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April 25, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

52:33

BREAKING: Tucker Carlson OUT At Fox News

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	Well, it is the biggest media news of the last decade.
	Tucker Carlson has been apparently fired by Fox News.
	The statement that was originally put out by Fox News Media suggested an agreement to part ways, but we can all tell that that is not exactly what happened.
	According to Fox News, quote, Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways.
	We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.
	Mr. Carlson's last program was Friday, April 21st.
	Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 p.m.
	Eastern, starting this evening as an interim show, helmed by a rotating Fox News personalities crew, until a new host is named.
	It's earth-shattering, in media terms.
	It is enormous.
	Tucker is the biggest cable host on TV.
	He's got 3 million viewers a night, according to the latest ratings.
	The market immediately responded by not liking what happened very much.
	So the Fox News stock took a serious dive.
	It went from approximately $33.50 a share all the way down to about $31.50 a share.
	So it lost like a couple of bucks in share price, which was, you know, when you aggregate it, $690 million in value.
	Now it regained a lot of that by the end of trading, but it just shows you that Tucker meant a lot to the network in terms of the actual value of the network.
	Tucker obviously did not see it coming.
	So any talk that this was some sort of planned arrangement between Tucker Carlson and Fox News, that he was ready to go with, for example, another media outlet, or that he was readying a presidential run, that appears to be belied by the simple fact that on Friday, Tucker literally said, we'll see you here on Monday.
	And what we are hearing from people who are in the know is that Tucker was prepping his show as of Monday morning, getting ready for Monday night, when the news came down that he had been summarily fired from Fox News.
	Here are the last moments of Tucker's show.
	Apparently forever, on Friday from Fox News.
	Tyler Burrell joins us in studio.
	He will deliver literally anywhere.
	Tyler, it is so great to meet you in person.
	Got a couple pies for you.
	Couple Cocos pies.
	So we at, these are from Cocos, established 1978.
	This is sausage.
	That's sausage.
	And pineapple.
	And really quick, as a pizza professional, do you look down on this order?
	I do, I think that, I consider a criminal.
	I knew you did!
	That's it for us for the week.
	We'll be back.
	By the way, the entire episode of Let Them Eat Bugs, not quite as good as pizza, streaming now on Fox Station.
	Use the promo code ORIGINALS for 30 days free.
	And we'll be back on Monday.
	In the meantime, have the best weekend with the ones that you love.
	That was the end of Tucker Carlson's show.
	So first of all, I mean, you can you can see Tucker, a really, really good and talented broadcaster, very exciting to watch on air, really upbeat and interesting very often, but capable of doing anger in a way that pretty much no one else in the media is capable of doing it.
	This is why he was so beloved by his fans.
	And again, he's not dead.
	He's going to come back in some other form and he's going to be wildly successful when he does.
	He's an incredibly talented person.
	But this, of course, raises questions as to why exactly he was ousted when Fox News covered the ouster.
	They basically just read the statement on the air.
	Here was Harris Faulkner doing that.
	We have some news from within our Fox family.
	Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have mutually agreed to part ways.
	Tucker's last show was this past Friday.
	And starting tonight, Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 p.m.
	Eastern.
	It will be an interim show with rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named.
	We want to thank Tucker Carlson for his service to the network as a host, And prior to that, as a long-term contributor.
	And that was the entirety of Fox News' coverage of the issue when it first broke.
	This follows hard on Tucker giving what was a pretty spectacular address to the Heritage
	Foundation on Sunday night.
	Again, no indication that he knew what was coming on Monday.
	And again, it's Tucker's stark ability to characterize the difference between good and
	evil in politics that's made him so wildly popular with his audience.
	Here was some of his speech to Heritage Foundation.
	I know somebody who was in the room during the speech said it was one of the best after-dinner speeches they'd ever seen.
	Here was Tucker on Sunday night.
	So when I started at Heritage, the presumption was, and this is a very Anglo-American assumption, that the debates we're having are kind of rational debates about the way to get to mutually agreed upon outcomes.
	If you have people who are saying, I have an idea, let's castrate the next generation.
	Let's sexually mutilate children.
	I'm sorry, that's not a political debate.
	What?
	It has nothing to do with politics.
	What's the outcome we're desiring here?
	If you say, well, you know, I think abortion is always bad.
	Well, I think sometimes it's necessary.
	That's a debate I'm familiar with.
	But if you're telling me that abortion is a positive good, what are you saying?
	Well, you're arguing for child sacrifice, obviously.
	When people, or crowds of people, or the largest crowd of people at all, which is the federal government, the largest human organization in human history, decide that the goal is to destroy things.
	Destruction for its own sake.
	Hey, let's tear it down.
	What you're watching is not a political movement.
	It's evil.
	Again, it was Tucker's ability to characterize good and evil that made him so wildly popular.
	As I said before, Tucker is really, really talented.
	He's going to land on his feet somewhere.
	Maybe it'll be at a place that you've heard of, maybe it'll be a place that you haven't.
	Whatever it is that comes next, Tucker is going to be successful at it because again,
	he's a very, very talented guy with a large crowd of people who really like him.
	This all requires us to ask the question, why did this happen?
	It's particularly true given the fact that he re-upped with the network back in February of 2021.
	According to Deadline Hollywood, this is February 2021.
	There's a lot more Tucker Carlson coming.
	The top rated Fox News channel host has just signed a new multi-year deal to bolster sister streaming service Fox Nation with a video podcast series and Tucker Carlson specials.
	So, what exactly happened?
	Because he's still under contract and then he was summarily fired.
	I mean, that is pretty clearly what happened here.
	We'll drop a trio of new shows every week.
	Umbrella Company, Fox News Media said on Wednesday, and this was again a multi-year contract
	that was designed to allow Tucker to expand his footprint not just to the network itself,
	but also to the streaming platform that was Fox Nation.
	So what exactly happened?
	Because he's still under contract and then he was summarily fired.
	I mean, that is pretty clearly what happened here.
