The Megyn Kelly Show - 20230424_tucker-carlson-exits-fox-news-don-lemon-fired-by-c

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April 24, 2023 - The Megyn Kelly Show

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Tucker Goes Independent 00:14:24
	Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
	Tucker apparently not even coming back to air a goodbye show.
	His final show was last Friday.
	In a minute, I'm going to bring in our executive producer on this show, Steve Krakauer, who's also a media analyst and has been for some time.
	He's been on Tucker's show many times as well.
	And we'll get to some analysis for you.
	But I want to start by sharing my thoughts.
	This is a terrible move by Fox, and it's a great thing for Tucker Carlson.
	I don't know what drove Fox News to make this decision, and it was clearly Fox News' decision because they're not letting him say goodbye.
	That's my supposition.
	That's not inside knowledge.
	But this, the irony here is that how did they get in trouble with Dominion?
	They called Arizona too soon, felt their critics, and ultimately that proved to be the case.
	They were under pressure by their audience to reverse the call.
	The audience started to leave them in droves because they felt betrayed, like they didn't understand the mission of Fox News, which is to be fair to especially the Republicans who don't get a fair shake on other channels.
	And they went into a panic as their audience started to flee.
	Then they over-corrected by covering the bullshit claims about Dominion as though they were plausible and gave way too much credence to some of those claims on the air.
	Then they got sued, and last week they settled that case for about $800 million.
	Tucker Carlson had very little to do with that case.
	Tucker Carlson was one of the few who went on the air and said Sidney Powell is a liar.
	She's a liar and I've seen the proof and don't believe her.
	He was not, he was not the reason for that $800 million settlement.
	So what do they do now in the wake of that settlement?
	They get rid of Tucker?
	Talk about misjudging your audience yet again.
	Yet again.
	Because trust me, I hear from the Fox News audience all the time with whom I still have great relationships.
	Many, many, many viewers are now my fans on this show.
	And he's the only reason they watch a lot of them.
	Tucker's the only reason a lot of people still watch Fox News.
	With respect to my other colleagues there, I'm saying he's their favorite.
	Again, this is speculation.
	I don't know the actual circumstances, but the fact that he said this on Friday night before he signed off suggests to me this was a management decision.
	Listen.
	You're right.
	It is a disgusting order, but I have no shame.
	I'm going to go meet the.
	Oh, there they are.
	Wait, what a great way to end the week.
	Yeah, truly, that was a great segment, and I'm just grateful that you came on.
	And I'm especially grateful for the pie.
	Thank you for having me.
	Appreciate it.
	Employee of the week.
	We're going to just make it of the year, Tylen Morrell of Cocos Pizza.
	That's it for us for the week.
	We'll be back.
	And he wasn't.
	And I can speak from personal experience on this because Fox News, when I left, asked me to stay.
	Of course, it's been publicly reported.
	It made me a very generous offer.
	But in the end, I wanted to leave.
	I wanted to raise my own family and working in the prime time just didn't allow that.
	And that. wound up being a good thing for me, not necessarily the NBC part, but getting out and not having that schedule worked out very well for me.
	But even understanding that I was leaving the network and that I was quitting, basically, they let me say a goodbye to the audience.
	They did not say, get out.
	I think this is a massive error.
	I think this is a massive misjudgment of what their audience wants.
	If you are, if this is a reaction to the Dominion lawsuit, why is Maria Bartaromo there?
	Why is Janine Pirro still there?
	Why is Suzanne Scott still there, the CEO of Fox News?
	She got them in far more trouble with her executive emails panicking about Dominion and the audience than anything Tucker did behind the scenes.
	I realize the left hates Tucker's guts.
	I get that this is a joyful day for them.
	But internally at Fox, they always had that gauge, at least under Roger Ailes, of how to ignore those critics and do what was right for the channel and its audience and the truth.
	And they lost that in the context of Dominion, as we've discussed on this program many times.
	But that was not due to anything Tucker did.
	Yes, there were a couple of controversial emails.
	We've discussed those at length.
	Go back and look at my Dominion shows.
	I've spared no one.
	But this is an extraordinary move for a channel that appears to be very worried about its audience.
	Joining me now is Steve Krakauer, as I point out, the EP of this show since we launched.
	And no critic of Tucker.
	I mean, you see him clearly too.
	You've been on his show.
	You like him.
	Your reaction to this news, Steve?
	Well, it's shocking.
	I was saying to someone earlier, and I have to say my text messages and direct messages are on fire right now.
	It's very rare these days in the media world for something to happen and to be a total shock.
	People get hired and fired and companies like BuzzFeed News just completely get shut down.
	And it's not really shocking.
	I mean, it's surprising, you know, but it's not shocking.
	This news this morning is a total shock, I have to say.
	To me, perhaps other people saw it coming in some way, but I have not seen that in any capacity.
	And as we saw from the clip to end the show on Friday night, I don't think Tucker necessarily anticipated that this would go this way.
	So I do find it shocking.
	Look, I've known Tucker for a long time.
	I first interviewed him in 2008.
	It was the very first time I spoke with him, met him around that time.
	I've interviewed him probably five or six times since then and maintained a relationship with him.
	I've been critical of him in Forthwatch and other places when I feel like it's warranted.
	But more often than not, I don't.
	I think it's one of the best shows that's people news.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And I think he's someone that is totally unique in the marketplace.
	I've described him, Joe Rogan, and you as essentially the three most interesting people in the media.
	And I think that that maintains.
	And I think whatever happens next, we don't know exactly what went down.
	And I think I'm hearing three different things as potentials, but whatever happens next, he will maintain a space in the media.
	And I think it'll be very interesting.
	This will be good for Tucker.
	This is going to be great for Tucker.
	I'm not worried about Tucker at all.
	I predict Tucker goes independent.
	Tucker launches a podcast or digital show and crushes it, absolutely crushes it.
	I thought many times if I came directly to podcast from my primetime show in Fox, I mean, it was a different landscape back then, just in 2017.
	But that would have been the best way to set myself up in the digital world because you take your audience with you immediately.
	People weren't really doing that back then.
	But if he does that now, he's going to be better off than he was at Fox.
	Tucker was in the prime time at Fox News in the post-Roger Ailes era, where they weren't paying the stars what they were paying back in the day.
	You know, Rachel Maddow was reportedly making $30 million a year.
	Trust me, that's not what they were paying Tucker Carlson.
	And he can make huge money in the independent lane as long as he has a fan base, which he clearly does.
	And over here in this lane, he doesn't have anybody telling him what he can or cannot say.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Look, we had Alex Berenson on a few days ago.
	Alex Berenson does great work.
	He has a substack and he and but Alex Berenson is obviously not Tucker Carlson.
	But Alex Berenson, if you read the reports, is making millions of dollars a year on his sub stack.
	That is where the landscape is these days.
	If you have some differentiating factor, and again, all due respect to Alex, he's nowhere in the league of Tucker Carlson.
	So yes, I think the closest analogy would be like Glenn Beck, who left at the height of his time at Fox and started the Blaze and was originally called GBTV.
	And as has been reported, you know, got about a couple hundred thousand subscribers to pay $100 a year and very quickly became a giant business.
	That was beyond Glenn.
	He started a whole company that has maintained to this day.
	But that's the closest analogy to someone leaving at the absolute height.
	And even Glenn wasn't at the height, I would say, that Tucker is in the traditional media space.
	Obviously, Tucker's doing documentaries and long form interviews on Fox Nation as well.
	So he's got all of these various things in the works.
	And for it to be a shock, I mean, I'm getting text messages from people who are, I would say, are in the know in the business.
	And they're just like emojis, just like the shock face emoji.
	I mean, no one saw this coming.
	And I would just throw out there, Megan, I think there are three camps that I'm hearing from right now.
	One is, is this some sort of way of pushing them out related to Dominion, related to another lawsuit that's going on?
	I would be shocked, but that's obviously one point of view out there.
	Is this Tucker being told to do something or not do something and saying no?
	And in fact, I'm going to leave because of that.
	That's certainly a possibility.
