Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / A Behind the Scenes Look at What Happened to Tucker Carlson

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A Behind the Scenes Look at What Happened to Tucker Carlson · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: So there's a story that everybody is working on, and
0:05
Speaker 1: that is what really happened behind the scenes with the
0:11
Speaker 1: parting of the ways with Tucker Carlson. There's gonna be
0:15
Speaker 1: a lot that's gonna be said that's just not gonna
0:17
Speaker 1: be true. There's gonna be some that is said that's
0:19
Speaker 1: gonna be taken out of context. There's gonna be some
0:22
Speaker 1: that have said that is gonna be blown up bigger
0:24
Speaker 1: than it actually is. The Wall Street Journal is running
0:29
Speaker 1: a headline this morning, Tucker Carlson's vulgar, offensive messages about
0:35
Speaker 1: colleagues helped seal his fate at Fox News. The primetime
0:40
Speaker 1: host called a senior executive the c word. Yeah, that's
0:44
Speaker 1: their headline. Several weeks ago, The article reads, Fox News
0:48
Speaker 1: lawyers were preparing for a courtroom showdown with dominion voting systems.
0:52
Speaker 1: They presented Tuger Carlson with what they thought was some
0:55
Speaker 1: good news they had persuaded the court to redact from
0:59
Speaker 1: a legal filing the time he called a senior foxhw's
1:02
Speaker 1: executive the sea word.
1:03
Speaker 2: According to people familiar with.
1:04
Speaker 1: The matter, mister Carlson, Fox News's most watched primetime host,
1:09
Speaker 1: wasn't impressed, he told his colleagues that he wanted the
1:12
Speaker 1: word the world to know what he had said about
1:16
Speaker 1: the executive in a private message. The people said, mister
1:20
Speaker 1: Carlson said comments he made about former Presidential Trump quote unquote,
1:26
Speaker 1: I hate him passionately that were in the court documents
1:30
Speaker 1: were said during a momentary's spasm of anger, while his
1:36
Speaker 1: dislike of the executive was deep and enduring. The Wall
1:39
Speaker 1: Street Journal says this morning in their newest breaking story
1:43
Speaker 1: on this The messages were part of a trove of
1:47
Speaker 1: emails and texts from Fox executives and hosts that were
1:51
Speaker 1: made public as a result of Dominion's defamation lawsuit. The
1:57
Speaker 1: voting machine company accused Fox News of varying false claims
2:02
Speaker 1: by hosts and guests that Dominion helped rig the outcome
2:06
Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty US presidential election in favor of
2:10
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Fox HW's parents' parent company, Fox Corporation, last
2:15
Speaker 1: week agreed to pay seven hundred and eighty seven point
2:18
Speaker 1: five million to settle that dispute on Monday, Mister Carlson's
2:25
Speaker 1: famously combative stance towards members of Fox hu's management and
2:28
Speaker 1: other colleagues caught up with him as the network abruptly
2:31
Speaker 1: announced it was parting ways with him. The Wall Street
2:34
Speaker 1: Journal rights just minutes after informing mister Carlson of the change,
2:40
Speaker 1: private message in which mister Carlson showed disregard for management
2:44
Speaker 1: and colleagues, were a major factor in that decision, according
2:48
Speaker 1: to other people familiar with the matter, Although many portions
2:51
Speaker 1: of the dominion court documents are redacted, there is concern
2:54
Speaker 1: among Fox Corp. Executives that if the redactive material were
2:58
Speaker 1: to become public, it would lead to further embarrassment for
3:01
Speaker 1: the network and the parent company. With an average audience
3:04
Speaker 1: of three point five million viewers, mister Carlson's Tucker Carlson
3:08
Speaker 1: to Night was the network's most watched evening show and
3:10
Speaker 1: the second most popular telecast overall, behind the afternoon talk
3:14
Speaker 1: show The Five with Fox. Within Fox's management, reservations had
3:19
Speaker 1: been mounting about risks mister Carlton presented for the network,
3:24
Speaker 1: people familiar with the matter said to The Wall Street Journal.
3:27
Speaker 1: Some of the people pointed to concerns that the populous
3:30
Speaker 1: firebrand had come to believe himself bigger than the network.