	We'll get to the actual details of the firing and what may have laid behind it in just one moment first.
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	Okay, so, what lay behind this?
	So, a few different theories.
	Theory number one is that Tucker was basically ousted as a consequence of the Dominion lawsuit.
	This is the theory of the Washington Post.
	The Washington Post says Carlson's private messages were among hundreds of internal
	communications made public in the course of the Dominion lawsuit that caused angst and embarrassment
	for Fox and heightened the company's legal jeopardy. Fox ultimately agreed to pay Dominion
	$800 million or so. Among other comments, Carlson expressed skepticism of the election fraud claims
	made on air by attorneys affiliated with President Trump and declared that he passionately hates the
	former president whose rise to power had been cheered by Fox in order to avoid people like
	Tucker having to testify or Judge Jeanine having to testify or a wide variety of other Fox News
	Hosed having to testify.
	Fox News instead decided to, and this would be Rupert Murdoch, decided to sign an $800 million check to Dominion.
	But according to the Washington Post, it wasn't those comments that were so bothersome.
	It was Carlson's comments about Fox management, as revealed in the Dominion case, that played a role in his departure from Fox, according to a person familiar with the company's thinking.
	Quote, Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we've lost with our audience?
	Carlson wrote to a colleague in a message a day after Fox, like the other media outlets, called the election for Joe Biden.
	This is a sentiment echoed by others at Fox in the fall of 2020, as even network officials who disbelieved Trump's election fraud conspiracy theories, fretted that countering them strongly would alienate their conservative viewers.
	So in other words, a lot of the Fox News executives were looking at the fact that Tucker really didn't believe a lot of the things that were being alleged by Sidney Powell and Trump's legal team, but also was deeply worried about how that was going to play with the Fox News audience and all that had now come out.
	In another message, Carlson referred to management with an expletive, quote,
	those efforts are destroying our credibility. He later wrote, a combination of incompetent
	liberals and top leadership with too much pride is back down is what is happening.
	Carlson did not have a farewell show, obviously.
	So this is theory number one, is that this was the natural aftereffect of the Dominion lawsuit, that basically everybody who was involved in any sort of credibility-giving to the election fraud narrative is now going to be on the line.
	And to back that theory, you have the fact that Fox News also parted ways with Dan Bongino just last week.
	Dan Bongino, of course, had been very vocal in his support not only for President Trump, but also had wanted to do an interview a couple of years ago in which Trump actually aired his grievances about the election.
	The Fox News brass cut the interview and Dan actually went on the air and he said, you shouldn't cut the interview with the former president of the United States.
	He's the former president of the United States.
	It was just a few days ago that Fox News parted ways with Bongino.
	So it's hard not to see Carlson's ouster in the context of Dan Bongino also being ousted as of last week.
	Now, that's not the only possible theory.
	Theory number two is that there are ancillary issues that we actually are only now becoming aware of.
	According to the Los Angeles Times, and this would have been Steve Battaglio reporting as a staff writer over there, people familiar with the situation who are not authorized to comment publicly said the decision to fire Carlson came straight from the top from Rupert Murdoch directly.
	Carlson's exit is related, according to them, to the discrimination lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg.
	There's another lawsuit that has been on the books.
	She's a producer fired by the network last month, according to certain people.
	Carlson's senior executive producer, Justin Wells, has also been terminated, according to people familiar with the matter.
	So what exactly was in that particular lawsuit?
	A bunch of allegations were in that particular lawsuit.
	None of them particularly pretty.
	According to Yahoo News, just about a month ago, that discrimination lawsuit included allegations that constant bullying and gaslighting caused the producer so much stress and anxiety, her stomach ulcers flared up and she was in excruciating pain, and that she'd been discriminated against based on gender, religion, and disability.
	Discovery may have uncovered other ugly messages, perhaps.
	Maybe this is what Fox News was worried about.
	The network said in a statement, Fox News media engaged an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms.
	Grossberg, which were made following a critical performance review.
	Grossberg's complaint contains allegations that Fox's lawyers pressured her to provide misleading testimony in the Dominion claim, in the Dominion voting claim.
	Fox News says her allegations in connection with the Dominion case are baseless.
	We will vigorously defend Fox against all of her legal claims, which have no merit.
	So again, the allegation here is that a former Tucker producer was alleging anti-Semitism and sexism and maybe this had some legal ramifications.
	So that is theory number two, is that it was sort of ancillary issues, that producer's lawsuit.
	Another possibility was that the network was very upset with the possibility of additional legal liability created, they think, by Tucker Carlson.
	For example, Ray Epps, who you'll recall from Tucker's show, he was a Texas man who, the day before the actual storming of the Capitol building, urged people to enter the Capitol building.
	A lot of people on the right have suggested that he was some sort of FBI plant.
	And Epps was interviewed Sunday on 60 Minutes.
	He suggested that Tucker had targeted him.
	Maybe Fox News didn't want to be hit with another lawsuit.
	That's quite possible after suffering an $800 million settlement, which is actually the largest media settlement in American history so far as we are aware.
	Again, that is a possibility as well. There's also talk about the possibility that the network
	was upset about Tucker's coverage of January 6th. Tucker had done a special not all that long ago.
	We covered some of Tucker's allegations in the special. For example, the fact that the so-called
	buffalo horned man, whatever his name was, QAnon Shaman, that he was walking around the building
	shadowed by a bunch of cops.
	And that looked kind of different than the idea that he was kind of running around the building threatening people physically and all of this.
	And Tucker had sort of downplayed the nature of January 6th.
	Maybe the brass didn't like that very much.
	But what this all comes down to is it looks as though Fox News is quote unquote cleaning house.
	And that can be, you know, for bad.
	There are a lot of people who not only love Tucker, but also think that Tucker says things that other people won't.
	Which is true, Tucker does say things that other people won't.
	You can see a fundamental divide has emerged, obviously, inside the Fox Corporation, and that was pretty clear from what members of the Fox News brass were saying during election 2020.
