Tucker Carlson’s shock firing set off outpouring of support from locals in quaint Maine town

Just hours after he was fired by Fox News, conservative firebrand Tucker Carlson’s phone lit up with well-wishes from locals in the quaint Maine town where he spends most of his summers.

The 53-year-old has stirred up vitriol as one of the most polarizing political commentators in the country, but in the small rural town of Woodstock, residents never felt that antagonism in person from the man they describe as a good neighbor.

‘More time for fishing?’ his carpenter Patrick Fenney said in a text message to Carlson at lunchtime Monday, shortly after the news broke.

An hour later, Tucker, at home with his wife in Florida, phoned him back.

‘He called me back at 1 and said he found out about it a half hour before I did,’ Fenney told DailyMail.com Tuesday, standing inside Carlson’s satellite TV studio that the local helped him build in an old barn downtown. 

‘He told me it started out as a normal day. He got up, wrote the show, and then he got the phone calling saying it was all over and that they were going to announce it.’

‘He was pretty shocked,’ he added. ‘He asked them why and they wouldn’t give him a reason.’

But Carlson seemed nonplussed.

‘He was not upset at all,’ Fenney told DailyMail.com. ‘He said that maybe he’d fish a little more this summer.’

It was the sort of humble banter Carlson is known for locally, where he’s seen as one of the friendliest, down to earth guys you’d ever meet. 

The day began with business as usual. 

That morning, a couple Fox production workers were setting up cameras and lighting for Carlson’s show, which was due to start filming locally in just a couple weeks when the most popular cable news host was planning to return to Woodstock.

Crew members were caught off guard by the firing as well and went driving away around noon, with no clear direction of what might come next, Fenney said.

Carlson, who has been coming to Western Maine with family since he was a child, owns a home in Bryant Pond, Woodstock’s urban center with just 1,350 residents.

In 2019, he wrote the town a letter stating his desire to retire there someday. 

He even has a plot at the local cemetery beside a 19th century universalist church, according to the regional Sun Journal.

He’s a regular around town during the summer, working out of his studio on Main Street, taking breaks to chat with neighbors and sometimes greet fans who travel from out of state to meet their TV hero.

He could also be seen doing yardwork, chopping wood or painting shingles on his stately house, located on a small island on Lake Christopher that is just a few hundred feet from the shore. 

Fenney has the keys to Carlson’s motorboat that he takes to the house, which is still boarded up from the winter.

Locals say Carlson fits right in to the hardworking community, where residents don’t pay much attention to the news.

‘You could walk down the road and knock on the next five doors and people wouldn’t be able to tell you who the vice president is,’ Fenney told DailyMail.com. 

‘They got other things to worry about. They don’t care. What they care about is if you don’t get your firewood and split it, you’ll freeze to death.’

He described Carlson as ‘a very modest, not a fancy person.’

Susan Hatstat, 37, who works at a convenience store where Carlson frequently stops by, agreed.

‘We always see him driving around in his old pickup truck,’ Hatstat told DailyMail.com. 

‘He’s actually just a really good guy, always super polite,’ she said. 

‘He’s normal when he’s here, nice to everybody. He doesn’t act like a celebrity. He comes here, grabs snacks, gets treats for his dogs.

‘I like him, and his family’s really nice,’ she added. 

‘His brother Buckley’s always here, and his nephew. Tucker’s been coming up here his whole life.’

He’s also hired several locals for his show. 

Hatstat’s brother, a chef who works at the nearby Sunday River ski mountain, cooks for Carlson and ‘all his celebrity friends,’ she revealed, adding: ‘And my brother’s wife does Tucker’s hair and makeup.’

Neil Olsen, a 75-year-old animal trapper in the area, said over time he has become close with Carlson, who’s joined him on some of his excursions trapping foxes and coyotes.

‘He is one of the most down to earth people I’ve ever met who was so-called famous,’ Olsen told DailyMail.com.