3:34
Speaker 1: A cardinal sin in Fox Corporation the chair Rupert Murdoch's
3:39
Speaker 1: empire and was increasingly operating as his own island, which
3:46
Speaker 1: was also a problem. Mister Murdoch and his family are
3:49
Speaker 1: largely are the largest large shareholders in Fox Corp. And
3:54
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal parent company News Corp. So if
3:57
Speaker 1: you want to know why the Wall Street Journal is
3:59
Speaker 1: doing this article, so the Wall Street Journal is part
4:02
Speaker 1: of News Corp. And so of course they're going to
4:04
Speaker 1: get this insider information so that people maybe don't like
4:07
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson as much. This is what you call a
4:10
Speaker 1: planted story in the Wall Street Journal. Just so you
4:12
Speaker 1: know how the corporate hierarchy of these articles get written.
4:15
Speaker 1: They get rid of somebody, They then take some of
4:18
Speaker 1: the information, they hand it over to the Wall Street Journal,
4:20
Speaker 1: which is a part of News Corp.
4:22
Speaker 2: And then you write this article on air.
4:26
Speaker 1: Mister Carlson had turned up the volume on commentary that
4:29
Speaker 1: had expanded beyond a conservative viewpoint on politics into more
4:32
Speaker 1: of an attack on marginalized groups. The Wall Street Journal
4:37
Speaker 1: rights his show more than those of his primetime colleague
4:40
Speaker 1: Sean Hanny. Laura Ingram frequently landed the network in hot water,
4:43
Speaker 1: particularly with advertisers. Mister Carlton sometimes trafficked and what critics,
4:49
Speaker 1: including some higher ups within Fox, felt with thinleaveield racism
4:53
Speaker 1: on a show, such as when he recently suggests a
4:56
Speaker 1: Tennessee lawmaker got into a good college only because of
4:59
Speaker 1: his skin colors.
5:00
Speaker 2: Some of the people said.
5:03
Speaker 1: Mister Carlson declined to comment on his departure to The
5:06
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal. In recent years, battles between mister Carlson
5:10
Speaker 1: and Fox management had got so bad that former Trump
5:13
Speaker 1: aid Raj Shaha was appointed to be his internal advocate
5:22
Speaker 1: and an intermediate intermediary between mister Carlson and Fox's communication department.
5:28
Speaker 1: According to people familiar with the arrangement and filing in
5:31
Speaker 1: the dominion case, that is a weird communication link. I
5:37
Speaker 1: would agree with that, Okay. I think everybody knows that.
5:41
Speaker 1: If you don't know who this guy is. Raj is
5:44
Speaker 1: A was a former government official, a physician and health
5:51
Speaker 1: economists who served as a sixteenth in the sixteen administration
5:54
Speaker 1: of the United States Agency for International Development from twenty
5:57
Speaker 1: ten twenty fifteen. He then went into the Trump administration
6:03
Speaker 1: after that. He is a very smart guy who is
6:08
Speaker 1: very very kind. He is also senior vice president of
6:11
Speaker 1: Fox Corporation, which is exactly why he would be used
6:16
Speaker 1: in this scenario. So it's not like you as an
6:19
Speaker 1: outsider brought in. His title is senior vice President Fox Corporation.
6:23
Speaker 1: Just so you know, that's a pretty significant role, okay.
6:28
Speaker 1: He served as again. Prior to joining Fox, he served
6:31
Speaker 1: as senior roles in the White House Press and Communications offices.
6:35
Speaker 1: Among his responsibilities, he oversaw strategy and communications for the
6:40
Speaker 1: White House's successful effort to confirm Justice Brett Cavanaugh the
6:43
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Referred to by a leading reporter as one
6:48
Speaker 1: of the most highly regarded operatives in the White House
6:51
Speaker 1: press shop, he made himself invaluable with the White House
6:55
Speaker 1: staff for his political research skills. During the twenty sixteen campaign.
7:00
Speaker 1: Raj served as research director and deputy communications director of
7:04
Speaker 1: the Republican National Committee as the party retok the White
7:07
Speaker 1: House and held both Houses of Congress. So he has
7:11
Speaker 1: a long understanding of how politics works and how communications work.