	And then, of course, there's a speculation about politics, which I also do not think is true, but I've seen that as well.
	Okay, let's talk about those.
	Let's take them in reverse order.
	Yes, somebody say, I think, was it Stephen Miller, Stephen L. Miller, tweeted out he's running.
	Now, he may have been joking.
	I don't know.
	Stephen L. Miller is very funny.
	So it could have been a tongue in cheek.
	He's running, but a lot of people think he's going to run for office.
	I don't think so.
	I just don't think so.
	Tucker's got way more influence sitting behind a microphone than he does standing on a debate stage.
	So who knows?
	But I've never heard him say he wants to do that.
	You know, I'm not like one of his besties, but we're friends.
	The lawsuit.
	So we talked about the Dominion lawsuit on this show many times.
	And we're not going to bore the audience by going back over it.
	But the highlight on Dominion is Tucker, while he had a couple of texts behind the scenes, which weren't helpful, his texts paled in comparison to those of the executives, their texts and their deposition testimonies.
	And Tucker's the one who went out on the air and said Sidney Powell is bullshit.
	Yeah, exactly.
	So the Dominion thing doesn't make sense.
	It doesn't make sense.
	And for a couple of reasons, like you said, there's that.
	Also, if you want to say that there was something that came out of the Dominion texts that was embarrassing to Tucker and Fox, it was probably that he really was pretty critical of Donald Trump in a lot of ways.
	And yet Donald Trump sat down and did the long form interview with Tucker very recently.
	And so it seems like everything is squashed.
	In fact, I just listened to Trump on the Full Send podcast over the weekend, and he was again praising Tucker.
	This was a very recent interview.
	So I think that whatever bad blood there might have been there is squashed as well.
	And Fox is anti-Trump these days anyway.
	So like they wouldn't be holding that against Tucker.
	But no, the worst thing I saw on Tucker's watch during the Dominion lawsuit was there was a internal text that they had to produce in the lawsuit where he was mad about some reporter, a straight news reporter.
	I think it was Jackie Henrich fact-checking Trump claims about Dominion that it aired on Hannity.
	And he said something like, she should be fired, which was not good.
	But you and I discussed that too.
	I'm not going to excuse the text, but I understand it wasn't, oh my God, she offered Fox on, she offered facts on Fox and should be fired.
	There's a hard rule at Fox News that you don't shoot inside the tent.
	And this was her going on and fact-checking Hannity, essentially.
	This was you'd have to clear that with management before you did it as a straight news reporter at Fox News.
	Of course.
	Why should you do it as a straight news reporter?
	That's fact-checking Sean Hannity.
	I mean, that does seem like it makes there's two things about that that, of course, most of the media ignore.
	Yes, exactly like you said, it was actually about Sean Hannity, not just about Donald Trump.
	And Jackie Heinrich is still there, still right there in the White House briefing, briefing room every day.
	She's only been promoted since then.
	So that's not like there was some, you know, like they've been critical of some of the texts, not from Tucker, but from others about Chris Direwald and Bill Salmon.
	And then what ended up leading to their departure, Jackie Heinrich still remains there.
	So that had no effect.
	So the other thing is, look at the Suzanne Scott texts talking about how other reporters like Jillian, I can't remember their names.
	Forgive me.
	A lot of these people came up to Rise after I left.
	And I don't watch cable news anymore.
	But saying like, she needs to be reined in.
	She doesn't understand what our audience wants.
	That was from the CEO of the company.
	So is Suzanne Scott getting fired?
	Because that's really my, we'll get to them, the others, after we finish this Tucker analysis.
	So I don't believe Dominion was behind the Dominion settlement.
	I just don't believe it, especially because Rupert made enough admissions during his deposition to sink the company at the trial without any help from Tucker.
	So I don't believe Dominion.
	I don't believe that.
	We're throwing this out in real time, Megan.
	Let me just throw this at you because I got this from someone.
	Is there a chance that buried in the settlement is we need some scalps?
	And that's what Dominion did in order to not have this go to trial.
	And that made Tucker's scalp.
	They would want Maria's scalp.
	They would want Janine Pirro's scalp.
	They would want Suzanne Scott's scalp.
	Tucker, I mean, yes, there were a couple of comments.
	I mean, the left all hates Tucker, but I just can't imagine a world in which Rupert and Lachlan bow to that kind of pressure.
	But I could be wrong because there's no way this happened without Rupert's blessing.
	No way.
	So he clearly did sign off on losing him, which again just makes absolutely no sense to me.
	So let's talk about the other lawsuit.
	And I'm going to get reactions pouring in now.
	The nightmares over at The View.
	We'll get to them.
	But the other lawsuit that you mentioned, Abby Grossberg, is that her name?
	This one.
	All right.
	So I've seen a speculation, as you have as well, that her lawsuit may have had something to do with this.
	I reject this fully, but this is, let's talk about what the speculation is.
	She worked for Tucker and she also worked for Maria.
	She was a producer who had to turn over her documents and emails and so on during the Dominion lawsuit.
	She had been making recordings of some of her discussions, i.e. with Maria and Giuliani, that she had on a phone.
	We also reported this last week or whenever it came out, that she then went to the lawyers at Fox and said, you need to produce this in the context of the Dominion lawsuit.
	It's responsive.
	It's a dead phone, but it has recordings on it.
	And she says they didn't.
Fox Agrees to Let Him Go 00:13:15
	They let it lie.
	And then she quit.
	She sued Fox and said, you tried to manipulate my testimony before I went into deposition.
	You kind of strong-armed me into lying to help you.
	I feel disgusting about the whole thing.
	Oh, and by the way, here's this phone that's got recordings that are relevant that you didn't turn over.
	So that's the worst way as a lawyer for Fox to find out that there are recordings of your people that are responsive, but that appears to be what happened.
	The judge was mad.
	The judge sanctioned Fox News right before they settled.
	And this woman's still suing Fox News, claiming that all that happened and also alleging things like the C-word was regularly bandied about In the news pod and on Tucker's team.
	Look, I can tell you this.
	And you know, two of the women who work for me at Fox News work for me right now.
	My like two main producers, Canadian Debbie and Kelly Maguire.
	They're both with me now.
	And they could be fact witnesses on this.
	When I, when went down, Roger Ailes got fired.
	I met with my entire team at the Kelly File and I said, you know, what you're reading in the paper is true.
	I spoke with Lachlan and I spoke with the investigators and I told the truth about what happened to me years ago.
	But if this place were some disgusting, misogynistic hellhole, I would not have stayed here.
	And the narrative people are running with about Fox News and our colleagues, because they're enjoying so much this news, they're false.
	Those narratives are lies.
	This is not a disgusting place to work where people are regularly talking about women like that and regularly dumping all over women.
	Yes, it's happening and it happened at the very highest levels.
	But I told them that.
	And I just have a very hard time imagining that post-Roger Ailes, post, you know, my stint in the tenure, Fox took such a hard turn back that they're running around like she's a C and she's a C and that one's a C in the news pods, which are small and everyone can hear or they're out in the newsroom.
	I don't believe it.
	I don't believe that.
	And I certainly don't believe they would fire Tucker over that allegation.
	No, there's no way I think that that would lead to his firing.
	I agree with you.
	Again, I don't know the ins and outs of it, but I would just say, let's just throw out a hypothetical.
	What if in reaction to this lawsuit, they made some play that they had to get rid of some lower level person who maybe was doing that, some PA or some associate producer.
	And Tucker, in defense of that person, said, no, that's not happening.
	This person works for me and they're a good, good producer.
	And then it got to this level that, you know, it's either this person or me.
	And so that's where I wonder if this lawsuit may have played a role in it.
	Again, a lot of lawsuits going on here.
	There's SmartMatic that's still here that I think is going to go to trial in 2025.
	So it's a let me jump in before we do smart.
	Let's stay on that point and then we'll do SmartMatic.
	Either way, that's them agreeing to let him go.
	Like back in my day, they never would have agreed.
	Like they knew who their top talent was.
	Bill O'Reilly, we now know had paid out $69 million in sexual harassment settlements and they kept him.
