‘It’s Becoming Inherently More Dangerous To Speak The Truth’

In her first public comments since MSNBC announced Friday it was cancelling her show, The Cross Connection, Tiffany Cross said she was “disheartened to learn of MSNBC’s decision,” which she said came at “a crucial time—four days before the midterm elections. From the beginning, we were intentional about centering communities of color, elevating issues and voices often ignored by the mainstream media, and disrupting the echo chambers. As a result, viewers consistently made The Cross Connection MSNBC’s highest-rated weekend show.”

The network’s sudden announcement that it would end production of The Cross Connection immediately and part company with Cross led to speculation that the host had run afoul of management, with Variety, citing MSNBC sources, reporting that Cross’ relationship with MSNBC had “becoming frayed” as executives grew “concerned about the anchor’s willingness to address statements made by cable-news hosts on other networks and indulging in commentary executives felt did not meet the standards of MSNBC or NBC News.”

Cross seemed to reference that in her statement, issued on Twitter late Friday night, in which she said “while this journey ended abruptly, surprising many of us, my work is not done. Political violence is increasing and it’s becoming inherently more dangerous to speak the truth. But, after more than 20 years in journalism, I will not stop. The attacks on me from other outlets and former hosts will never control my narrative.”

While Cross does not naming any specific people or networks, her defenders do. Wajahat Ali, in a post on Twitter, said “white nationalist Tucker Carlson hits Tiffany Cross recently and accuses her of fueling a ‘race war.’ She gets deluged with hate and criticism. Now? She’s out at MSNBC.”

In a segment on Fox News Channel’s top-rated Tucker Carlson Tonight in October, Carlson went after Cross and MSNBC, telling viewers that “open race hate forms much of the substance of that channel’s programming.” Carlson then focused his attack on Cross, airing an edited collection of short clips from The Cross Connection where Cross and guests discussed conservatives and the rise of political violence. Carlson seized on their use of “white people” as evidence that Cross was using her show to accuse white people of being “a mortal danger to you and your loved ones.”

While it’s easy to laugh off such statements, Carlson took it a step further—as he has increasingly done in recent months—going to the most outrageous of extremes, linking Cross not just to “race hate” but also to genocide in Rwanda, but always carefully couching baseless accusations and the most inflammatory language in the form of “I’m just asking” questions. That night, Carlson suggested that Cross believed that white people “threaten your life. Are they poisoning the wells? Are they baking bread with the blood of your children?”

As Michael Harriot wrote about Tucker Carlson’s attack on Cross at The Root, “Carlson told the largest audience in primetime cable news that Tiffany Cross, MSNBC and her league of angry negroes (of which I am one) are trying to reboot Rwanda’s 1994 ethnic cleansing, which resulted in the mass murder of nearly a million people in 100 days.”

Harriot noted that Cross had “repeatedly pushed a controversial approach to addressing this country’s racial issues. She wants to actually talk about them.”

For her part, Cross said Friday that “with progress there is always backlash. Now is not the time to retreat from politics or journalism as usual…it was the opportunity of a lifetime to create a show the culture would be proud to keep trending every weekend.”