7:18
Speaker 1: So this idea that you know, they try to frame
7:24
Speaker 1: it in this article that somehow this guy's like an
7:27
Speaker 1: outside that was brought in just so they could communicate. No,
7:29
Speaker 1: he's a senior vice president of the Fox Corporation. Okay,
7:32
Speaker 1: he's been there for three almost four years now. Tucker
7:37
Speaker 1: clearly liked him. But the idea he was appointed to
7:40
Speaker 1: be his internal advocate and an intermediary between him and
7:43
Speaker 1: Fox's communications department, the guy works in communications.
7:48
Speaker 2: I think that's a stretch, is my point.
7:51
Speaker 1: According to people familiar with the arrangement and filing in
7:53
Speaker 1: the dominion case, quote unquote, the Wall Street Journal continues,
7:58
Speaker 1: mister Carlton was livid Fox News didn't do more to
8:01
Speaker 1: protect him from the negative press coverage around the dominion case. Now,
8:06
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8:07
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9:12
Speaker 1: preparing for his show with his staff, uh when he
9:15
Speaker 1: found out what happened on Monday. I'm going to go
9:18
Speaker 1: back to this article from the Wall Street Journal. So
9:20
Speaker 1: you know the Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp.
9:21
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised this article came out. It makes sense.
9:24
Speaker 1: They want to make it look better for Fox News
9:27
Speaker 1: Channel so you'll be not as mad at Fox News Channel,
9:29
Speaker 1: and so they're going to leak out information the Wall
9:31
Speaker 1: Street Journal, which they own. Back to the story, mister
9:34
Speaker 1: Carlson was livid that Fox News didn't do more to
9:37
Speaker 1: protect him from the negative press coverage around the Dominion
9:39
Speaker 1: case that he was expected to testify in, given that
9:43
Speaker 1: the primary actor actor's responsibility for the false election fraud
9:48
Speaker 1: claims at the hearthst suit were other Fox hosts and commentators.
9:53
Speaker 1: According to people familiar with the matter, in the message
9:57
Speaker 1: In the messages released in the legal proceedings, mister Carlson
10:00
Speaker 1: voice skepticism about Sidney Powell, the primary purveyor of the
10:04
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory that Dominion's technology helps steal the election from
10:07
Speaker 1: mister Trump, given that, mister Carlson felt the narrative and
10:11
Speaker 1: press coverage should have been different and let Fox executives
10:15
Speaker 1: know of his displeasure, the people said. The Dominion court
10:19
Speaker 1: filings are filled with examples of him disparaging colleagues, from
10:24
Speaker 1: calling for the firing of a Fox News reporter for
10:27
Speaker 1: fact checking mister Trump's false claims about the twenty twenty election,
10:31
Speaker 1: to complaining about the network's news coverage, including the decision
10:35
Speaker 1: to call Arizona for mister Biden on election night. Inside
10:41
Speaker 1: of Fox News, there has been a growing sense that
10:43
Speaker 1: mister Carlson couldn't be managed, and viewed himself as untouchable,
10:48
Speaker 1: people familiar with the company said. Legal documents also revealed
10:51
Speaker 1: mister Carlson was unafraid to run basically attacks on the
11:00
Speaker 1: for those whose views or actions he didn't like. Although
11:06
Speaker 1: mister Carlson had spent much of the COVID nineteen era
11:09
Speaker 1: doing his show out of his main home, joking recently
11:14
Speaker 1: in a Heritage Foundation speech over the weekend that he
11:16
Speaker 1: hadn't been in an elevator for three years, his presence
11:20
Speaker 1: still loomed large inside and outside the network's New York headquarters.
11:26
Speaker 1: Protesters frequently gathered in front of the building, carrying cardboard
11:29
Speaker 1: cutouts of his head, sometimes with an X over it.
11:32
Speaker 1: A door were the most recent incendiary quotes in the
11:34
Speaker 1: dominion case Discovery mister Carlson's fall from grace in the
11:39
Speaker 1: eyes of the Murdocks was swift. Just a few weeks ago,
11:45
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch invited mister Carlson to his bel Air, California
11:48
Speaker 1: home to dine with his en fiance, Anne Leslie Smith,
11:53
Speaker 1: the coining of appep. Familiar with the gathering, Miss Smith couldn't
11:57
Speaker 1: be reached for comment. Mister Carlson and had bonded somewhat
12:01
Speaker 1: with the executive chairman Fox News executive chairman, the Younger Murdoch,
12:06
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdock's son, with whom he shared a love of
12:09
Speaker 1: the outdoors and conservative politics, according to people familiar with
12:12
Speaker 1: the matter, but it was the younger son, in consultation
12:18
Speaker 1: with Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott, who made the
12:23
Speaker 1: decision to oust mister Carlson, The Journal reported on Monday.
