There was one, though, the very famous one, the one where he accuses me of drinking children's blood and running the banks, which you all have dined out on in the past, which Tucker Carlson recently celebrated on his web show.

I will tell you, that was actually the one night during the Trump administration that my wife was worried about my line of work and was fearful about our livelihood and our life. We were living in the city. We were about to have our first child. And she watches this insane, unhinged rant with my smiley face plastered up on the screen.

Because little Pepe the Frog logos started getting sent to us in the mail. And the interesting thing about that is, like, there was no message attached, right? There was no, like, threat or anything. It was just their way of saying, we know where you live.

Nine times out of ten, I think this is just online chaos. Most of the time, almost all of the time, it is just this reality distortion field that only exists on people's computers and screens.

But I think what I learned in the Trump years as an anchor at CNN was that, Brian, they're not talking about you. They're talking about a cartoon character villain they've created. With your name and your face.

The afternoon that Trump randomly tweeted about me, and I didn't hear from a single friend of mine. I didn't have a single family member call me. I'm not that much of a... I have friends. I'm a social person. It's just that nobody in my world, in my reality, cared what Donald Trump was tweeting.

Fox is always going to be more anti-Democrat than it is anything else. I view it as... Even more than a right-wing or pro-Republican channel, it's an anti-Democrat machine. It exists to try to defeat the left, whatever it thinks the left is.

They're in about a billion dollars. They are approaching a billion dollars total in settlements as a result of Trump's election lies.

What does Fox do in that scenario? And I think the answer to that hypothetical is Fox does not... Defame specific voting companies. If you're booked on Fox in November of 2024, if Donald Trump loses again, if you start saying, Dominion did it, you're going to be cut off. You're not going to be booked again. So in that very narrow sense, something will have changed. There will be specific companies that you're not allowed to defame on Fox in 2024.

It's disturbing to me how he got up there before the Iowa caucus and said, this chance, you in Iowa, it's the ultimate chance for you to declare victory. Over the perverts and the Democrats. He starts naming all these groups that he considers not real Americans. And it was a very explicit dehumanization call.

But Tara Carlson's firing was Lachlan Murdoch's way of trying to make his network seem a little more center-right. Sure. As opposed to far right. Now, we can dismantle all of that and we can say that's all bullshit. But in his head, at least, and in his boards, in the minds of his board members, they were taking Fox, which was with Tucker, even further out toward that Alex Jones conspiracy world and dragging it a little bit back closer to a shared reality.

I think there is a world in which, like, so to me, if you look at Fox Corporation, Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert, Paul Ryan, who's on the board, the other board members. These are still, maybe not Lachlan, but these are still mostly country club Republicans. These are still mostly tax cut Republicans. And, you know, they make all sorts of compromises, you know, to try to appeal to a more populist crowd, to try to appeal to an anti-immigration crowd. But, you know, that's who is at... On top of Fox.

I look at the country in 2024 and I see a disillusioned, dissatisfied, depressed electorate, right? People who don't like these choices, who don't want to rematch, who don't want to rerun, but are sucking it up and accepting it. I see a political class that thinks this is all really, really important, and then... Virtually everybody else saying, no, thanks. We don't care. We're shrugging it off. I see these groups that are dedicated to defending democracy that are doing all the right things because they're absolutely right. There are real threats. And yet, how do you get your mother to care? How do you get your neighbors to care? So in an environment where it just feels like the electorate is disillusioned, dissatisfied.

Trump doesn't have half the country. He doesn't have that many fans. He has, what, 60% of the Republican voter electorate? He has maybe 70% on a good day? He has definitely, for sure, tens of millions of MAGA loyalists, but not even close to half the country.

Most Americans don't want an autocracy. They don't want... That doesn't mean they won't vote for a wannabe autocrat, right? But most Americans don't want that. We know that about, what, one in four Americans would prefer a strongman-style leader. We've seen that in polling for decades. We know there's a strain of authoritarianism in America that dates back to the founding. There's always been a minority, but it's a minority, right? It's not even close to 50%.

I feel like I've soaked in this swamp for long enough to feel like most of the incentives are the same. Most of the people care about the same things. Most of them are not degenerate liars. Most of them are not wholly lacking in ethics. Most of them want to come over to their families and make a lot of money and yada, yada, yada.

But he's putting on a very predictable show. But when I say he's doing it in service of political agenda, I think that part's clear. Based on what he decides to lead his show with every night, he very clearly wants Biden to be removed and all that.

But when I say he's doing it in service of political agenda, I think that part's clear. Based on what he decides to lead his show with every night, he very clearly wants Biden to be removed and all that.

