- The veteran journalist Chris Wallace said working at Fox News became "unsustainable" after the 2020 election.
- "I just no longer felt comfortable with the programming at Fox," he told The New York Times.
- Wallace confirmed he complained to Fox News leaders about Tucker Carlson's Fox Nation documentary "Patriot Purge."
The veteran journalist Chris Wallace — who departed Fox News last December after 18 years — said in a recent interview that working at the network after the 2020 presidential election became "increasingly unsustainable."
In an interview published Sunday with The New York Times, the longtime "Fox News Sunday" and current CNN+ anchor discussed the predicament he faced at the network where he had developed a reputation as a fair, but tough interviewer who was seen as a moderate voice among a cacophony of conservative-leaning hosts.
"I'm fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion," he told The Times. "But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable."
He added: "I spent a lot of 2021 looking to see if there was a different place for me to do my job."
Wallace spoke of the changes that occurred at Fox in the immediate aftermath of then-President Donald Trump's election loss to now-President Joe Biden.
In the ensuing weeks, Chris Stirewalt, the longtime Fox News politics editor, was fired after the network. Stirewalt was the on-air face of the network's early projection that Arizona would be won by Biden in the 2020 presidential election, a call that infuriated Trump. (Biden won the state by less than 11,000 votes.)
Also, Wallace pointed to Fox cutting their 7 p.m. newscast and elevating figures like the controversial conservative host Tucker Carlson.
Wallace also confirmed to The Times that he expressed his reservations to Fox News leaders about Carlson's Fox Nation streaming documentary "Patriot Purge," which alleged that the January 6, riot at the US Capitol was a "false flag" operation.
"Before, I found it was an environment in which I could do my job and feel good about my involvement at Fox," he told the newspaper. "And since November of 2020, that just became unsustainable, increasingly unsustainable as time went on."
He added: "I just no longer felt comfortable with the programming at Fox."
Wallace told The Times that some individuals may wonder why he didn't leave the network before the 2020 election.
"Some people might have drawn the line earlier, or at a different point," he said. "I think Fox has changed over the course of the last year and a half. But I can certainly understand where somebody would say, 'Gee, you were a slow learner, Chris.'"
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wallace's new interview show, "Who's Talking to Chris Wallace?," is part of CNN's new streaming platform, which has given him the opportunity to diverge from strictly covering political news.
"I wanted to get out of politics," he told The Times. "Doing a Sunday show on the incremental change from week to week in the Build Back Better plan began to lose its attraction."
During the interview, he described his enthusiasm with CNN+ and its news format, which is less rigid than hosting a national cable news program.
"I don't have to say, you know, 'Wolf Blitzer starts right now at 6:59:59,'" he told the newspaper.
In the first few episodes of his show, which airs Mondays through Thursdays at 6 p.m., Wallace speaks with the "Star Trek" actor William Shatner and even showcases his voice with the singer-songwriter Judy Collins.