12:28
Speaker 1: San Francisco native mister Carlson, fifty three, joined Fox News
12:34
Speaker 1: as a contributor in two.
12:36
Speaker 2: Thousand and nine.
12:39
Speaker 1: Just so you know the backstory on his employment there,
12:42
Speaker 1: He rose to get his own show in twenty sixteen,
12:45
Speaker 1: eventually landed the eight pm time slot. His past career
12:48
Speaker 1: included tours of both CNN and MSNBC, as well as
12:50
Speaker 1: an enterprisal stint as the co founder of The Daily Caller,
12:57
Speaker 1: the conservative web publication that aimed to injected dose of
13:00
Speaker 1: original reporting into the commentary heavy center right media ecosystem.
13:06
Speaker 2: The Wall Street.
13:07
Speaker 1: Journal says, besides his nightly presence on Fox News, Miss
13:10
Speaker 1: Carlson was also prominent on Fox Nation, the newschannel's direct
13:14
Speaker 1: to streaming service, on which his content was essentially an
13:16
Speaker 1: unplugged version of his daily show. In November, he aired
13:20
Speaker 1: a three part special called Patriot Purge that inaccurately suggested
13:26
Speaker 1: the January sixth, twenty twenty one riot at the host
13:28
Speaker 1: Capitol was a plot of extreme left wing groups. And
13:32
Speaker 1: then even the FBI played a part that programs at
13:36
Speaker 1: the stage. For a March broadcast on his Fox News show, suggesting,
13:40
Speaker 1: using video provided to him by speaker Kevin McCarthy, that
13:44
Speaker 1: the attack wasn't nearly as violent as the media had suggested,
13:48
Speaker 1: was heavily criticized by lawmakers on both sides of the isle.
13:52
Speaker 1: While mister Carlton Start Carlson Tonight was popular, it was
13:56
Speaker 1: also repellent to blue chip averageers. And by the way,
14:01
Speaker 1: let's be clear, blue chip advertisers have left conservative media
14:04
Speaker 1: long ago. I've talked about this several times on the show.
14:09
Speaker 1: Blue chip advertisers will not advertise now on conservative talk radio.
14:16
Speaker 1: They will not advertise in the same way on TV
14:18
Speaker 1: with conservative TV. They are bigots, and their liberal boards
14:23
Speaker 1: are bigots, and they hate conservatives and they want to
14:26
Speaker 1: destroy conservatives.
14:27
Speaker 2: Make no mistake about that.
14:29
Speaker 1: The idea that Tuger Carlson couldn't get advertiser is also
14:32
Speaker 1: just completely ridiculous. He absolutely had advertisers and brought in
14:36
Speaker 1: plenty of money to pay his twenty million dollar or
14:39
Speaker 1: whatever it is a year salary, depending on which report
14:41
Speaker 1: you believe. Now, how much money would I be making
14:46
Speaker 1: right now and others if we had the same ability
14:49
Speaker 1: to get advertisers as liberals like on MSNBC, we would
14:52
Speaker 1: all make millions of dollars compared to what we make.
14:56
Speaker 2: That's how big of a difference it is.
14:58
Speaker 1: It is very hard to make make a good living
15:00
Speaker 1: and conservative medium now because there are so many different
15:05
Speaker 1: advertisers that won't even talk to you, regardless of how
15:09
Speaker 1: big your audience is.
15:12
Speaker 2: So to imply somehow that Tucker Carlson had.
15:15
Speaker 1: Like not as many Okay, like that his was, like,
15:19
Speaker 1: you know, completely banned and boycotted, not true. I just
15:24
Speaker 1: want to be clear about that. You could write this
15:26
Speaker 1: about everybody, Okay, you really could. You could write this
15:28
Speaker 1: about anybody.