	They kept him and they paid him $25 million a year.
	So they would keep their top talent at any cost if they wanted to.
	So I don't accept that.
	This had to be Fox agreeing to let him go and the reasons why.
	He is Fox News right now.
	And if they wanted to build up their news division, if they wanted to build back their reputation, right?
	Because he does dominate the opinion and so on.
	If they want to say, let's get back to being a news organization, then Suzanne Scott needs to be fired and they need to rehire Chris Steyerwalt and Bill Salmon, who were running the decision desk and were honorable journalists who got the axe for no reason other than the early Arizona call, which was offered by a desk.
	They didn't even run.
	Arnon Michigan runs that desk and he's ultimately the one in charge and he didn't get fired.
	So why those two?
	They were the sacrificial lambs.
	Yeah.
	And that's why I feel like all these lawsuit things, again, I know now we mentioned Dominion, we've mentioned the Grossberg one.
	There's SmartMatic, and there's other related election fraud ones.
	And then there's, you know, 60 Minutes did a profile of Ray Epps last night.
	And Ray Epps is sitting there name-dropping Tucker Carlson as someone that explains.
	Explain who that is.
	So Ray Epps was the January 6th rioter, I think it's fair to say, who has only been celebrated by the media, a real strange one.
	This is a former Oathkeeper leader who then left the Oath Keepers, was there on January 6th, was the only person on video on January 5th night and January 6th morning, encouraging people to go into the Capitol.
	People were saying fed to him because it was like, why are you telling people to go into the Capitol?
	We're just here to march and support Trump.
	And then now has been, he's never been charged with the crime.
	He was originally on the FBI's website.
	That was taken down and has spawned conspiracy theorists.
	I think it's fair to say some of what has been said about Ray Epps, that he is part of the government or part of the FBI has been clearly not true because I think that that would be able to come out.
	But it's also a strange story.
	And at the very least, this is a guy who was encouraging lawlessness on January 6th, and yet he's been favorably profiled in the New York Times multiple times.
	And then last night sat for a very nice interview with Bill Whitaker on 60 Minutes, in which he called out Tucker Carlson again and also floated that he may sue Tucker Carlson for defamation.
	Okay.
	All right.
	I get it.
	I get it.
	Not it.
	Not it.
	Not big enough.
	Not seismic.
	But I'll tell you what my own theory is.
	Fox News was facing and is facing right now shareholder lawsuits as a result of the Dominion payout and the mismanagement of that whole thing.
	And Fox News is not run entirely by Rupert.
	Fox News has a board.
	And I tweeted out a month ago something to the effect of if Tucker Carlson finds a bunny boiling on his stove, it's 100% the New York Times.
	It's a fatal attraction reference for us old people.
	And so I, I, my guess without knowing more is, and again, I, I'm getting ahead of my skis.
	We could find out that Tucker just said, I don't want to be here anymore and walked out, but it just happened so quickly without a goodbye.
	That's what I'm basing my supposition on.
	And the statement that they issued, I think they would have said he left.
	You know, I think it wouldn't have read the way it did.
	And I'll read you.
	I guess I, can you guys resend me the statement from Fox?
	Because my, my text chain with my team now is so long, I can't find it.
	Oh my God, there's more breaking news.
	Steve, check your, check your, we have a producer's text chain, guys, for our audience.
	Oh my God.
	So there's now breaking news from CNN.
	Don Lemon's been fired.
	Don Lemon terminated at CNN.
	My God, it's a, am I still employed by myself?
	Are you still employed?
	You're still employed, Steve.
	You're good.
	You know, I'm really excited for the Hannity and Combs reboot called Carlson and Lemon.
	That's the line of the day right there.
	That was very clever.
	All right, wait.
	Unbelievable.
	This is just to bring you up to speed there.
	Here's a statement from Don Lemon.
	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.
	I got to give Don Lemon that point frankly.
	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 that there are some larger issues at play.
	With that said, I want to thank my colleagues and the many teams I have worked for for an incredible run.
	They are the most talented journalists in the business, and I wish them all the best.
	Good God.
	That's so that we should note.
	That is a bad breakup in the media business when Don Lemon puts that out.
	Obviously, CNN put out their own statement, but notably, Tucker Carlson has not spoken publicly about his exit at this point, and certainly not in those terms that Don just did.
	That's bad, bad breakup situation.
	He's not wrong.
	I mean, everybody knows I'm not exactly Don Lemon's fan, but he's not wrong that if that's true, that he was just told by his agent he was fired and they didn't have the balls to tell him man to man.
	I mean, that's just classless.
	He's got a right to complain about that.
	He was on air this morning.
	I saw.
	So, so that's a, you're escorted out of the building kind of situation.
	It seems that way.
	Yeah.
	This was not.
	That's what they do.
	When they fire you, when they fire you, I mean, we saw this at Fox many times.
	They're very brutal about it.
	And our audience has probably had this in their own companies.
	You get told you're fired and they have two security guards standing there.
	They'll see you back to your desk.
	You have to fill up your box and walk out.
	It's very humiliating.
	Something must have happened there.
	I feel like, Steve, something must have happened there.
	Something else must have come out.
	There must have been something, like a final straw.
	I would think so.
	And it should be noted.
	I mean, obviously we're reacting to this in real time, but the idea that Don Lemon is fired by CNN is not a shock.
	The way this went down perhaps is, but there's been a lot of rumblings for weeks, for months that this is inevitable.
	The way that it ultimately culminated here, I think maybe perhaps is something that looks good for Don and for his for the way that he wants to go out in this blaze of glory, which it does seem like, although, you know, it's clearly, yeah, well, you know, you overstate the case, sir.
	Trying to get ahead of the story, at least, in this scenario there and not giving any sort of a chance for CNN to have the first word out of the gate like Fox did in this situation.
	Wait, and tell him, Steve, tell him what happened with Corine Jean-Pierre and Don Lemon on Friday, because that's another piece to this story.
	Yes, yeah, yeah.
	The reports are that Corine Jean-Pierre, who has been interviewed by Don Lemon before, refused to be interviewed by Don Lemon when she did an appearance on CNN this morning and would only talk to one of his female co-anchors for that.
	That is based on, at least according to this reporting, Don's comments going a little bit further back about women in their prime.
	So it's starting to, in theory, at least according to this leaked report, which who knows where that came from, affect the editorial side of what happened on that show, Don's mishaps.
	I want to say this.
	We're going to bring Glenn Beck is standing by and I want to get his reaction.
	We talked about him.
	He and I, old colleagues at Fox, and he left and, of course, created the blaze, which was a joggernaut and remains.
	And then we're going to bring Steve back.
	But I do want to say this.
	I firmly believe Tucker will be better off.
	I think these cable networks are dinosaurs.
	They're dying a slow and painful death before our very eyes.
	They're not the hot new thing that people are dying to tune into.
	Yes, when there's breaking news, you want to go and see the car chase or you want to see, you know, what exactly is unfolding before your eyes.
	But for the most part, I think audiences are turning more and more to platforms that are more user-friendly, are available when they want them to be.
	You can download the Megan Kelly podcast whenever you want, right?
	You can get it like when you're doing your makeup, when you're driving your car.
	It's just so much more user-friendly.
	And I think that's why more and more news personalities are gravitating toward these platforms as opposed to just signing up.
	Trust me, if I wanted to sign up for another cable show, I had so many opportunities after I left NBC.
	I chose to be here for a reason.
	This is the future.
	And Tucker knows that.
	And he's going to be able to come over here with a huge audience and create.
	This is my speculation.
	I don't know he's doing that.
	I'm just saying.
	Getting out under the thumb of the big corporate management is a blessing.
	It is a blessing.
	And I know he's smart enough to know that.
	When we come back, Glenn Beck, and then we'll pick it up again on the back end with Steve.
	Don't go away.
	What a day.
	Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show.
	Joining me now on the breaking news is Glenn Beck, founder of Blaze Media, host of the Glenn Beck program, and like yours truly, a former Fox News host.
	Earthquake in the media landscape, Glenn, about Tucker and Fox parting ways.