	There's a pretty clear divide between some of the top brass, that'd be Rupert Murdoch, maybe Lachlan Murdoch, Paul Ryan, some of the other people who are sort of at the top of the Fox brass, and some of the other people who are Again, near the top, more sympathetic to the perspectives of the hosts who, for example, did not want Arizona called in favor of Joe Biden.
	I've been Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace, for example.
	We'll get to that momentarily.
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	Okay, so if you look back at the text of the various members of sort of the Fox News brass, they had very different opinions on sort of what was happening in 2020 and a lot of what seems like happened with Tucker on Monday morning.
	Seems like it was fallout from 2020, just late, and as a result of the Dominion judgment.
	So for example, if you look at the text of Rupert Murdoch at the time, he texted Suzanne Scott, who's the CEO of Fox News, January 21st, 2021, saying, still getting mud thrown at us.
	Maybe Sean and Laura went too far.
	All very well for Sean to tell you who's in despair about Trump, but what did he tell his viewers?
	So Murdoch apparently was not happy with the behavior of some of the hosts with regard to the division between what they were saying to the viewers and what they were saying sort of behind the scenes.
	Lachlan Murdoch, who is the Fox Corp CEO and Rupert's son, he said, News guys have to be careful how they cover this rally.
	The narrative should be this is a huge celebration of the president.
	That was a message that he sent Suzanne Scott November 14, 2020 about coverage of a Trump rally in which two Fox journalists had contradicted election fraud claims.
	Paul Ryan also suggested that the 2020 election coverage was an inflection point for the company and a chance for people to tell the truth about what they actually thought about the election fraud claims.
	Meanwhile, Suzanne Scott took the position that there were reporters who had not gone
	along with some of the election fraud claims and that she was skeptical that this would
	not harm them with the audience.
	What I can't keep defending these reporters who don't understand our viewers and how to
	handle stories.
	The audience feels like we crapped on them.
	We've damaged their trust and believe in us.
	We can fix this, but we can't smirk at our viewers any longer.
	So again, there's all this sort of back and forth inside the network, and you can see
	the various points of view that we're taking shape.
	And Tucker was at the center of that, because at the same time that he said, quote, we are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights is January 4th, 2021.
	I truly can't wait.
	At the same time, he was obviously giving a lot of airtime to members of Trump's campaign, including people like Sidney Powell.
	Now, again, this is a very confused time.
	Fox didn't take a particularly strong line as to what it wished to see said and what it didn't wish to see said.
	Bottom line is that it's unclear right now whether this is simply a matter of Tucker Carlson or whether Fox News is attempting to draw some new lines about how they covered the issues.
	Whatever the case may be.
	And again, I think all of these points of view are arguable.
	Whatever the case may be, Tucker was a major asset to Fox News.
	It's not going to be so easy to fill that time slot.
	That is a very difficult time slot to fill.
	Again, he was the number one host in prime time for Fox News.
	Now, there are people who are immediately chortling over the impact of this.
	The New York Times has been chortling over the impact of this, suggesting that Fox News is in serious trouble or that Tucker's in serious trouble.
	The truth is both will go on to success in their various areas of endeavor.
	This is not the first rodeo for Fox News.
	Fox News fired Bill O'Reilly.
	Back when he had about 3.7 million viewers a night, Tucker has about 2.9 million viewers a night.
	Bill O'Reilly went on to make a lot of money in other endeavors, and Fox News went on to, you know, continue to be wildly successful.
	Fox News has parted ways in the past with some friends of mine, people like Glenn Beck, people like Megyn Kelly.
	Again, those are all business decisions, and Fox News went on to continue to have wide-ranging viewership.
	But you can see a lot of people, of course, very angry and very upset about Tucker Carlson being ousted from Fox News, and that is a direct response to the fact that Tucker, again, is an incredibly compelling performer.
	He is somebody who has a unique point of view on politics, and I don't agree with Tucker a lot.
	There are times I've talked about on the show where I strenuously disagree with Tucker.
	If you want to see some other times where I strenuously disagree with Tucker, all you have to do is watch the Sunday special episode I did with him where we disagreed on everything from foreign policy to government interventionism in the American economy.
	He, for example, thinks the government should intervene strongly in the American economy, give subsidies, prevent technological developments in order to preserve certain types of jobs.
	I don't think that.
	Whatever Tucker is, he's certainly a compelling presence.
	And he does, when it comes to social issues particularly, have an extraordinary amount of moral clarity.
	And it'll be interesting to see how Fox News tries to, how they try to fill that gap.
	So when I say that the left is celebrating Tucker Carlson being fired from Fox News, I mean literally celebrating by doing the wave.
	So the intellectual luminaries over at The View led the charge here.
	Again, combined IQ, lower than the pen I currently hold in my hand.
	If it were possible to have negative IQ points, The View would somehow achieve that signal.
	Here's what it looked like on The View when they found out that Tucker had been let go.
	Word has just come down that Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways.
	They thank him for his service to the network and House of Reply are contributing. Wave.
	Now they're doing the wave.
	They're literally doing the wave right now.
	That's the first time some of these people have stood up in at least 11 years.
	So that is very exciting.
	So yeah, great stuff there from those of you.
	By the way, they're very excited about a network they never watch.
	They're really, really excited about it.
	Like, if somebody got fired on MSNBC, a network I never watch, I wouldn't be like, oh my god, that's amazing!
	I'd be like, uh, I never watch that network, I don't care.
	It just shows how much the left is bewildered and confused and upset by the presence of an alternative point of view, like Fox News in the first place, and certainly Tucker.
	CNN, of course, was very excited about all of this.
	CNN's Oliver Darcy, he says that the reason that Tucker was fired is because he was leading them in an extremist direction, which of course was always going to be CNN's line on this.
	This raises a lot of questions about whether the network potentially is trying to at least rein in some of the more extreme people on the channel.
	I mean, of course, Tucker Carlson, the most extreme probably on that channel.
	I should also note, John, why this is so important.