Well, so I think Fox has evolved over time or devolved over time. There was an era where they claimed to be fair and balanced for real. That was not just a slogan, that was reality. And there was a time when if you called the channel conservative, the PR people would object and would complain and would go to your editors and demand a correction. Sure. That era is over.

I mean, I can say it on my dumb little... I think they would... Well, you can say it, but I think they would object to the term racist, yes.

I'm just saying when Fox, you know, Fox makes sure, you know, Fox has the cameras there to meet the planes. Like, Fox has raised the salience of the immigration conversation, of the topic, in a dramatic fashion. Like, Fox deserves a lot of credit or blame or whatever for raising the salience.

But it's so revealing because people like Alex Jones, who are addicted to the red light, the red light on the camera. It's kind of a metaphor. TV agents talk about this sometimes. They have clients who are addicted to the red light, who need to be on TV. That's how it shows. He needs to be heard. He needs to be out in front of the world. And it turns out I don't have that addiction.

And so in the book, I say a senior staffer called it a double or triple game that the Murdochs play. They make money from the Tucker people, the opinion people, but they reap other rewards from the news people. And so I think that applies to Cavuto as well. It's a double or triple game.

And so in the book, I say a senior staffer called it a double or triple game that the Murdochs play. They make money from the Tucker people, the opinion people, but they reap other rewards from the news people. And so I think that applies to Cavuto as well. It's a double or triple game.

What I realized is it's just a giant networking event for rich people. It's just a networking thing. They're there to schmooze and see each other and go to their parties.

But Maria Bartiromo, Maria Bartiromo, who more than any other person is responsible for the defamation case by Dominion, who started the Dominion lie on Fox, who had the first interview with Trump after Trump lost the election and who who indulged his delusions and encouraged his attack against the government.

But that moment that Trump took the term fake news and redefined it to mean news he doesn't like, news you shouldn't believe, the moment that that happened, we got fucked as a country. That really deeply wounded us.

Fox is more than a news brand. It's a way of life. It is a lifestyle brand. It is an identity for many of its fans.

And then second, I think, leaning on humor. Allows them to get away with stuff that they can't otherwise, right? In the same way that you see this with a lot of the right-wing rhetoric around race, for example, or gender.

Well, I'd like to say that, I mean, I was born in 1985, so I kind of remember the 90s. We had a political environment that was not nearly as toxic and polarizing. Can we say that?

That's where Trump has taken us, is this fear. And it's what's led, I think, to the dissatisfaction and depression of the electorate that I was talking about earlier. People just are tuned out and checked out. They don't want to deal with it. They don't want to think about it because they don't want to get into that argument with their neighbors. They don't want to have that dispute. That, to me, feels like the world that Fox and Trump created or nurtured.

My favorite analogy on the point about whites and power is Robert P. Jones, head of PRI, this institute that does a lot of surveys on this topic. And he said, picture America as a dining room table where it used to be that white Christians controlled who sat at the table and where they got to sit, right? Like the head of the family. And now, in an increasingly multicultural country, there's no single demographic group controlling the table. Everybody is invited to sit wherever they want. And that's what's deeply threatening and deeply unsettling to the core Fox viewer, like to the typical 70-year-old white male Fox Christian conservative viewer. That idea that anybody can pull up a chair is the entire story.

And I think when we look at an hour of Sean Hannity's show, that is making the situation worse. He is not looking for common ground. He is not trying to find areas where we can make progress. He is so in division. But I think there's a lot of media that helps to show people they have in common.

There is something really warped where Sean Hannity has more influence than the average GOP lawmaker.

And I look around and I say, Tucker being canceled suggests that maybe kooky conspiracy theories are not quite as welcome at Fox as they were the week before he was on the, like, you know, like a little bit, a little bit of hope, a little bit of hope here.

So Tucker just sits there and listens respectfully while Glenn implores people to buy his book. And sure enough, the book is number one on Amazon right now because fear does sell. And after the interview, Tucker thanks his guest and calls the book amazing and horrifying.

And then he says, just briefly, just gently, that he's heard about this Washington State conspiracy theory. And he hasn't been able to verify it.

If you take a step back and think about it, the COVID-19 pandemic is a chance for salesmen to sell fear.

Take the unvaccinated Glenn Beck, who's been shilling his new book while sick with COVID.

InfoWars hoaxer Alex Jones claimed it was going to happen. He claimed there was going to be a new civil war on July 4th.

It's just the latest example of an InfoWars hoax. A story that was totally made up. And designed to deceive people.