	Don Lemon's also been terminated from CNN.
	Less of an earthquake.
	So let's start with the big news.
	It's not even a tremor.
	Okay.
	So Don Lemon, let's just dismiss.
	I think it's a great timing for CNN because no one's going to talk about Don Lemon and he'll just be gone and nobody will even realize it.
	And, you know, so all those celebrations will be missed too.
	When it comes to Tucker, this is phenomenal.
	I was trying to think of anyone that has left at the absolute pinnacle of their of their ratings.
	And I can't think of anyone on cable news who.
	I did.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah, that's right.
	You did.
	Yep, you're right.
	My show was number one in the key advertising demo.
	I decided not to be able to do it.
	You're right.
	You're right.
	I was remembering that differently.
	My apologies.
	No, no.
Leaving at the Pinnacle 00:02:50
	Yeah.
	I mean, you, you did too.
	Like you and you and Fox parted ways.
	You were on fire.
	There wasn't a more relevant voice in cable.
	So it's happened, but Tucker is in a unique position with all due respect to you and to me.
	Tucker right now is extremely powerful.
	His voice, the politicians bow to him.
	They look for his approval.
	I mean, he's just at a different level.
	You know, when we were there, we had you, Bill, me, and we had people that were following stories, especially the two of us.
	We would delve into things that made people uncomfortable like Tucker does.
	Tucker's the only one there now that I think actually is really exploring and looking for the truth.
	He may not get it right all the time, but he is certainly a lone voice in the wilderness.
	And I think this is really going to hurt Fox.
	But I tell you, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
	I think between the AOC statement that came out over the weekend that, you know, Fox should be regulated, the billion-dollar lawsuit, and more importantly, CBS in this insane interview with Ray Epps, where Ray Epps specifically said, Tucker Carlson is targeting me to destroy my life.
	I think those three things happening within seven days is not a coincidence.
	I don't, I just think the Murdochs, if nothing else, have very, very steely spines.
	I mean, the New York Times did a front page piece on Tucker Carlson and what a racist he allegedly is.
	And then every two minutes retweets it on their Twitter feed.
	They have tried so hard to take him down.
	And they just, no, you know, like Rupert's, no, no.
	They don't listen to the New York Times.
	The Dominion lawsuit was not about Tucker.
	If anything, why isn't Maria fired?
	Why isn't Janine Perrow fired?
	Why isn't Suzanne Scott fired?
	If it were about Dominion, it can't be that this is about Dominion.
	I mean, maybe, maybe they know something we don't know.
	Very possible, but it doesn't make sense to me.
	So what do you think is happening here?
	I think shareholders, I think the board, I think they were rattled by the left's coverage of Dominion, because if you were to read the left's coverage of Dominion, it is Tucker's fault.
	Which is, which goes right to the left's plan.
	Here's what I think, Megan.
	It is not like when you and I left, there wasn't this system that we have now online.
	I mean, I left and there were well, you and our guest who we were going to have on Adam Curry today, but we'll move him to another piece of the breaking news.
	But yeah, you were really a pioneer in the space.
Why Janine Isn't Fired 00:07:51
	He was the pioneer and you were one as well.
	Yeah.
	Well, we put the first network on the air, which had never been done.
	And I mean, I learned a lot of lessons and it cost a lot of money.
	But we have, you know, we have it down now.
	And I think people can see that.
	It's not like you're prospecting anymore.
	You can leave and come to online and have total freedom, total freedom, and make more money, have a better life and a better connection with people.
	And you're not that face that where everybody lines up to punch you in the face like Tucker was.
	He was the number one punching bag.
	His, I mean, his family had been threatened.
	We covered the actual, you know, protest.
	I can't find a better word.
	It wasn't a full riot, but just incursion on his property at his home with his wife inside.
	He constantly with the death threats and the armed guards.
	I mean, he's, you know, being approached in every store, being, they made him truly, they said that Larry Elder was the black face of white supremacy.
	They made Tucker the white face of white supremacy.
	They made him into David Duke, which is a lie.
	It's a lie.
	It's based mostly on the whole replacement theory, which is basically just Tucker saying there's a reason they want all these immigrants coming across the border, and it's to make them into future voters.
	It wasn't without getting rid of the whites.
	That was not it.
	It's not.
	It's not.
	And, you know, he is, he was alone though at Fox with the videos.
	Did you notice that the news department never played any of those videos?
	Yes, we talked about those.
	They didn't support him at all.
	They buried their own exclusive.
	Correct.
	It was all him.
	They didn't, I mean, Megan, in your wildest dreams, you have access to tapes.
	He's showing you the tapes.
	You could verify that the tapes are real because you know where the source and everything.
	Why would you not cover that?
	That's not news.
	I think Fox is in real, real trouble.
	Real trouble.
	The only thing, the only thing I would say is I don't think this would do it.
	I mean, outside of my theory about the board and the shareholders, if there's another major talent that you find out just re-upped their deal at some astronomical number, that person could potentially, I don't know.
	I mean, they could have said he goes or I go, but I don't think there's not another bigger star in Fox, but there are bigger money makers because advertisers weren't going on his show.
	The way that this was couched, though, it is mutual, yada, yada.
	I could see a scenario where they said, look, you're not going to do this, this, and this anymore because our tolerance level is very, very low.
	We're not going to get sued, blah, blah, blah.
	And he said, I'm not doing that.
	And they weren't so sad to see him go and he wasn't so sad to leave.
	I could see that.
	Very possible.
	I will read the Fox News statement so people get the flavor.
	Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways, 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., starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named.
	That's just how they always do it.
	Fox News Media, blah, blah, blah.
	The rest is just about how big Fox is and who they, how many people are.
	You know, they love to throw grenades at former talent.
	They love to do that.
	There is a, there was some sort of an agreement here, but they didn't fire him.
	And I don't think he just walked on them.
	I think there was a mutual understanding.
	Some new barrier was put up, I think.
	Well, I mean, I don't, we can quibble over the word fire, but there is, I don't think Tucker just walked in the middle of his deal.
	No, no, no, no.
	It would have had to be.
	They did something to make it untenable for him.
	So they either made it untenable for him or they got rid of him.
	But either way, Glenn, way to not understand your audience.
	Like Tucker is the reason most people even talk about Fox, good or bad these days.
	See, I think I will tell you that the main reason I hear I'm not watching Fox at all, but I watch Tucker, you know, all every night.
	I hear that all the time.
	Me too.
	However, I think that the message that Fox is sending, because Dan Bongino was let go last week and now this, I think the message from Fox Corp is we're going to play ball with the machine.
	We're not going to not going to get in anybody's way.
	Just leave us alone.
	You might be right.
	That's certainly how it sounds.
	That would be what I would glean too.
	He just came off an interview, a great interview with Trump, a great interview with Elon Musk last week.
	Not to mention January 6th.
	I mean, how do you have Elon Musk on in your last week and either be fired or, you know, kind of forced to quit, whatever it is.
	Elon Musk, that's not a small get.
	That shows you are at the top of the heap.
	He's consistently either number one or number two.
	He and the five vie for the number one or number two spots.
	And the five, that's one thing.
	That's five people.
	You know, it's like, that's very different to say that any one of those people could go on and take over and get the kind of numbers that Tucker does.
	As you know, it's much harder to do it on your own.
	And he was doing it either number one or number two consistently.
	And so, you know, there's, there's going to be more to this story.
	All I know, and I think Glenn and I are in agreement is he's got a very bright future ahead of him, a brighter, more joyous and potentially more lucrative future.
	What do you think?
	What do you think his non-compete is?
	And in New York, if they fire you, nothing.
	I know.
	It says they had a mutual agreement.
	I mean, they must have come to an agreement that's going to let him go free.
	You know, like they used to not consider people like you and me competitors.
	They won't let us book Fox News Talent anymore on my show.
	They're not allowed to come on this program.
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	Because now we're big enough.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Because you're big and we're big enough now that they're like, no, you're competitors.
	Well, Tucker would be a competitor for sure.
	And I'm sure, well, they probably wouldn't try to stop him from making a living.