	I mean, Tucker Carlson outside Donald Trump really was the person commanding the GOP, really directing it.
	You saw Republican lawmakers, prominent Republican lawmakers, often grovel at his feet.
	Ted Cruz.
	Ted Cruz, for instance, groveled at his feet, and others, because they were afraid of him going on his primetime show and lashing out at them.
	So this is not only huge news in the world of media, but also in the world of politics, where he was really pushing the GOP in that extremist direction.
	And Tucker is not going to go away here.
	Despite CNN really reveling in all of this, Tucker's not going to go away.
	I mean, there were immediate rumors that Tucker might run for president.
	Now, I think that that is a very sketchy rumor, given the fact that, again, Tucker Carlson tends to be a private person.
	He's somebody who really enjoys his private life, and he doesn't want to see that up on a screen.
	I'm not sure that he wants to go head-to-head with Donald Trump, a man who has no limits when it comes to attacking his political opponents.
	But It is galling to watch the members of the left-wing media, who've been wildly dishonest for years about Trump, about Tucker, about pretty much everybody, now kind of reveling in it.
	The New York Times re-ran a piece today titled, The Times Did an Investigation into How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable.
	This, of course, is their routine.
	Is that anybody they don't like is a white supremacist?
	That is the way all of this works.
	I'll repeat it again.
	Tucker's an immensely talented guy.
	He's going to go on to have immense success in whatever he chooses to do next.
	This is not the end of Fox News.
	It's not remotely the end of Fox News, because again, Fox News still is the primetime destination for the vast majority of America's really motivated conservatives.
	Is it going to harm Fox News?
	Certainly with Tucker's viewers, it will.
	But again, the kind of rule in conservative media is that Fox News continues to truck on and ex-hosts, they continue to have second careers as well.
	So this is hardly the end for either of them.
	In just a second, we'll get to the other big media firing of the day.
	And this one is actually kind of funny.
	We'll get to that momentarily first.
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	So, Tucker, his firing was, of course, the biggest news yesterday.
	The second biggest news yesterday was the firing of Don Lemon.
	So, Don Lemon of CNN was finally let go.
	The first take on this was actually Don Lemon himself.
	So he put out a statement reading, quote, I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN.
	I am stunned.
	After 17 years at CNN, I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly.
	At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network.
	It is clear there are some larger issues at play.
	With that said, I want to thank my colleagues and the many teams I've worked with for an incredible run.
	They're the most talented journalists in the business, and I wish them all the best.
	So, uh, he's obviously implying when he says there are some larger issues at play.
	Presumably he is implying that sexism is to blame because he is a gay man, or racism is to blame because he is a black man, or whatever else it is that Don Lemon is going to claim about why he was fired.
	The reason he was fired is because he was getting lower ratings than some forms of colon cancer, and also because he had a really bad habit of doing creepy and weird things to his co-hosts.
	That is the reason why, I mean, honestly, the fact that it took him this long to be fired is insane.
	I mean, there were profiles of him years ago, like, hitting on waiters at restaurants.
	In the profile.
	And I was like, oh, that's totally fine.
	What's the big deal?
	Now, I have to just point out the radical irony of Don Lemon being fired at CNN and still losing to Tucker Carlson.
	That's hysterically funny.
	So not only does Don Lemon get fired, but still in the cable competition for who actually cares about Don Lemon getting fired, he still comes in second to Tucker Carlson.
	The great irony, of course, is fast forward, you know, several decades and they're definitely going to die on the same day, right?
	And then Tucker is going to be above the fold and Don Lemon's going to be on page like A-17 is the way this is going.
	It's only God could have a sense of humor like this when it comes to Don Lemon, because that is really, really funny.
	CNN immediately said that Don Lemon was inaccurate.
	Which is great!
	So Don Lemon getting fact-checked by his own network.
	Remember, this was their news anchor who can't even tell the truth about how he was fired.
	According to CNN PR, quote, the statement is inaccurate.
	He was offered an opportunity to meet with management, but instead released a statement on Twitter.
	So they said, do you want to come in and talk about it?
	He's like, nope.
	And then he released a statement saying, I was never even contacted.
	So great job, CNN, for delegating.
	Truly amazing job delegating all of this to all your news coverage to a person who then
	lied about his own firing such that you had to correct the record.
	Really 17 years of news coverage so bad that even when he leaves, CNN has to fact check
	him retroactively about leaving.
	And that's the person you trusted to read the news for you guys.
	Just slow clap for CNN.
	They're doing an amazing, amazing job.
	Here's what it looked like on air when CNN announced the ouster of Don Lemon.
	Don Lemon and CNN have parted ways.
	This is according to a memo that was sent out to CNN employees.
	CNN and Don have parted ways.
	Don will forever be a part of the CNN family and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years.
	We wish him well and we will be cheering him on.
	In his future endeavors, and then it goes on to say that the network is committed to the morning show seen in this morning, which of course is hosted or was hosted by Don Lemon as well as Caitlin Collins and Poppy Harlow.
	Now, this statement is coming from CNN CEO Chris Licht.
	It does not detail what happened, what led to Don's departure, but Don Lemon is no longer with CNN.
	Oh, time to play the sad trombone music from The Price is Right.
	Here's the last things Don Lemon said on air before his untimely demise.
	Kayla and I agree on this. When someone calls, I'm like, what's wrong? What do you want?
	Don't call.
	What do you call? Yeah, just text me.
	Just saying hi, guys.
	Oh, no, no, no. Don't ever do that to me. You'll freak me out. No, no, no.
	Or the people who FaceTime out of the blue. I'm like, I'm not answering a FaceTime.
	Yeah, you're like, this is suspicious. All right, Harry and Tim, thank you so much.
	Thank you. Thanks.
	All right. And thank you for joining us this morning. CNN News Central starts right after
	this break.
	Bye, everyone.
	Well, bye. So much for Don Lemon.
	Okay, by the way, there was one other person who got ousted from the media over the course of the last 48 hours.