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‘I’m a layman, let’s just say. I’m a nobody, and I’m out there doing some fishing and trapping, and Tucker’s spending time with me,’ Olsen said. 

‘And I could just tell, he just wants to be a down to earth person. I haven’t met anyone who’s been around this guy that didn’t like him.’

Last year, he said, Carlson joined him for a three-hour drive to sell furs to a dealer in Greenville, Maine. 

While there, the Fox host ended up ordering a beaver blanket for his wife, Olsen said.

‘I just remember what the guy there said to Tucker: ”How did you happen to come with him up here?” Olsen recalled. 

‘And Tucker responded, ”because he asked me.”

‘We’ve been on three trips together, and I’m a bit of a goofball at times, and he allows me to be me,’ he continued. 

‘You go around some people and they’re stuffed shirts, if you know what I’m saying. Tucker isn’t what people think he is.’

He recalls one conversation they had about religion, which started with Olsen remarking about how all fishing lures boast they’re the best on the market. Olsen likened it to religion. 

‘So I said to Tucker, there are like eight different religions, and everybody thinks theirs is the best, so seven of them have got to be wrong,’ he recounted.

‘And his quote to me was something I’m going to live by the rest of my life: He said, Neil, for me, in all religions, we all know that there’s something special out there, and for him it’s God. I just thought that was a great answer.’

Carlson also invited Olsen to watch his show, giving him and his daughters an exclusive audience from inside the studio, which was originally a barn.

‘One of my daughters really, let’s just say, wasn’t a Tucker fan,’ the trapper said.

‘When she left there, he didn’t necessarily win her over with all the political aspects, but she left there knowing, hey, he’s actually a nice guy.’

Olsen said he sent Carlson a text message the morning of his firing, writing: ‘Just know that we really like you, Tucker.’

Speaking to DailyMail.com, Olsen said: ‘I think they’re going to regret the decision.’ 

But like others in town, he took the news in stride, and had no real concerns for Carlson’s future.

‘He gives me the impression that he’d just rather be a down to earth guy that blends in, goes fishing, rabbit hunting, without anybody knowing really who he is,’ Olsen said. 

‘And now, I assume he might, this is just a guess, take the summer off.’

Fenney said the only real question now is what Carlson will choose to do next.

‘I can’t imagine he’s going to be hurting for things to do,’ he said. 

‘He’s a tough man, he’ll survive it. He the hardest working man I know.’

And it turns out Tucker was as popular among (most of) his peers as he was his Woodstock neighbors.

Despite the claims by former booking producer Abby Grossberg that she was subjected to bullying, sexism and anti-Semitism while working on his show, his Fox News colleagues found him to be a great guy – and would follow him anywhere.

In fact, said one current staffer, working on the show that is now temporarily being hosted by Brian Kilmeade, ‘We would rather work for Tucker somewhere else than stay here.  

‘Tucker called everyone he worked with after he got the news. Our collective mouths fell to the floor.

‘He was great to us – always included us at dinners with celebs he interviewed on the show – like Kanye and Mike Tyson – had us to his home. It’s cliché but we were like family.’ 

According to the insider, Fox is now planning to rotate schedules and most probably hosts to fill the spot vacated by Tucker.

Ratings have crashed since Tucker’s last appearance on Friday night, with the network falling below MSNBC’s Chris Hayes’ show in the 8pm timeslot Wednesday. 

For all of 2022, Carlson averaged 3.03 million viewers, second only to Fox’s ‘The Five’ as the most popular program on cable television. 

Kilmeade had 1.7 million viewers on Tuesday and 2.59 million on Monday, when he told people who hadn’t already heard the news that Carlson would no longer be appearing on the network.

Carlson had 2.65 million viewers on Friday for what he didn’t know at the time would be his last show on Fox.

Meanwhile, the ousted host’s two-minute monologue he shared on Twitter Thursday night, has been viewed 70 million times, according to the social media site.