	They're not going to let him get any of the Fox News contributors.
	But that, who cares?
	You can make it as you know, as I know.
	You can make it huge in this lane without those ridiculous people overseeing everything you say.
	I tell you, we have we've been preparing an offer for him for a few days just just to be ready in case, because it looks, it has looked dicey for a while.
	And we hope to present him an offer at the Blaze because he wouldn't miss a step.
	We just take it, go.
	I mean, I think Tucker will do very, very well for himself.
	And I think that if we start working together, you know, Megan, we tried to get you for a while, but we have to start working together somewhat, even in our own, if it's separate companies.
	We just have to stand as one or we're doomed.
	I agree.
	I totally agree with you.
	This is why I love the Daily Wire, even though I'm not part of the Daily Wire and I love The Blaze.
Massive Applause for Departure 00:14:28
	Me too.
	It's important and we support all those guys.
	And I know you do too.
	And I, you, this is like, it's sort of a brotherhood over here slash sister.
	And it's way more supportive and joyful and free than any news organization I've ever worked at.
	And so I think he's going to be, he has no blue sky, nothing but blue sky ahead.
	Glenn, thank you.
	Great to see you.
	Thank you.
	You bet.
	Bye-bye.
	All right.
	In just a bit, we have another Glenn joining us with reaction, and that's Glenn Greenwald with a reaction to both Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon separating from their cable news companies.
	You got to think that CNN was waiting to drop the hammer on Don Lemon and just thought, I'm just going to draft behind the Tucker news.
	I just drafted it.
	No one's going to talk about Don.
	Just get in there.
	Drop it.
	But, you know, they did it by calling his agent and telling his agent to tell him.
	Steve comes back.
	Then Glenn comes back, and we'll get to the view reaction, Steve.
	Let's talk about what the ladies on the view are saying.
	It's somewhat stomach-turning, but we have a clip.
	Let's watch.
	Word has just come down that Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways.
	Thank you for your service to Let Morgan Hunter Prior contributor.
	Wave.
	Can I ask the audience if they'll help me do something?
	Come on, folks.
	Nana Nana.
	Nana Nana.
	Hey!
	Goodbye.
	They're disgusting.
	She's Anna Navarro.
	In your wildest imagination, you could never solo host a show ever.
	Not one of those women ever could.
	Some have tried and failed.
	You will only ever make it as part of an ensemble, and you could never hope to achieve the success that Tucker Carlson has.
	So you can sit in your little cheap seats all day long and enjoy your little negative henpecking, but your careers are going nowhere.
	And Tucker is about to dominate in whatever space he goes to.
	What do you make of it, Steve?
	Yeah, well, you summed it up well.
	There's no greater sign of the power of Tucker Carlson than watching the glee.
	I mean, this is a cable news host, and there is massive applause in the view audience when they say that they've agreed to part ways.
	That Anna Navarro feels so compelled to sing a song at his exit.
	This is the power of someone who has crossed over from the news, only a rare space that very few people occupy.
	Most people, if you ask them, most like average Americans wouldn't even know two people at MSNBC.
	They probably couldn't name a single host of the view besides Whoopi Goldberg, perhaps maybe Joy Behar.
	They don't know any of these people who are celebrating Tucker leaving.
	It's just a show of just how truly powerful he is.
	And it's funny, you know, as we were, as I was watching with you and Glenn, I mean, Tucker is someone who, if you trace his career, this is a person who hosted shows at CNN, hosted a show at MSNBC, and now hosts a show or had been hosting a show at Fox, one of the very few people to do that.
	Someone who had an incredible writing career.
	I mean, he's an amazing writer, notoriously someone who writes all of his monologues that you see on the air.
	And a lot of the rest of the show has talked about that and doesn't own a TV.
	And so will not get to enjoy the view trying to dance on Tucker.
	He will enjoy that.
	I think he actually would enjoy that clip.
	He's not the kind of guy who gets irritated by things like that.
	Just I am on his behalf.
	Let's talk about some of the media reaction pouring in.
	Brian Stelter making it about Brian Stelter.
	Here's what he tweets.
	Tucker Carlson out at Fox News, effective immediately.
	This is an earthshaking moment in cable.
	I've tried calling and texting Tucker for comment on his stunning departure from Fox.
	No response yet.
	Don't hold your breath, Hall monitor.
	The biggest tell in Fox's press release about Tucker's exit is he is not getting a final show.
	No chance to say goodbye on his own terms or point people to his next home.
	Fox says Carlson's last program was Friday, April 21st.
	When CNN ended reliable sources, I was offered a final episode.
	He's actually comparing himself in reliable sources to Tucker, the number one show in cable versus this loser show, literally just Brian and his mother watched.
	That's it.
	I really appreciated the chance to sign off.
	I think viewers did too.
	Tucker leaving Fox without even saying goodbye.
	Stunning.
	Okay, Brian, tell us more about reliable sources and how it was just like being the number one show on off-cable.
	Oh my God.
	I mean, the cognitive dissonance.
	Listen, it's been a rough, it's been a rough couple days, weeks.
	I mean, the Dominion settlement now feels like weeks ago.
	I guess that was only a few days ago.
	You know, Brian's got a book about Fox, a sequel to his book, Hoax, that is really going to have to just tear up the thing because, I mean, the amount of news that's pouring in, it's really unfortunate.
	It's already going to be very dated.
	I don't know if he's closed it out yet.
	Probably has at this point.
	And then he had, as you mentioned, the Vanity Fair gig and the podcast.
	It was supposed to be about Dominion.
	It's like the news sources.
	Think about the industry, Megan, that's been created around Tucker Carlson.
	Media Matters exists because of Tucker Carlson.
	I don't know what they're going to do when they don't get to write about what he's saying in the most unfair and out of context way every day.
	They lose a big, there's the whole, and that's just Media Matters.
	I mean, the rest of the media industry, CNN's JV terrible media reporter that's left in the wake of Brian Stelter's exit will have nothing to talk about because all he does is watch Tucker Carlson and then write things about it out of context.
	It's really going to leave a big hole in the media industry that was built around trying to tear down Tucker.
	That the only question is who's going to now the next question will be is who's going to replace Tucker in the rotating cast.
	The only person who could even potentially do it is Greg Gutfeld.
	But Greg Gutfeld already has a show airing every night.
	They could move it from 11 to 8.
	I love Greg, but he'd have to totally change the show to go at 8.
	You know, the humor and all that.
	Like, I think that would be, it works better later in the evening.
	And so it's a tough choice.
	I mean, I remember Roger telling me that the only person he could put in for Bill O'Reilly, who would actually pull a number was Greg Gutfeld.
	And that was at eight.
	Interesting.
	So he's, he's a possibility for 8 p.m.
	Beyond that, they don't have the bench right now that they used to.
	They, they, you know, once Roger left, they got out of the star development business.
	And, you know, look, they don't even have somebody who's a potential Tucker.
	Tucker is a unicorn.
	And I do think they're going to have a massive audience backlash here that they're probably not prepared for.
	This is from Doug Brunt.
	Feels like cable news as a platform is getting fired.
	I think you may be right.
	Yeah.
	I mean, you talk about the massive bench.
	I don't even know if they need a person like a superstar to be paid, you know, tens of 20s of millions of dollars in order to occupy that seat.
	We saw how they did at 7 p.m.
	They did that rotating cast for over a year, eventually going with Jesse Waters, which seemed like the safe choice there.
	He had been there forever.
	You know, they've got people like my friend Will Kane and others who will likely get a shot.
	They're the fill-ins for Tucker, Will, Pete Hegseth, and others.
	Do you need a super duperstar at that position to pull a number?
	You won't be able to pull Tucker's number.
	I don't even know if you could with Greg.
	So at this point, just kind of keep the train moving.
	We'll see.
	I don't know if it's going to be this gigantic hire.
	CNN just announced very recently, I think it was yesterday, they announced that Charles Barkley and Gail King had been hired to do a single hour of television on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. once a week with a panel show.
	And I think they're paying them a lot of money.