	Apparently, the CEO of NBCUniversal has also been ousted.
	His name is Jeff Schell.
	You haven't heard of him, even though he's probably more powerful than any of these people.
	He was the CEO of NBCUniversal.
	Apparently, he was ousted for inappropriate conduct with CNBC anchor and senior international correspondent Hadley Gamble.
	NBCU parent Comcast announced today that Shell was leaving after an investigation by outside counsel.
	Shell acknowledged, quote, I had an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company, which I deeply regret.
	Apparently, Deadline Hollywood learned that Shell had a relationship with Campbell, which started about 11 years ago and continued sporadically up until a couple of years ago when it ended.
	The complaint was lodged in the last month.
	Unclear why that would actually get the guy fired, but so long and happy trails to the head of NBCUniversal will also be replaced.
	Now, in the world of politics, Somebody got fired too.
	That person would be Susan Rice.
	So Susan Rice is out.
	She was the domestic policy advisor to Joe Biden.
	So very often I get asked, like, who is the person standing behind Joe Biden?
	Who's designing Joe Biden's really, really bad policy?
	There are several answers.
	Ron Klain, before he left, as he was the White House Chief of Staff.
	But Susan Rice was definitely near the top of the list.
	And now she is gone.
	According to the Washington Post, Susan Rice will step down as White House Domestic Policy Advisor, President Biden announced on Monday, praising her work on some of the most divisive issues for his administration, including immigration and healthcare.
	So why exactly was she ousted?
	Well, according to Joe Biden, she wasn't ousted.
	Everything was great.
	Biden said, So she sufficiently botched foreign policy under Barack Obama.
	I knew that and what we all know now after more than two years of her steady leadership
	at the Domestic Policy Council, it's clear there's no one more capable and more determined
	to get important things done for the American people than Susan Rice.
	So she sufficiently botched foreign policy under Barack Obama.
	Then she botched domestic policy under Joe Biden.
	She will step down in late May, according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
	Rice has not specified what her plans were after leaving the White House.
	She was responsible for overseeing policy, including economic mobility, health care, and immigration.
	She did an amazing job on all three of those things.
	Economic mobility, she did an amazing job by helping to craft a policy that has led to 40-year highs in inflation, as well as a stagnating economy.
	On health care, she's done an amazing job helping to oversee a complete botchery of COVID, which has led to extraordinary levels of excess death, plus a fentanyl crisis that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives.
	And on immigration, she has had her hand in the worst immigration crisis in the modern American era, which is really exciting.
	By the way, how bad is the immigration crisis?
	Well, apparently, according to National Review and Jim Garrity, in 2021, as images of children sleeping under foil blankets in overflow centers dominated the news, Susan Rice, the White House's head of domestic policy, told staff members she was frustrated with the situation.
	Ms.
	Rice vented in a note she scrimbled on a memo detailing the position of advocates who believed a pandemic-era border closure was compelling parents to send unaccompanied children, sometimes called UCs.
	This is BS, Rice wrote, according to a memo.
	What is leading to voluntary separation is our generosity to unaccompanied children.
	In a statement, Ms.
	Patterson, the White House spokeswoman, said any suggestion Rice felt constrained by the demands of the law was false, and she was proud to be doing the right thing and treating children with dignity and respect.
	Well, last week, the New York Times reported that, quote, thousands of children have ended up in punishing jobs across the country, working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery and factories, all in violation of child labor laws.
	All along, there were signs of the explosive growth of this labor force and warnings the Biden administration ignored or missed, the Times has found.
	So, in other words, the New York Times reporting that a bunch of those unaccompanied children who entered the country ended up being used for child labor.
	Who is in charge of that?
	Susan Rice.
	So, NBC News says it has nothing to do with her immigration problem.
	Quote, the timing of Rice's departure coincides with a growing controversy over the White House's handling of migrant children who arrive unaccompanied to the southern border.
	And whether members of the White House, including Rice, ignored warnings that sponsors of migrant kids were making them work grueling jobs in violation of child labor laws.
	The White House has said this is not the case.
	A senior administration official said Rice is proud of her work on the border.
	Or maybe they're just throwing her off the team before Joe Biden runs for re-election.
	In either case, we bid a fond farewell to Susan Rice, who again was part of two administrations botching policy absolutely thoroughly.
	And now the question becomes, who's running the Biden White House now?
	Since obviously it ain't the old man.
	Joe Biden continues to dotter around nonsensically.
	We'll get to that in just one moment.
	First, as you may have noticed, the economy is getting worse day by day.
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	Also, if you're looking for something fascinating to watch, check out our brand new series, What We Saw, hosted by storyteller Bill Whittle.
	Season one focused on Apollo 11.
	Season two of What We Saw is now in full swing.
	This time, Bill has set his sights on the Cold War and the tension between two superpowers that lasted for 45 years.
	Episode 7 introduces us to the man who brought communism to the Western Hemisphere and repelled the Bay of Pigs invasion, Fidel Castro.
	Bill makes it feel like you're there witnessing history.
	It's a beautifully produced series.
	And if you don't remember how scary the Cold War was because you're too young, you really should learn about it.
	You have to be a member to see Cold War.
	Go to dailywire.com slash Cold War to start watching.
	Meanwhile, Democrats are reluctant about Joe Biden, but they have no other choice, according to The Washington Post.
	Quote, the leftover pizza was divvied up.
	The Girl Scout cookies had been exchanged.
	The Democrats of North Fulton County sat and chatted about an issue that had been in the back of their minds for months, President Biden's future.
	There was no question the people in the room, dedicated Democrats who'd gathered in Johns Creek, Georgia to talk strategy and advance the party's aims, would vote for Biden in the general election.
	But the cold pizza-fueled debate was about people outside the room, the friends and family and neighbors they would try to convince, again, to vote for him and other Democrats in 2024.
	Debbie Watson, a 66-year-old retired paralegal, said she thought of them when she heard on the
	radio about the 80-year-old president stumbling on the stairs of Air Force One.
