We recently learned that Fox News sent Tucker Carlson a cease and desist order, insisting that he stop tweeting out videos in his “Tucker on Twitter” series. You can tell how seriously Carlson took that letter by the fact that he released another one last night, shortly after midnight on the east coast. At no point in the video did he mention the letter or even his old network, focusing instead on the indictment of Donald Trump and the depths of the Washington swamp.

Fox is basing its claim to be able to shut Carlson down on a “no compete” clause in his contract. But that raises some complicated questions given the current state of the broadcast and social media landscapes. Is Tucker Carlson actually “competing” with Fox News by doing this? Is what he’s doing actually a rival “broadcast” that is potentially cutting into their audience? We’ll get to that in a moment, but we should also take a quick look at the content of his latest release. Newsweek summed it up as a condemnation of the “forever war” agenda in Washington, which it was.

Carlson, appearing Tuesday in the third episode of his Tucker on Twitter series, responded to the arraignment by suggesting without evidence that powerful figures from both major political parties were participating in a conspiracy to put Trump “behind bars for the rest of his life” due to his criticism of past wars and his stance on the Russia-Ukraine war.

The former Fox News host called the prosecution of Trump “transparently political,” repeating a frequent claim of the former president’s by alleging that President Joe Biden was “using law enforcement to lock up his chief rival.” However, Carlson argued that the alleged conspiracy went beyond Biden, with supposedly pro-war Republicans also among Trump’s “persecutors.”

I won’t dwell on the content of the show beyond pointing out one thing. It’s inarguable that Carlson is correct about the fact that both parties in Washington have long been heavily invested in warfare, often for dubious (at best) reasons. When Trump was running in 2016, he called out the fraudulent nature of the Iraq war, saying aloud what you weren’t supposed to say in Washington. For quite a while now, when one war somehow manages to end, you should be keeping your eyes open because another one will be coming along soon. And whenever a new war starts, you can reliably count on one thing. Somebody is about to make a lot of money. (Spoiler alert: It’s not you.)

But enough about that. Let’s return to the title question. Should Tucker Carlson’s tweets place him in legal and/or financial jeopardy because of his contract with Fox News? If he had started a show on NewsNation or CNN (or even the Home Shopping Channel for that matter), he would be competing against Fox in the same medium where they offer their content. As such, he would almost certainly be in violation of his contract and could face repercussions.

But Tucker Carlson is tweeting, as many millions of Americans do. The first tweets only contained text. Then we gained the ability to add photos or emojis. Now you can embed videos in your tweets. And that’s what Tucker is doing. He just puts a lot more production value into his than most amateur podcasters do when they embed an episode.

How can a network shut down someone’s ability to “speak” on an entirely different platform? Carlson isn’t even putting out his tweets in the same timeslot as his old show, something I advised him to do previously. They show up randomly and people can view them whenever they like. The other hosts at Fox, along with CNN and the rest of the cable news networks, almost all have Twitter accounts. And they sometimes include video clips in their tweets. Are they all in financial peril?

Just as a reminder, I’m not an attorney and I’ve never even played one on TV. But this argument from Fox sounds preposterous. Signing a contract with your on-air talent should not give you the ability to silence them from raising their voices on social media any more than it should prevent them from literally standing on a soap box in the park and ranting about whatever they like. You can fairly argue that someone heading out and starting a new show on a rival broadcast network would be out of bounds, but that’s not what Tucker is doing. He should dare them to sue him over his tweeting habits and see what happens.

In case you missed it, here’s Tucker’s latest show. I won’t say I agree with every one of his points, but he offers plenty of food for thought as usual.

Ep. 3 America's principles are at stake pic.twitter.com/eJNSUVvvqY

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 13, 2023