	I don't know if that format is really the success model that it maybe used to be in the new cable news environment and really in the new independent media environment where shows that are independent are enormous and can pull giant audiences like this one.
	I mean, if my advice to Will Kane is use that spot for all it's worth if they give it to you and then bounce out of there to digital media where you can be your own king and you can have a direct relationship with your audience that watches you if they watch you because they want to hear from you, not just because you followed the seven o'clock or you know what I mean?
	Like that's the beauty of making it over in this lane.
	If people know you and they gravitate toward you, they're there for you, not because of the platform.
	The audience relationship is much more authentic.
	It's to be honest, it's why Tucker Carlson has said he made such a big emphasis on getting involved with Fox Nation, which is their streaming platform.
	He has said that that is uncancelable.
	If I'm ever canceled because of my show, because of advertisers, that one they can't touch because it's totally subscription-based.
	I think that most of the people, even in the traditional media environment, get that the shift is completely happening massively now.
	And this is potentially just a sign of where we're going with the rest of it.
	Yeah, but just to clarify, Tucker's gone from Fox Nation on that show.
	Yeah, he was just saying if my, if my primetime show gets canceled because of the no advertisers, I can always go over here.
	Well, he can do subscription base wherever he wants.
	You heard Glenn talking about the Blaze wants him.
	You heard Jeremy Boring's tweeting out.
	A lot of people asking if he's coming to the Daily Wire.
	I suspect he already has a plan, but we'd break out the big novelty checkbook for him if he doesn't.
	Tim Pool, Tucker Carlson 2024.
	And then you got the Liz Cheneys of the world.
	After all of Tucker's lies and defamation, defamation, it's about time.
	We'll get to the Lincoln Project and more when Glenn Greenwald joins us next on the seismic Tucker fallout and Don Lemon finally gone at CNN.
	Big pieces of news today in the media industry.
	Tucker Carlson parting ways with Fox News in just a stunning development.
	Don Lemon has also been terminated at CNN.
	Less of a stunning development, but still big news.
	You know, they had been standing behind him, notwithstanding so many controversies and the upheaval on that morning show and its terrible ratings and the way he was treating his colleagues.
	And Chris Licht was on the record like recently saying, oh, only the old Don Lemon was controversial.
	He's changed all that.
	And then boom, you're fired?
	What?
	Why?
	What happened?
	Just a little bit of color for you, just following Twitter, like Steve's.
	My own texts are blowing up and DMs on Twitter and so on.
	But Jeremy Boring, CEO of the Daily Wire, partner of Ben Shapiro tweets out.
	I told you he said a lot of people are asking if Tucker's coming here.
	We'd love to have him, but he's probably got other plans.
	Jeremy then tweets, a lot of people are asking if Don Lemon is coming to the Real Daily Wire.
	Just kidding.
	No one is asking that.
	No, no.
	Don Lemon will not be going to the real Daily Wire.
	And then just this from Carol Markowitz, friend of the show, New York Post columnist, among others.
	And she writes, Tucker Carlson is one of the kindest, realist, smartest people I originally wrote in media.
	But no, anywhere.
	That's the thing about Tucker.
	He's been so demonized by the mainstream media, the leftist media.
	It's the same thing now.
	That people have this opinion of him, especially Democrats.
	If you're looking for a reason to hate pundits on the right, you've been given so many reasons, but are they real?
	You know, who is Tucker Carlson?
	In my experience, he is a gracious, delightful, kind, loving, loyal, great friend.
	And the racist accusations against him are just, if you, it's all it takes is five minutes to actually look at what he did say to figure out, oh my God, how horrible is he?
	And you figure out, once again, they're pushing their own agenda and misrepresenting his words.
	It's not to defend everything that Tucker has ever said or his choices of words in all instances, but I'm telling you, it's been like a partisan hit job on him from the left from the moment he took over that post.
	And I'll tell you one other thing.
	The reason in part that Tucker was in that post is because I recommended to Lachlan Murdoch that he move him there.
	When I was leaving Fox, Lachlan and I had a good relationship and he said, who do you think I should move into your spot?
	And I said, I would move Tucker.
	I said, he's brilliant.
	He does his homework.
	As you heard Steve mentioning, he's a reader.
	He's an avid reader and writer.
	I mean, he is not some guy who's just looking to be a news star.
	And he at that time in 17, Trump had just won, understood the Trump audience and the Trump voters in a way that was going to be really important for Fox over the coming four years.
	And not everybody did, you know, even though Tucker was more, I don't know, his background is more establishment GOP, you'd say, the old Tucker with the bow tie of MSNBC and CNN.
	Tucker got it.
	He understood exactly why Trump was resonating.
	And from early on, when he was weekend host of Fox and Friends, and I used to have him on the Kelly file all the time.
	And I'd sing, I'd say, my God, he's so smart.
	This guy gets it.
	He gets it in a way not everybody gets it.
	You know, he wasn't the only one.
	I remember feeling that way about Byron York.
	But Tucker both got it and has this great screen presence and is really smart and able to deliver talking points and memory, all this stuff.
	So, but I remember when he took over that role, I remember I was getting my hair done and we were talking about it on the phone.
	And he was saying thank you for the recommendation.
	I mean, he earned it 100%.
	It wasn't because of me.
	It was just a, I just wade in.
	He said, thank you.
	And I said, hold on.
	You might not want to thank me because I know some things about this job that you may not know yet, that you're about to find out about really fast.
	And, you know, the truth is it's an extremely toxic post, extremely toxic.
	And you can take that for me and times it by 100 from when he took over, you know, during the era of Trump as somebody who was open-minded to Trump and at times defensive of Trump.
	I mean, and Tucker is just not afraid.
	So all those things made him a huge target.
	And trust me, it has not been easy on him.
	He's a human being, notwithstanding what you might read in the New York Times.
	He has family.
	He does get stressed by the threats on his life, on his family's lives.
	He's not just, he doesn't crumble easily at criticism or somebody, you know, like the view laughing at him, but it's not an easy post.
Toxic Post and Ideological Split 00:10:39
	It's just not.
	So one of the many reasons I think he's going to be happier in whatever he does next, I guarantee he's not going to CNN.
	He's not going to pop up on the CNN morning show in Dodzel's lot.
	Sure, he's going to go independent and crush it.
	Joining me now to discuss that lean and much, much more is Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and host of Rumble's System Update.
	Glenn, your reaction to the news.
	I mean, it's stunning in one way.
	You know, it reminds me a little bit.
	I don't mean to draw this melodramatic analogy, but if you have someone you know and the doctor says, oh, the person has a lot of health problems, there's a possibility that they may become fatal.
	And then the person actually dies.
	On the one hand, you know, you kind of expected it.
	It's not coming out of left field.
	You know, there's reasons why it might have happened.
	But on the other hand, to actually see it happen when it actually happens, it's still quite shocking.
	And that's how I feel about this.
	It's not as though it's impossible to have perceived that there are differences and tensions between Tucker and Fox on the, between Tucker on the one hand, Fox on the other.
	But for them to get to the point, and we don't know, I don't know, even as Tucker's friend, exactly what precipitated the events over the last few days, whether he quit, whether he was fired, whether it really was mutual.
	We're obviously going to find out.
	But I think it is really important to note that there are a lot of ideological divisions within the Republican Party in a way that is not true for the Democratic Party or the left.
	There's real ideological split.
	I mean, Trump in 2016 ran against the Bush-Shaney foreign policy.
	Even Reaganomics is an economic policy, something that was unheard of.
	It split the establishment and the populist wing.
	And you could just watch in between the eight o'clock and the nine o'clock show on vital issues like Ukraine, the U.S. security state, the CIA, Julian Assange, all kinds of issues.
	Tucker had fundamentally different views than, say, Sean Hannity, who more reflects this kind of establishment, Republican, conservative approach.
	And I don't think it's appreciated the extent to which Tucker has become very ideologically heterodox and very much outside of the mold of, say, what liberal establishment institutions like to propagate about Fox, that it's nothing more than this mindless, loyalist channel to the Republican Party or to conservative orthodoxy.