	So again, the Democrats basically know that they are tied to the anchor that is Joe Biden.
	They have no other choice.
	And Joe Biden continues to kind of look terrible.
	I mean, it's the simple fact of the matter.
	Here was Joe Biden yesterday proclaiming that there is no such thing as your kids.
	Did you know that your kids do not belong to you?
	That you have no authority over your kids?
	Joe Biden has authority over your kids.
	In fact, the entire society has authority over your kids.
	Unless we're talking about unborn kids, in which case you can just kill them willy-nilly.
	Here's Joe Biden yesterday.
	Rebecca put a teacher's creed into words when she said, there's no such thing as someone else's child.
	No such thing as someone else's child.
	Our nation's children are all our children.
	Uh, nope!
	Wrongo!
	My kids are my kids.
	You don't know their names, you don't care about them, and I'm not going to let you threaten to gender transition my children because you have perverse views about reality.
	That is not going to happen.
	They should run on this.
	I mean, truly.
	The reason why Democrats are scared of Joe Biden running, but they're also scared of him not running, is because he's a terrible candidate, but they got nothing in the background.
	They have nothing going on here.
	In fact, Joe Biden, he's gone hard into reelect pander mode, which is kind of amazing.
	He should be swiveling to the middle, but he is not.
	If he's suspicious the Republicans are going to nominate Donald Trump or they're going to go more extreme, shouldn't he be pivoting to the middle?
	But he's actually not doing that.
	He keeps doubling down on the extremes.
	Which is why the three Tennessee state lawmakers who faced expulsion after participating in protests over last month's school shooting in Nashville, the so-called Tennessee Three, met with Joe Biden on Monday at the White House.
	Remember the rule?
	The rule is that if you are a left-winger who is black, then you get to go to the White House.
	Those are the rules.
	Or if you're a white lady who just kind of tags along, which is what one of the Tennessee Three is.
	If you are, however, the family of a child who was murdered, During the actual shooting that these young legislators were protesting about, if you are the family of a victim of that, you don't go to the White House.
	If you are a legislator who is suspended for violating all of the House rules in Tennessee, then you go to the White House, so long as you have the right color and you speak in very bizarrely bad MLK cosplaying tones, then you get to go to the White House.
	Joe Biden said, You're standing up for our kids.
	You're standing up for our communities.
	What the Republican legislature did was shocking.
	It was undemocratic, my gosh, Bob.
	So, they get to go to the White House, which is very exciting.
	Again, he's swiveling hard to the left.
	your city but also across the country. Nothing is guaranteed about democracy, every generation
	has to fight. You're doing just that, erroneous. So they get to go to the White House, which is
	very exciting. Again, he's swiveling hard to the left, hard to the left. But guess what?
	That ain't gonna work, because he is still a wildly unpopular president.
	You would think at some point that he would swivel, but apparently not.
	In fact, he is so confident as Joe Biden that he can continue to be Joe Biden and win, that he's still having Hunter squire him around, which is amazing.
	In fact, Hunter's lawyers are so confident that Hunter can get away with anything, that the Washington Post reports a lawyer for Hunter Biden called Monday for a congressional ethics investigation into the behavior of Marjorie Taylor Greene.
	Alleging that she has repeatedly directed unmoored verbal abuses at the president's son, including false accusations of human trafficking and cavorting with prostitutes.
	Whoa, wait, hold up.
	Where is the false accusation of cavorting with prostitutes?
	He's literally in photographs cavorting with prostitutes and doing drugs, which is the part that's false.
	I'm so confused.
	Lawyer Abby Lowell wrote in a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics,
	Representative Greene's unethical conduct arises from continuous verbal attacks,
	defamatory statements, publication of personal photos and data,
	and promotion of conspiracy theories about and against Robert Hunter Biden.
	None of these could possibly be deemed to be part of any legitimate legislative activity.
	So I have a, this is hysterical.
	Green posted photos of Hunter Biden driving his niece and her cousin on President Biden's convertible and falsely alleging he was on crack and with prostitutes.
	Wait, I'm- Hold up.
	Are we supposed to believe that Hunter was not on crack?
	He literally, in his memoirs, talks about snorting Parmesan cheese off carpet.
	Like, this is all crazy making.
	Nowhere in that piece, by the way, do they actually bother to fact check Hunter Biden's claims that it is false, that this is happening.
	But Joe Biden believes that he is invincible, which presumably is why he's not bothering to negotiate over the over the debt ceiling.
	Even Democrats at this point are like, maybe he should make a call to Kevin McCarthy over the debt ceiling.
	Right now, McCarthy, the Speaker of the House, It's about to whip into place a debt limit bill.
	It hits the floor this week.
	That bill basically pushes the debt limit up by 1.5 trillion dollars or a year, whichever comes first.
	And it also insists on holding spending steady.
	It would require Medicaid recipients to work 80 hours per month, which is 20 hours per week.
	Which, um, that doesn't seem, like, particularly crazy.
	Work requirements attached to welfare seems like a good idea.
	We did this back in the 90s.
	You know who was in favor of it?
	Bill Clinton.
	I believe Joe Biden was actually when he was in the Senate as well.
	Other bill components included clawing back unspent pandemic funds and the IRS funding for customer service and finding tax cheats.
	Also a rollback on energy tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act.
	Again, none of this is particularly arguable, but Joe Biden is going to argue about it anyway.
	Kareem Jean-Pierre says that this budget is cruel.
	You know, forcing people to work before we just give them unending amounts of money is apparently a form of cruelty now.
	We've been very, very clear.
	It is unreasonable to put forth what they did last week.
	It is cruel.
	That piece of legislation is cruel.
	And so they need to really make sure that we don't go into default.
	And that's what they're asking to do.
	They're asking to hold our economy hostage and go into default.
	And that's something that we're going to continue to call out.
	Oh, they're holding the economy hostage.
	I noticed that you already shot the hostage.
	That's one of the things that I noticed.
