Lemon.
Both men had stirred controversy within the ranks of their respective networks in recent months with on-air comments and behind the camera drama as described by insiders at both Fox and CNN to the Washington Blade.
Word of Carlson’s departure came in a statement from the network early Monday:
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.
Carlson’s last program was Friday. “Fox News Tonight” will air live at 8 p.m. ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named
Co-anchor of “CNN This Morning,” Lemon’s termination was announced on Twitter by Lemon himself:
” I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play. With that said, I want to thank my colleagues and the many teams I have worked with for an incredible run. They are the most talented journalists in the business, and I wish them all the best.”
CNN CEO Chris Licht said that the network and Lemon have “parted ways,” according to a memo posted on CNN’s official communications Twitter account.
“Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years,” the statement said. “We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavors.”
Carlson joined Fox News as a contributor in 2009 and served as a co-host of “Fox and Friends Weekend” from 2012-2016. His show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” aired in 2016 and a year later moved into the primetime 8 p.m. slot in April 2017.
Carlson has had a lengthy history of inflammatory commentary during his tenure at Fox. He has targeted minority groups as noted by D.C.-based progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America. The groups’ researchers Madeline Peltz and Nikki McCann Ramírez noted:
Since the early days of his tenure as a Fox prime-time host, Tucker Carlson’s unabashed championing of white grievances earned him the accolades of neo-Nazis, who praised him as a “one man gas chamber” and complimented the way he “lampshad[ed] Jews on national television.” While Carlson claims to have nothing in common with neo-Nazis and white supremacists, he constantly echoes their talking points on his show and was very reluctant to condemn white supremacists following their deadly 2017 demonstration in Charlottesville, Va. In fact, Carlson’s racist roots can be traced back more than a decade.
For the American LGBTQ community, particularly transgender people, Carlson has led a relentless campaign mocking and denigrating trans people. In a late December 2022 episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight”, he hosted Libs of TikTok owner Chaya Raichik, who labeled LGBTQ people as: “They’re bad people. They’re evil people. And they want to groom kids. They’re recruiting.”
Raichik’s Twitter account has spewed anti-LGBTQ hate speech with special emphasis on singling out American trans youth, attacking healthcare professionals who provide gender affirming care including children’s hospitals in Boston, Nashville and D.C. which has led her over 1 million followers to pummel those medical facilities with hate filled online abuse and escalating to criminal acts including bomb threats and death threats against doctors.
During that interview Carlson nodded sympathetically as he embraced Raichik’s extremism.
During the Aug. 22, 2022, edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight”, Carlson, while interviewing former Russia Today and current Rebel News reporter Jeremy Loffredo about his story regarding Amish farmer named Amos Miller, who has legal problems with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over food safety concerns, at one point blurted out: “Maybe if he promises to put more chemicals in the milk to turn kids trans, they’ll lay off.”
Carlson has long targeted President Joe Biden, his family, and members of the president’s administration. During the May 10, 2022, edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight”, he mocked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is an openly Black lesbian:
“Karine Jean-Pierre is our first out LGBTQ+ White House Press Secretary and that’s all you need to know. It’s a good thing, shut up and celebrate. That’s why she got the job. She’s in the right group and so the Biden administration, which thinks exclusively in terms of groups and never in terms of individuals because individuals are messy and inconvenient, the group is all that matters. […] Not only is she a member of the out LGBTQ+ community, she’s also, critically, the product of a private school and an Ivy League college and yet still oppressed somehow. She is furious at America despite her ample privilege and enraged by its racist systems of oppression. And she’s happy to tell you about it.”
On the political front, Carlson’s embrace of the far-right extremist elements had led to disagreements and heated internal debate a Fox News source told the Blade on Monday. Adding to the controversy and in turn exacerbated by the massive $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in the lawsuit filed against Fox in March 2021 over defamatory comments, including a Jan. 26, 2021, episode of Carlson’s show featuring MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, was Carlson’s role.