	In the case of Tucker and a few other people there as well, that's simply not the case.
	And those tensions clearly have been boiling over for a while.
	I, you know, I haven't been there since 2017, but that would have been a plus back in my day.
	They would have loved having a diversity, a diversity of opinion.
	You know, when I was on the air in prime time, it was me, Bill O'Reilly, Greta, Sean.
	You know, Greta was a Democrat, as far as we knew.
	She didn't really talk about her politics, but if anything, you know, her history had been more left-leaning.
	Sean, of course, Republican.
	O'Reilly was a populist, and I was an independent.
	And they loved it.
	You know, that was good.
	It was good for America.
	Like, Tucker, one of the things that's made him special is that you never know where he's going to come down.
	You can't always predict.
	You know, like, remember early on in COVID, he was like, take it very seriously.
	Very serious disease.
	I think it's going to kill a lot of people.
	He flew to Marovago.
	He's got Fox to tell Trump that.
	Remember?
	He flew to Maravago to urge Trump to take it more seriously.
	And then the Sydney Powell thing.
	That's what I was talking with Steve.
	Like, how could it be Dominion that if they fired him?
	How could it be over Dominion?
	Yes, I realized there was some controversial text, but he was the one who went out on the air and said Sidney Powell's a liar.
	You could argue he saved Fox from worse pain.
	That sort of gave the permission to a lot of others who had been holding out.
	Like, you don't need to take this woman seriously.
	So, like, I just can't imagine his heterodox views did it.
	I could be wrong.
	I mean, I definitely could be wrong.
	I don't, I don't know this board and I don't know the management anymore.
	Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a little hard.
	I think we're both a little hamstrung.
	You know, when someone's your friend, you get some information in the context of the friendship.
	You don't want to, you know, talk about that publicly because it's really up to the person to speak for themselves.
	But some things are public and visible.
	And I think the fact that it is so amazing, Megan, that sometimes it really is frightening the ability of the mainstream media to create a reality for that people ingest that is completely the opposite of the truth.
	I guarantee you, if you asked most liberals, most Democrats, people who consume liberal media about Tucker's views of fraud during the 2020 election, they will tell you, oh, privately, he was saying he didn't believe it, but publicly he was endorsing it to please his audience when the reality is exactly the opposite.
	We did an entire show on what Tucker was saying in real time.
	And as you just said, he went on a huge limb.
	He angered a large part of the Fox audience by saying, look, if Sidney Powell and these fraud claims are truthful, this is the greatest crime in American history.
	But we need evidence before we believe them.
	And you, the audience, should need evidence before you believe them.
	And Sidney Powell refuses to provide any.
	And that's leading me to believe that she's lying.
	That is the kind of integrity and the kind of willingness to challenge the agenda and perceptions of your own audience that is almost unheard of on the other cable networks.
	Megan, when is the last time someone on CNN or MSNBC stood up and said something that was alienating of the Democratic Party and its leaders or the liberal audience, the small but still loyal liberal audience that they cultivate?
	It almost never happens.
	Where are the differences ideologically on these other networks?
	So I don't know that this heterodoxy of Tucker is a factor in why this happened.
	We don't know yet.
	But what I do know is that it is very real.
	And if you compare Tucker and Hannity, obviously on some views, they have similar views, immigration or whatever, but on major, major issues, they have fundamental disagreements.
	And I think that reflects the fact that Fox is in a kind of position where it does seem to be wanting to move Fox away from the kind of populist, heterodox growth in conservative politics, MAGA or America First or whatever you want to call it, which Tucker, by the way, was not an absolute adherent of.
	He was critical of that at times as well and kind of returned to the days when, you know, I think it was more in line with supporting the Republican Party, the traditional Republican Party, the pre-Trump Republican Party of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan.
	And we'll see who replaces Tucker, but I'd be willing to wager a lot more, a lot of money that it's much more like, say, Hannity, who I'm not criticizing.
	I'm just describing where he is ideologically than Tucker.
	Paul Ryan, who I believe is chairman of the board right now at Fox.
	And I like Paul Ryan, but I understand the politics at play.
	And I also get it.
	Trust me, as a businesswoman, I also understand you decided to pay $800, $800, $800 million to settle the Dominion lawsuit.
	And you have a SmartMatic lawsuit coming at you right around the corner where they're suing for even more money than Dominion was, another billion, $2.7 billion instead of $1.6 billion in the SmartMatic.
	And you say heads have got a role, but why that head?
	I don't see an announcement that Maria Barta-Romo, and I like Maria.
	I'm not saying Maria should get fired, but she's not fired.
	Janine Pierrow, she's not fired.
	Lou Dobbs got fired.
	But the people in the Dominion lawsuit and the SmartMatic lawsuit are Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria, Janine, Lou, and Suzanne Scott, and a couple of her, like top, I mean, really her, Suzanne Scott.
	So how does the C, like, where's that announcement?
	Why would Tucker be the first to go?
	Not only does it not make sense that Tucker is the first to go, you could argue that he ought to be the last to go.
	First of all, beginning with the fact that he generates more, more ratings than anybody on that network.
	There are a couple of people who are close, but he's still basically setting records in terms of audience size that are the top records in the history of cable news in terms of his audience size.
	And even once Trump went away, it really waned a little, but not very much at all.
	And I also, you know, you look at ratings and, you know, among young Democrats who watch cable news, more young Democrats watch Tucker's show than any show on MSNBC or CNN, which doesn't surprise me at all.
	Because again, as you said earlier, it's not predictable where he falls, where he comes down on things.
	And I've never seen anybody, Megan, on with a national platform, a media platform of that kind who's more willing to stand up and say, when I used to think this, I was wrong.
	I've come to change the ways that I think.
	And here's the reasons I've changed the ways I think on so many issues.
	He, I mean, I don't know how many times I've been on his show where he said, you know, you used to say this and I thought you were crazy.
	And now I've come to see that, in fact, a lot of the things you were saying are things that I now realize are true.
	This willingness to change his mind, to admit when he's wrong.
	And Megan, if I were Fox News and I wanted to prove to the public that major personalities on Fox were not on board the claim that SmartMatic or Dominion engineered election fraud through voting machines, the person to whom I would first point or one of the people would be Tucker, as we just talked about.
	He was the one who was willing to alienate the audience, his audience, in order to tell them that the evidence for it was simply not there.
	And I think what is happening is because he has become public enemy number one with Trump gone, he really is public enemy number one of the liberal establishment.
	Maybe Elon Musk is the only one who competes with him.
	And of course, Trump's always there, but Tucker is the focal point.
	It seems like a kind of appeasement on the part of Fox.
	It does.
	Oh, we're moving back into your good graces.
	It does.
	And once again, the irony, the irony, if you look at how this whole thing unfolded, Glenn, it started with Fox making the Arizona call, which was a journalistic decision that wound up being very controversial and ultimately was deemed to be too close by Fox's defenders and its attackers alike.
Public Enemy Number One 00:02:28
	Okay, but made in good faith and by journalists who had this newfangled equipment and had very good reason to believe in what they were, what they were doing.
	It wasn't ideological, like we're dying for Joe Biden to win.
	They thought that they had it before anybody and they wanted to get ahead of it.
	So they wind up firing Chris Styrewalt.
	They wind up firing Bill Salmon.
	They don't fire the head of the decision desk, Arnon Michigan.
	They fire Chris Darwalt, who they put out on the air to defend the call.
	But then he became the face of the call.
	So they fired his ass.
	Okay, that makes sense.
	This guy loyally serving the company for years and years and years gave great advice, Bill Salmon, too.
	Okay, they're gone.
	They're sacrificial lambs.
	Then the audience is still in revolt.
	They're still not satisfied.
	They're very pissed off about the Arizona call.
	It wasn't enough that they fired those two.
	And then the Dominion stuff starts popping up.
	Cindy Powell, Giuliani, Dominion, Smart Matic, votes were flipped.
	And Fox leans too far into that to try to win the audience back because the internal text show, they're going to Newsmax.
	They're going to OANN.
	We've got to get them back.