	The economy is trashed because of you.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, the panic phase of the past month's banking crisis may be ending.
	The big question now is how much of a hit the economy faces from a lending pullback.
	The answer may not be clear for months.
	Because as it turns out, depositors are not actually depositing in the banks.
	They're keeping their money out.
	They're afraid of it.
	A slow and steady erosion of deposits at small and mid-sized banks could continue now that long-time consumers have awakened to the potential to earn more on their money by moving it to money market mutual funds.
	By the way, I've done some of that personally.
	I know a bunch of people who have done that.
	The rates at the money market mutual funds are higher than the rates at the banks.
	So what you're going to see is lending drying up.
	All of this because, again, Joe Biden inflated the currency and inflated the economy.
	But we're supposed to believe that this is a guy with economic specialty and we should listen to him about spending more money via the debt ceiling increase.
	Meanwhile, on foreign policy, the Biden administration just left 16,000 American citizens behind in Sudan with nobody to even care for them.
	They evacuated the embassy.
	You're on your own over there.
	Anthony Blinken, who was last seen in the news back in 2020, apparently attempting to launder into the public view the lie that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation.
	Well, now he's back.
	This time he is saying that, you know what?
	Yeah, we left, you know, 16,000 people in Sudan.
	But, you know, our first priority is getting our people out of Sudan.
	That apparently does not include the 16,000 American citizens in Sudan.
	A decision to suspend operations at the Embassy, remove our personnel from their assigned posts, is among the most difficult that any Secretary has to make.
	But my first priority is the safety of our people, and I determined that the deteriorating security conditions in Khartoum pose an unacceptable risk to keeping our team there at this time.
	I want to be clear that even as we have temporarily suspended operations on the ground in Khartoum, our diplomatic and consular work in Sudan continues.
	Oh, does it?
	Because I feel like everyone there is basically screwed.
	In fact, John Kirby, who is the NSA spokesperson, he says, we literally have no idea how many people who are Americans are stuck in Sudan.
	This is one of the late Don Lemon's last interviews.
	Don, I want to push back on this idea that there's 16,000 Americans who want to get out.
	We don't have firm estimates of the exact number of American citizens who are in Sudan.
	They don't have to register with us.
	They don't have to tell us that they're there.
	We think the vast majority of these American citizens in Sudan, and they're not all in Khartoum, are dual nationals.
	These are people who grew up in Sudan, who have families there, work there, businesses there, who don't want to leave.
	So I think we need to be careful about that number.
	Oh, they want to be there in Sudan.
	Well, things are completely imploding around them.
	They said the same thing about people in Afghanistan who got stuck there.
	This administration is such a bleep show.
	It is a highly vulnerable administration, obviously.
	And the fact that Democrats have to run with what they got?
	This is a real opening for Republicans, if Republicans take it.
	Okay, quick update, business update for you.
	So, remember that time that Disney was supposedly beating around the Santas?
	Well now, apparently, they're having to cut employees.
	They're having serious economic difficulties.
	They're bringing their second round of layoffs as part of their previously unveiled plan to cut 7,000 jobs.
	Employees at this round are being let go from divisions including ESPN, which is MSNBC, with footballs and basketballs.
	The company, according to the Wall Street Journal, said several thousand U.S.
	employees would be cut this week from multiple business areas, including entertainment and its parks, experiences, and product divisions.
	It turns out that when you, you know, completely alienate your entire customer base, including parents like me, that has some actual serious side effects.
	I mean, they've lost thousands of dollars from the Shapiro family, has Disney.
	And they will continue to do that so long as they embrace a radical left-wing policy position.
	We'll get to more on all of this in just a second.
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	Alrighty, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.
	So things that I like today.
	So Phil Jackson.
	I'm a Boston Celtics fan, which means I spent like my entire life watching the NBA and hating Phil Jackson.
	He was the coach of the Lakers, of course, highly successful coach of the Lakers, who ended up tying, I believe, Red Arbok, maybe surpassing him, I can't remember, as the most championship-laden coach of all time.
	Well, he actually said something I agree with, and I was never a big Phil Jackson fan because he had this whole kind of like new-agey thing in which he would quote Zen and talk about how, you know, crystals were going to make his team work better.
	Meanwhile, Tex Winter was in the back actually doing the triangle offense and all of this.
	My feeling was always that when you are blessed to coach a team with like Kobe and Shaq on it or Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen on it, you have a pretty good shot at the champ—in any case.
	Put aside my criticisms of Phil Jackson for now, because he actually said something correct.
	Phil Jackson was on a podcast, and he had the temerity to suggest that he doesn't watch the NBA anymore because it's too political.
	Here's what he had to say.
	Do you feel like it just made little of the game, like it made it like a sideshow?
	What do you think it was that turned you off?
	Well, it was, it was, they even had slogans on the floor, on the baseline.
	It was catering.
	It was trying to cater to an audience or trying to bring a certain audience into play.
	And they didn't know it was turning other people off, you know?
	People want to see sports as non-political.
	Obviously what he's saying is true.
	And this is coming from Phil Jackson.
	Phil Jackson is no wild-eyed Republican by any stretch of the imagination.
	Well, this is verboten.
	You cannot say this.
	So Jalyn Rose.
	He then put out a statement about how terrible it was that Phil Jackson did not appreciate equality, rejecting Black Lives Matter during the NBA finals in 2020, which is what you would see.
	You'd see people with, like, their jerseys, the names on the back of the jersey would be like, equality, Black Lives Matter, etc.
	And here's Jalen Rose being very upset at Phil Jackson.
	The same Phil Jackson that won championships with some of the greatest black athletes in the history of the game, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant made millions on their backs and off their sweat equity.
	You're sitting up watching a game with your grandkids and y'all think it's funny when justice passes the ball to equal opportunity?
	When somebody shows you who they are, believe them.
	Well, I mean, I think it's funny because neither of those people is named that.
	Justice is, there's no one named Justice, and there's no one named Equal Opportunity, so you're having bumper stickers passing the ball back and forth.