15:32
Speaker 2: I I this.
15:33
Speaker 1: There is certainly some propaganda in this. It's the Wall
15:36
Speaker 1: Street Journal that's owned by news Court, but it's also
15:39
Speaker 1: giving some insight into what happened with Tucker Carlson. At
15:42
Speaker 1: the end, I'm not saying that I support any of it,
15:45
Speaker 1: believe in any of it. I'm just giving you the
15:47
Speaker 1: news and this is the probably the most accurate synopsis
15:50
Speaker 1: of what actually happened at the very end. All right,
15:53
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to this article from the
15:55
Speaker 1: Watreet Journalist as quote. While mister Carlson's Tuger Carlson Tonight
15:59
Speaker 1: was pop, it was also repellent to blue chip advertisers.
16:03
Speaker 1: Top tier marketers tend to steer clear of content they
16:07
Speaker 1: deemed too controversy on the show, with sometimes a target
16:09
Speaker 1: of advertiser boycotts. Every successful show at Fox, by the way,
16:13
Speaker 1: is boycotted. The left will come after you. Different groups
16:16
Speaker 1: will come after you, just so you understand, and they'll
16:19
Speaker 1: do anything they can to try to destroy or hurt you,
16:22
Speaker 1: you personally. This is what happens. This happened a long
16:28
Speaker 1: time ago actually, when Glenn Beck was very effective in
16:31
Speaker 1: his show and it got to the point where they
16:33
Speaker 1: had boycotted him so successfully that they couldn't make money
16:36
Speaker 1: off of the show at Fox, and then he left.
16:40
Speaker 1: They do this and they try to do this with podcasts.
16:45
Speaker 1: I've been targeted. They tried to do it with the
16:47
Speaker 1: radio show. I know I've been targeted multiple times over
16:50
Speaker 1: the years, these liberal groups that get money from big
16:54
Speaker 1: Democratic donors, and that all they try to do is
16:57
Speaker 1: drum up hate towards you and your brand, and they
16:59
Speaker 1: go out the advertisers and they try to basically blackmail
17:04
Speaker 1: them into submission to stop advertising on your show. It
17:08
Speaker 1: has destroyed the ability for conservative talk radio and conservative
17:12
Speaker 1: media to make real money like you could do twenty
17:15
Speaker 1: years ago mainstream brands. I can't tell you how much money.
17:19
Speaker 1: I'll go go go back to Limbaugh. For example, there
17:23
Speaker 1: was a time when Limbaugh's advertisers were the biggest of
17:27
Speaker 1: the biggest. They were you know, major insurance companies, they
17:32
Speaker 1: were major car companies. They were major advertisers like John
17:37
Speaker 1: Deere and All State and State Farm, like the same
17:40
Speaker 1: stuff you see on the nightly news are in during
17:43
Speaker 1: football game commercials, basketball game commercials.
17:47
Speaker 2: The biggest of the biggest.
17:48
Speaker 1: It was just, look, he's got a massive audience as
17:50
Speaker 1: a conservative group, people with high net worth, high income.
17:54
Speaker 2: We want advertise to that group. People you bought Russe Limbaugh.
17:58
Speaker 1: Then Democrats got smart and they organized, I say got
18:01
Speaker 1: smart it's pure evil, it's anti American, it's anti freedom.
18:05
Speaker 2: But this was their thing there.
18:06
Speaker 1: All right, let's start just attacking him every day, and
18:11
Speaker 1: let's write these nasty articles about him, and all we're
18:14
Speaker 1: gonna do is then get a bunch of liberals to
18:16
Speaker 1: go to those advertisers demanding, okay, demanding that they silenced them, right,
18:24
Speaker 1: demanding that you shut it down, demanding that you that
18:28
Speaker 1: you don't advertise with him anymore. And eventually it started
18:32
Speaker 1: to work and it became the norm. The amount of
18:35
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions is probably what it cost Rustling Bass
18:39
Speaker 1: radio show, because then you had to go to direct
18:42
Speaker 1: to you know. And this is how companies like my
18:45
Speaker 1: pillow got created because there was such a void of
18:48
Speaker 1: advertisers that you could build companies around advertising conservati talk
18:53
Speaker 1: radio because you could get a better deal. And it's
18:56
Speaker 1: really sad, but that's the that's the reality. Look at
18:58
Speaker 1: the advertisers on Fox News Show during the commercial breaks
19:01
Speaker 1: compared to that of CNBC, of MSNBC, of CNN.