CBS News notes that Carlson has been a fixture of cable news for decades, hosting shows on CNN, MSNBC and PBS before he joined Fox News. He also co-founded the conservative website the Daily Caller, which launched in 2010. Carlson stepped down from day-to-day oversight of the website after landing his show on Fox News and sold his stake in the outlet in 2020.
Monday’s termination of Lemon by cable news giant CNN comes after NBC News reported that media industry news and entertainment outlet Variety published a story earlier this month on allegations that he mistreated his female colleagues over the course of his career there. And earlier this year, he faced backlash over widely criticized comments he made on-air.
Lemon has been with CNN since 2006, joining the network after anchoring at NBC Chicago and working as a correspondent for NBC News, the “TODAY” show and “NBC Nightly News.”
Lemon had come out as an openly gay African American news anchor 12 years ago in 2011 telling the Blade in a May 2011 interview:
“I have to tell you I can’t even put it in those terms. I mean, it goes way over a scale of one to 10, honestly. And it goes way over incredible. I mean I just feel like a new person.”
Lemon also faced hate and anti-gay extremism, at one point during the Trump era filed a police report with the New York Police Department for “aggravated harassment” after receiving death threats on Twitter.
The anchor, who is partnered to fiancé, Tim Malone, a real estate agent, had heated arguments with network staff after his negative treatment of “CNN This Morning” co-star Kaitlan Collins was discussed within the company.
NBC News noted Lemon also came under fire in February during a segment on “CNN This Morning” in which he remarked that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, 51, was no longer in her “prime.” The comment was made while discussing a suggestion by Haley that candidates over the age of 75 should be subjected to mental competency exams.
“Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime, sorry,” Lemon said. “When a woman is considered to be in her prime — in her 20s, 30s and maybe her 40s.”
When pushed by co-anchor Poppy Harlow, Lemon told her not to “shoot the messenger.”
At the time of the Variety article, a spokesperson for Lemon said in a statement to NBC News following the report that it was “amazing and disappointing that Variety would be so reckless.”
“The story, which is riddled with patently false anecdotes and no concrete evidence, is entirely based on unsourced, unsubstantiated, 15-year-old anonymous gossip,” the statement said.
Hungary
Charges against Budapest mayor for organizing Pride march dropped
Country’s new government took office last month
Hungarian authorities on Thursday dropped charges against Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony over his role in organizing the city’s 2025 Pride march.
Karácsony spoke at the event, even though then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government banned it.
More than 100,000 people defied the ban and participated in the march that took place on June 28, 2025. The Associated Press notes the Budapest Chief Prosecutor’s Office in January charged Karácsony with “organizing the unlawful assembly despite a prohibition order.”
Karácsony, who has been Budapest’s mayor since 2019, described himself as a “proud defendant” after his indictment.
“It seems that in this country, this is the price you pay if you stand up for your own freedom and the freedom of others,” he said in a statement, according to the AP. “If anyone thinks they can ban me, deter me, or prevent me and my city from doing so, they are gravely mistaken.”
Budapest is Hungary’s capital and largest city.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar took office last month after his center-right Tisza party ousted Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition in elections that took place on April 12.
Hungarian police on May 29 announced they will allow the Budapest Pride march to take place this year.
The European Union’s top court, the EU Court of Justice, days after Orbán’s ouster struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law that MPs approved in 2021. The BBC notes Hungarian authorities cited the decision in their decision to drop the charges against Karácsony.
Authorities in Pécs, a city near Hungary’s border with Croatia, have also dropped charges against Géza Buzás-Hábel, who organized a 2025 Pride event.
National
Gallup finds LGBTQ support among Americans is dropping
Marriage equality support lowest since 2016
Gallup, one of the leading organizations in public opinion polling, has found that LGBTQ support among Americans is dropping.
The poll, whose data was collected using Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey, was conducted in May and was published on Wednesday. The data was collected through telephone interviews from a sample of more than 1,000 adults living in all 50 states and D.C. using random digit dialing.
It highlights declining attitudes surrounding LGBTQ issues in multiple areas — from support for same-sex marriage to views on gender identity and the morality of one’s sexuality.
One of the most striking findings was that support for marriage equality fell six points from its 2022-2023 high.