	But I love the fact that because Phil Jackson works in a league in which the players are largely black, now he's a racist for not wanting it to be overtly political when he watches basketball, which is an amazing thing.
	You know, keep going with this.
	See how it works out for you.
	Keep fringing out large segments of your audience.
	When you lose Phil Jackson, guys, you're not just losing small segments of your audience, you're losing large segments of your audience.
	Okay, time for some things that I hate.
	Alrighty, so apparently there is a magazine called Brides Today.
	And Brides Today in India has a special feature.
	Oh no.
	Oh no.
	The special feature is of a dude, a gender non-conforming, I know this is a dude because this person has more hair than the carpet in this entire office.
	I mean this person is just covered in human hair.
	My goodness, the levels of testosterone running through this person's body could populate entire worlds, apparently.
	And truly amazing stuff.
	In conversation with Brides Today, and this is a dude who's dressed up in Indian bridal garb.
	Like, as in, like, the country of India.
	In conversation with Brides Today, gender non-conforming and trans-feminine author, performance artist, poet, and comedian Alok Vaid-Menon, who performs under the moniker Alok, makes a compelling case for love is love.
	Here's the interview.
	Okay, so first of all, lie!
	Lie!
	You do not look absolutely fabulous.
	You look like a horror show!
	I'm sorry, you're the one who put yourself on the cover of a magazine.
	Once you put yourself on the cover of a magazine to declare yourself beautiful, then we all get to comment on it.
	And, uh, nope!
	There's gonna be a big nope right here.
	My goodness.
	Alex says in the U.S.
	Indian diaspora, we're only expected to wear Indian ensembles for community events like weddings and holidays.
	However, I like donning Indian outfits across occasions.
	Indian wear is elegant, vibrant, and timeless.
	Why would we deny the world its beauty?
	Sometimes I combine Indian wear with Western-style clothing.
	That's the fun in fashion.
	It's playfulness.
	It's hybridity.
	Well, I mean, that isn't like, you know, there's traditional male Indian clothing as well.
	Bride Today says, how would you define your personal style?
	And he says, style is mobile poetry.
	There are no guidelines.
	I dress to be joyful, to enhance my capacity for awe or amazement in this world.
	I dress for me.
	Okay, first of all, that is the biggest crock of crap.
	Okay, people generally dress for each other.
	You know how you know this?
	Because when you're at home and it's time for bed, you don't put on a tux.
	You put on some PJs.
	You look like a schlub because you're dressing for you now to be comfortable.
	But apparently we're all supposed to believe that when you don bridal garb, Indian bridal... First of all, I wonder how Indian women feel about this sort of thing.
	Apparently, okay, is that the answer here?
	Because I feel like not.
	Brides today said, what does love mean to you?
	Quote, love is about expansion, not construction.
	Permission, not prohibition.
	Becoming ourselves, not betraying ourselves.
	Oh, so love just means you do whatever you want.
	Without any sort of limits whatsoever.
	Are there no sort of limits at all?
	None?
	Because I feel like even you would think there are limits.
	Say, children.
	Or like, you know, an infinite number of sexual partners.
	No?
	Maybe not.
	I suppose not.
	Brides Today says, We have been conditioned to abide by the institution of marriage.
	What are your thoughts on marriage?
	And he says, I grew up in a sexist culture that conflated marriage with maturity.
	One that told us we had to be married to be complete.
	Marriage was less about what we wanted and more about what was expected of us.
	And this caused so much grief.
	Yeah, I'm sure.
	You are a deeply happy individual in an individualist culture, dressing up in women's clothing and bearing your extremely hairy belly to the world on the cover of Brides Today.
	Marriage is the problem, guys.
	Probably, when I look at the average person, is the choice which way, Western man?
	I mean, seriously.
	It's like marriage on the one hand, or this.
	Okay!
	Your choice.
	Your choice.
	And so then he calls for marriage equality, of course.
	And by marriage equality, he means that marriage is bad.
	We just heard that.
	You should recognize that for a huge number of people, when they say marriage equality, what they mean is the fundamental institution of marriage ought not be respected, it ought to be deconstructed.
	And marriage equality is just one tool in that deconstruction.
	Which, by the way, is one of the reasons why we moved directly from gay marriage, which is a completely different argument, to men can be women.
	Because maybe the argument alone embedded itself in a broader argument, which is that marriage is bad, and once you hollow out the institution from man and woman and children, then all of a sudden, it doesn't exist anymore.
	It's been completely exploded.
	So, you know, well done again, Brides Today.
	That is an interesting choice, Brides Today.
	Okay, meanwhile, I would recommend that you not allow your children to watch a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers reunion special.
	You grew up watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and it was, you know, like a semi-cute show with a bunch of young people who would randomly turn into spandex-wearing crime fighters and such.
	Well now, the reunion is going to feature the adult sex lives of the people, which makes perfect sense.
	According to Entertainment Weekly, Power Rangers star David Yost has been open about how the homophobia he faced while working on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers led him to walk away from the hit series in the 1990s.
	But now, as he returns for the 30th anniversary special, once and always, he's seeing the LGBTQ community explicitly represented on the series.
	I think it's great we had an element like that obviously into where we are because it's important people see representation.
	Yost tells EW of a once and always scene in which Yellow Ranger Trini's daughter Min helps a man and his boyfriend fend off some of Rita Repulsa's putty patrollers.
	Yes, it's very important that children see a gay couple being defended from the putty patrollers of Rita Repulsa.
	Don't worry, it's not about the kids, guys.
	They don't want to indoctrinate the kids in their values.
	It's just about exposing kids to different lifestyles and all the rest.
	The kids... No.
	Again, go back to Joe Biden saying that they're not your kids.
	They're all of our kids, and you know exactly where this is coming from.
	Alrighty, guys.
	The rest of the show continues right now.
	You're not going to want to miss it.
	We'll be getting into the vaunted Ben Shapiro show mailbag.
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