19:05
Speaker 2: It's night and day different night and day.
19:08
Speaker 1: You had the biggest advertisers on CNN even when their
19:11
Speaker 1: ratings sucked, because that was considered a safe audience. It's
19:16
Speaker 1: hardcore leftists, anti American rhetoric. They didn't care because the
19:19
Speaker 1: woke left of these companies, that's what they would do.
19:22
Speaker 1: Back to the article, top tier marketers tend to steer
19:25
Speaker 1: clear of content they deem too controversial. On the show
19:27
Speaker 1: was sometimes the target of advertiser boycotts. As advertisers have
19:31
Speaker 1: fled prime time, some have shifted to airing commercials on Fox.
19:34
Speaker 1: At other times, Mister Carlson's shows filled the most the void,
19:38
Speaker 1: mostly with ads from direct response advertisers and My Pillow Inc.
19:43
Speaker 1: The Pillow manufactured commercials star CEO Mike Lindell, who's also
19:47
Speaker 1: appears a guest on Tiger Carlston to Night and was
19:49
Speaker 1: one of the most prominent people spraying the false election
19:52
Speaker 1: fraud narrative. Direct response advertisers typically or smaller businesses whose
19:57
Speaker 1: ads encourage people to take actions such as ca calling
20:00
Speaker 1: a toll free number. The lack of advertiser demand meant
20:03
Speaker 1: the commercials in many cases weren't being sold at a
20:07
Speaker 1: premium order rate that would connect with the audience size,
20:12
Speaker 1: which meant it wasn't providing a financial windfall to the network.
20:15
Speaker 1: People familiar with the network's operations said as of late
20:19
Speaker 1: mister Carlton ratings ratings popularity on the network were surpassed
20:23
Speaker 1: by the afternoon panel show The Five. The popularity of
20:27
Speaker 1: mister Carlton's show, along with other Fox News programs, continued
20:30
Speaker 1: to give the network leverage when negotiating distribution deals with
20:34
Speaker 1: cable and satellite operators to carry the channel. Fox News
20:38
Speaker 1: cost those providers about two dollars a month for a subscriber,
20:41
Speaker 1: so if you have one of their boxes in your house,
20:44
Speaker 1: two dollars of what you're paying for cables going to Fox.
20:48
Speaker 1: According to industry estimates, over the next two years, Fox
20:52
Speaker 1: News will be renegotiating deals with major with most major distributors.
20:57
Speaker 1: The dominion court filing were hardly the first time that
20:59
Speaker 1: the momentator's take on other personalities at the network was
21:04
Speaker 1: on display. In twenty nineteen, mister Carlson attack then Fox
21:08
Speaker 1: News anchored Shepherd Smith on air for a show mister
21:11
Speaker 1: Smith had done in which Fox News contributor Judge Andrew
21:15
Speaker 1: Nepolotanos said mister Trump had been guilty of criminal behavior.
21:20
Speaker 1: Mister Carlton and mister Smith traded barbs at each other
21:23
Speaker 1: on their respected shows, with mister Smith calling mister Carlson's
21:28
Speaker 1: criticism mister.
21:30
Speaker 2: Repugnant.
21:31
Speaker 1: Shepherd Smith left Fox News soon after that tiff with Tucker.
21:36
Speaker 1: Shepherd Smith didn't respond to requests for comment from The
21:39
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal for this newest article. Fox News founding
21:43
Speaker 1: chairman and CEO Roger Ayles, who was forced out in
21:46
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen after numerous allegations of sexual harassment that he denied,
21:50
Speaker 1: was known for being able to manage the larger than
21:52
Speaker 1: life personalities of some of the on air talent. Mister Ales,
21:57
Speaker 1: who died in seventeen, made sure that there was no
22:00
Speaker 1: shooting inside the tent. People who worked under him have said.
22:04
Speaker 1: In mister L's absence, longtime Fox News insiders lament the
22:09
Speaker 1: talent often seem to get their way, and that producers
22:11
Speaker 1: and executives who ever see their shows are reluctant to
22:14
Speaker 1: challenge them or use a heavy hand to rain them in.