The survey also found that 62 percent of Americans view gay and lesbian relations as morally acceptable, the lowest level since 2016 just after same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide by the U.S. Supreme Court.
One newer question on the poll found that the perceived morality of changing one’s gender has dropped eight points since 2021, indicating the American public is less supportive of transgender people.
The data attributes much of the decline to shifting Republican views alongside the party itself. Conservative leaders have pushed back against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that were intended to foster greater acceptance of LGBTQ people and other historically disadvantaged groups.
President Donald Trump has been a guiding force behind waves of anti-LGBTQ sentiment, particularly when it comes to trans rights. The president has enacted multiple executive orders, including Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which mandates that gender be defined by one’s sex assigned at birth. He also signed Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which barred qualified trans applicants from joining the military and led to the removal of trans service members already serving in the armed forces.
Additionally, he signed Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which prohibits trans female athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
In February, Gallup found that an estimated 9 percent of Americans identified as part of the LGBTQ community in some form.
The organization also found that 23 percent of adults under age 30 identify as LGBTQ, compared with 10 percent of those ages 30 to 49 and 3 percent or less among those ages 50 and older.
Congress
Ogles faces bipartisan backlash over anti-gay social media post
Tenn. congressman blamed the comment on staffer
U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who represents Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District, is facing backlash from LGBTQ advocates and fellow Republicans after a social media post declared that “homosexuality has no place in America.”
“Homosexuality has no place in America. Happy Nuclear Family Month,” the congressman wrote in a post on X that was later deleted.
According to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, an estimated 6.3 percent of U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ.
Following widespread criticism, Ogles removed the post and blamed it on a staff member.
“The post was stupid, hurtful and a complete distraction from my America First focus. The employee has been reprimanded,” Ogles said in a statement.
The Washington Blade reached out to Ogles’s office for comment but did not receive a response by press time.
Among those condemning the message was U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who called it “absolutely idiotic” in a social media post.
“Homosexuality exists. In America,” Lawler wrote on X. “In fact, Andy, you have family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and constituents who are gay and lesbian. It doesn’t make them less than or somehow unworthy of being an American.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also criticized Ogles’s remarks.
“For all of recorded history, homosexuals have been a part of humanity,” Cruz told TMZ DC. “I think the behavior of consenting adults is their business.”
Chris Sanders, the executive director for the Tennessee Equality Project and Tennessee Equality Project Foundation provided a statement to the Blade about Ogles’s comment.
“The Tennessee Nuclear Family Month resolution has really backfired on conservatives by ensnaring Congressman Ogles in scandal. He used the resolution as a pretext to say that our community doesn’t belong in America, resulting in incredible backlash from across the partisan divide,” Sanders said. “It is a good opportunity for him to pause and reflect on whether it’s time for him to resign. Fighting one’s own constituents is not the purpose of serving in Congress.”
Human Rights Campaign Senior Press Secretary Jarred Keller provided a statement to the Blade regarding Ogles’s comments.
“LGBTQ+ people are woven into the fabric of America, and any politician who questions that is severely out of touch with reality. When so many people are worried about whether they can afford gas to get to work or groceries for their families, the last thing we need is right-wing Republicans targeting marginalized communities with hateful attacks,” Keller said. “Representative Ogles should spend less time attacking LGBTQ+ people and start addressing the issues that actually matter, because last I checked, our community isn’t the reason families are struggling to make ends meet.”
The controversy comes as Tennessee continues to advance legislation affecting LGBTQ residents. The state already has several laws on the books that LGBTQ advocates have criticized, including the Adult Entertainment Act, enacted in 2023, which restricts certain “adult cabaret performances.”
Lawmakers have also introduced additional measures this legislative session, including the “No Pride Flag or Month Act,” which would prohibit state employees, volunteers, and agents from displaying Pride flags or participating in Pride observances while acting in an official capacity.
Another proposal, the “Banning Bostock Act” would seek to limit the application of state anti-discrimination protections based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. Tennessee lawmakers have also passed other measures restricting LGBTQ rights and access to gender-affirming health care.
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