22:17
Speaker 1: Fox News could suffer some rating decline should some of
22:21
Speaker 1: mister Carlson's audience leave with him, or if his replacement
22:26
Speaker 1: isn't as big of a draw. On Monday Night, the
22:29
Speaker 1: morning show anchor Brian kill Me to filling in the
22:30
Speaker 1: show drew two point six million viewers, according to Nielsen.
22:33
Speaker 1: That beat rival news channels, but it's smaller than Carlson's
22:36
Speaker 1: usual audience by almost a million. By the way, other
22:40
Speaker 1: big name Fox Who's anchors, including Bill O'Reilly, Megan Kelly,
22:43
Speaker 1: and Glenn Back, have left without harming Fox News' ratings overall.
22:47
Speaker 1: Some of them have gone on to a chief financial
22:49
Speaker 1: success with new media ventures. Mister Raley makes nearly thirty
22:52
Speaker 1: million a year and Miss Kelly will make well into
22:54
Speaker 1: eight figures. People familiar with their finances have said inside
22:58
Speaker 1: the network, the mantra among executs is that no one
23:02
Speaker 1: personality is bigger than the brand. History would show that
23:05
Speaker 1: the talent needs Fox more than Fox needs any particular talent,
23:10
Speaker 1: said Jonathan Klein, a former scene in president. Which is
23:13
Speaker 1: just funny that they're asking CNN to comment on Fox
23:15
Speaker 1: and a former scene and employee that got the living
23:18
Speaker 1: crap beat out of him by Fox. You have to
23:21
Speaker 1: laugh about that one, just a little bit, don't you.
23:25
Speaker 1: There's also something else that very interesting that happened, and
23:28
Speaker 1: that is Bill O'Reilly. It's Bill O'Reilly, who had been
23:34
Speaker 1: fired from Fox before, who was replaced by Tucker Carlson
23:38
Speaker 1: had this to say yesterday on his Ospins show Zone Listen.
23:43
Speaker 3: This was a shock to Tucker Carlson and his staff
23:46
Speaker 3: this morning. They were putting together tonight, Monday Night's program.
23:50
Speaker 3: They were actively involved with making the rundown, as all
23:54
Speaker 3: of us do. Who go on television each night to
23:57
Speaker 3: talk to you In the middle of that boom, Tucker
24:03
Speaker 3: Carlson his history at the Fox News Show. That's how
24:06
Speaker 3: fast it came. Nobody knew and that's in stone. Okay,
24:12
Speaker 3: that's not speculation. So what was the decision making process?
24:19
Speaker 3: There are a number of things in play. First of all,
24:23
Speaker 3: if you watched sixty Minutes last night, you saw a
24:26
Speaker 3: man named Ray Epps, right tell the audience that Tucker
24:34
Speaker 3: Carlson ruined his life. I'm going to deal with mister
24:37
Speaker 3: Epps in the final thought of today's broadcast. But that
24:42
Speaker 3: was a pretty strong assertion on sixty minutes. And when
24:46
Speaker 3: I saw it, I said, oh, here comes a lawsuit
24:49
Speaker 3: against Tucker Carlson and Fox News from Ray Epps. If
24:53
Speaker 3: you don't if that name isn't familiar, Mister Carlson hypothesized
24:58
Speaker 3: that he was involved with staging the January sixth Riot.
25:06
Speaker 3: All right, that's a very shorthand. Vergion f of course
25:10
Speaker 3: denies any of that. He was there, but he says
25:14
Speaker 3: he wasn't an undercover FBI agent or whatever other stuff
25:17
Speaker 3: was floating around. Again. I'll get to that at the
25:19
Speaker 3: end of the program. Number one, number two. There are
25:24
Speaker 3: a number of lawsuits going to be filed shortly against
25:29
Speaker 3: Fox News board of directors, people who sit on the board, okay,
25:37
Speaker 3: by shareholders, people who own the stock. And by the way,
25:41
Speaker 3: Fox News stock was down big today, Okay, so FNC
25:47
Speaker 3: is aware those lawsuits are coming. And the board of
25:52
Speaker 3: directors themselves, the individuals sitting on the board, Okay, you're
25:58
Speaker 3: gonna have to they're gonna to defend themselves. That's big.
26:04
Speaker 3: And then Smart Mattic, which I don't think is a
26:07
Speaker 3: very important lawsuits since the smart Mata company only had
26:11
Speaker 3: one county in the twenty twenty election where their machines
26:15
Speaker 3: were used. So they're suing for two point six billionaire
26:19
Speaker 3: that's just InSync. They'll settle, I believe, with Fox, but
26:24
Speaker 3: for not nearly what the menion got. But that's an
26:28
Speaker 3: opinion of mine, all right, But the fact is this
26:34
Speaker 3: litigation against Fox News is ongoing and destructive. Tucker Carlson
26:42
Speaker 3: is the lightning rod. Okay, so an interesting piece of history.
26:47
Speaker 3: When I left six years ago, the Factor was averaging
26:51
Speaker 3: close to four million viewers at eight o'clock and another
26:55
Speaker 3: two at eleven o'clock for our rerun at six million people. Right,
27:01
Speaker 3: no cable program has approached that, all right since I left,
27:06
Speaker 3: because that's a pretty lofty number. Carlson took over for me.
27:11
Speaker 3: In the first two years, he lost about a million
27:14
Speaker 3: of my viewers. Okay, he was doing around three to
27:19
Speaker 3: eight two million, eight hundred thousand. Then he made a
27:23
Speaker 3: very shrewd decision. And Tucker Carlson himself is a smart
27:27
Speaker 3: man and a talented broadcaster. Anybody who thinks he isn't
27:32
Speaker 3: is a fool. I mean, he knows what he's doing
27:36
Speaker 3: on television. So he decided to go to get viewers
27:41
Speaker 3: from the committed right, all right, a lot like Rush
27:45
Speaker 3: Limbaugh did. And he went into that precinct and he
27:49
Speaker 3: programmed for those Americans. His base was about three million people,
27:55
Speaker 3: which in this day and age puts him ahead of
27:58
Speaker 3: most other cable news outfits. Okay, so, but in doing that,
28:05
Speaker 3: his commentary became in many cases conspiratorial. And again, you
28:11
Speaker 3: can make a lot of money doing that, and there's
28:14
Speaker 3: nothing wrong with doing that as long as you tell
28:17
Speaker 3: people this is my opinion. It's speculation. But this is
28:20
Speaker 3: what I think is not wrong with that. I don't
28:23
Speaker 3: disparage that. I'm a hard news guy. My opinions are
28:26
Speaker 3: based on facts. But the conspiracy industry is huge. Russian collusion,
28:33
Speaker 3: I mean, that was insane. And every news organization except
28:38
Speaker 3: Fox embraced that conspiracy, did they not.
28:45
Speaker 2: It's an interesting take from Bill O'Reilly. There also.
28:52
Speaker 1: Mayor Pete doubling down on his request of twenty million
28:57
Speaker 1: in taxpayer funding for female crash dummies to be more inclusive.
29:02
Speaker 2: It's a woke priority. It's going to cost you twenty
29:05
Speaker 2: million dollars.
29:06
Speaker 4: I don't think it's woke to build good infrastructure. I
29:09
Speaker 4: just saw Fox News taking a run of me for
29:11
Speaker 4: the work that we're doing on a safety including the
29:14
Speaker 4: use of crash test dummies that simulate men, women, and children.
29:19
Speaker 4: And somehow this is considered a woke priority to have
29:22
Speaker 4: female crash test stummies, even though not something that's been
29:24
Speaker 4: around for a very long time.
29:26
Speaker 1: We have crash test stummies by the way, that are
29:28
Speaker 1: like just look like humans. He wants them to look
29:31
Speaker 1: like women. It's going to cost you twenty million dollars
29:35
Speaker 1: twenty million.
29:36
Speaker 2: Dollars to do that.
29:38
Speaker 1: Just to put it in perspective, how insane these people are.
29:42
Speaker 1: Please share this podcast with your family and friends. Please
29:46
Speaker 1: make sure you write us a five star review wherever
29:49
Speaker 1: you're listening to this podcast, so that will help us
29:51
Speaker 1: reach more people.
29:52
Speaker 2: And we will see you back here tomorrow.