	So they're in this mad dash to get the audience back.
	And now they finally have to settle for $800 million, one of those lawsuits.
	And what do they do?
	They alienate that very same base.
	Again, those people who were mad were probably largely Tucker's audience.
	Yes, probably Hannity's audience as well.
	But like, you think they're going to react well to this?
	That now Tucker's gone.
	You paid off Dominion and you parted ways with our favorite host?
	I mean, you know, I don't, I think I've seen this before.
	You know, I have watched, for example, people like Mark Zuckerberg, who started off as a steadfast, adamant opponent of online censorship, gradually appease these demands from the New York Times and other liberal institutions.
	And you sometimes have this caricature in your head that a billionaire of his, you know, wealth is immune to those kinds of pressures.
	But it turns out that people aren't because human beings want to be accepted.
	They want to go to parties and not be scorned and ostracized.
	They worry about their legacy.
	And so they start thinking, maybe I can give some outreach, give some crumbs to the people who hate me, and then they'll hate me less if I do what they want.
	And it never works.
	It has the opposite effect.
	You think they're going to start, you know, stop with Tucker?
	And then at the same time, what they've done is they've taken, I mean, I've been out with Tucker before.
Removing a Flashpoint 00:05:24
	I've seen how people come up to him and like with all their heart, you know, tell him that he's, you know, one of the few people they trust on television.
	I mean, his audience is so loyal because he gives things that really no one else can provide in terms of his perspective, his integrity.
	Like they feel it, you know, they trust him so much.
	I don't think he's replaceable in ease.
	Saying FOX is going to collapse without him.
	But it really seems to me like this is, I don't know, the Murdox or um management at FOX kind of just saying okay, Tucker is such a flashpoint that if we get rid of him we can kind of have more breathing room again.
	Look, let's be clear on one thing.
	Let's be clear on one thing, this doesn't happen without Rupert's blessing.
	No way, this is not.
	I've been critical of Suzanne Scott, who I like as a human, but she just handled the dominion thing so poorly.
	Um, but there is zero chance they partway with Tucker without Rupert's direct involvement.
	I mean just periodic report.
	So yeah he, I don't know what persuaded him.
	Um, I just cannot believe that it was the left, but it could have been the board.
	And on the subject of the left, let me give you a couple of um samples.
	Okay, here is the Lincoln Project.
	Please forgive me while I throw up my mouth.
	Um, Tucker Carlson is an abomination, a driver of conspiracy and the worst our nation has to offer.
	Good riddance, Ellie Mistel of the Nation, Msnbc contributor who hates white people.
	Uh, texts or tweets out where do we think Tucker will fail up to next?
	Vice president Spotify Cnn, Grand wizard.
	Um, we played the the, THE VIEW crew cheering uh and singing.
	You know?
	Um na-na-na-na goodbye, uh.
	George Takai, the Star Trek guy is that how you pronounce his last name?
	I only ever see it in writing.
	Um, don't let the door hit you on your way out.
	Correctly, it's better that way.
	Okay, don't let the door hit you on your way out, you horrid soulless man hashtag.
	Tucker Carlson, on the other hand, go ahead, let it hit you.
	Good, they hate him, but Glenn.
	Here's the thing.
	I realize Tucker's a unique brand, for sure, but in a way, this kind of reminds me of the fight Trump and Desantis are having, where Desantis came out and he was like, I don't know anything about paying off a porn star that you cheated on your wife with.
	You know, it's not really my area of expertise and I get it.
	Desantis saw a chance.
	He seems to have have actually a lovely marriage and a lovely wife and and not have at all the weird situation that Trump has in his marriage.
	Um however, Trump's response was, you just wait, you see what they do to you if you wind up in the big chair, never mind getting the nomination.
	And he was right about that, and it may be that the board had had it, with Tucker being the center of so much attention.
	But you, just you think, who was it the Eight o'clock before Tucker?
	Oh, it was Bill O'reilly.
	They didn't exactly love him either, right?
	I mean, he was a massive target too, and i've told the story before, but it bears repeating here.
	When I was elevated to the prime time, I went to Bill and I was like, so what do you think?
	You know?
	Like, is this going to be good?
	And he was like, oh, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.
	I'm like what, what?
	And he said, cable news is a snake pit uh, and it it is especially in prime time.
	So who, if Fox is thinking oh, we're gonna get like Trump without the baggage, you know, we're gonna get Tucker without the baggage.
	No, the left media matters, which now quoted regularly in the NEW YORK Times.
	They're going to try to saddle whoever steps into that role with all the same names and baggage.
	You know, I, first of all, I hope we don't lose sight and this doesn't obscure something that happened yesterday, which was Alexander Ocasio-Cortez went on the show of Jen Saki, the former Biden White House press secretary, and explicitly advocated the government should ban.
	Tucker Carlson specifically from being on television.
	She talked about how the permissibility standards are too broad for what regulators are allowing in terms of people who are going on the air and try to invoke the Brandenburg standard, the one place where you can, the government can go and not violate the First Amendment, claiming he incites, imminently incites violence, which is so preposterous.
	But they didn't just hate Tucker.
	They wanted Tucker off the air.
	It's a gigantic victory for the left.
	And this is the thing, Megan, that I find so amazing.
	You know, just as somebody who has my own kind of heterodox viewpoints, that for a long time those views were associated with the left, Tucker is the most vocal opponent of the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine.
	He probably is the most strident critic of the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security.
	He did more than anybody to advocate a pardon for Julian Assange.
	When the U.S. government was trying to destabilize Cuba in the name of changing its government, Tucker was the only person on television willing to stand up and say, why is it our role to go and interfere in Cuba?
	Taking him off prime time removes a lot of important dissent that you almost can't hear anywhere else.
	You know, Warren Ingram, I think, is closer to Tucker than say Hannity and Jesse Waters may be the same.
Optimism After Huge Loss 00:04:42
	But in terms of being that devoted to that worldview, it is a huge loss.
	And it's bizarre that the left hates Tucker above all else because he's in a lot of ways advocating the views that they don't advocate anymore.
	Now that they're on the side of the CIA and the U.S. security state, that they like censorship, that they support the war in Ukraine, all the things that the left used to claim in a lot of ways one can only find on Tucker's show.
	And that's why I consider it such a huge loss for our discourse.
	But let me make you feel better.
	And this is with respect to the players I'm going to mention.
	Who is more influential?
	Jesse Waters or Ben Shapiro?
	Yeah, Ben Shapiro for sure.
	There's no question, no question.
	And Ben, I would have said that about Ben a couple of years ago, too.
	It's not just today.
	People who have names, well-known names and well-known audience trust in this lane that you and I are in now can have an exponentially big impact on the national dialogue.
	You're doing it now on Rumble.
	I'm over here still on YouTube and through SiriusXM and on my podcast.
	It's all the same show, but we put it on all the platforms in the news all the time in a way that we can drive the national conversation from our independent and honest posts without having to answer to somebody else's agenda.
	So he will still have that voice.
	I think he could be bigger and more influential than ever.
	Just because he's taken off a Fox doesn't mean his voice goes away unless he lets it.
	But I will say it's going to be tougher for the people who draft behind him, some of the names you mentioned, when he's not as easy to find on the Fox platform anymore.
	So I bet the rest of the players on Fox will start sounding more establishmenty.
	Look, I mean, Megan, you know, I think that's such an important point.
	And it's the cause of optimism.
	And you're absolutely right to kind of interject in my sort of gloominess and point out that maybe it's not bad.
	In fact, maybe it's good.
	I know personally when I left the intercept, my audience not only increased, but the trust people had in me did as well.
	When you're totally independent, they no longer have to suspect that there's corporate constraints on you, even subconsciously.
	And if you obviously, I would say, you know, one of the top three or four most influential people in the country is someone that mainstream news outlets barely ever talk about anymore, which is Joe Rogan.
	And what is it about Joe Rogan more than anything that makes him so trustworthy?
	It's the fact that no one controls what he says.
	There's no super corporate structure sitting above him, telling him that he can say this, telling him he can't say this.
	I really believe the independent part of the media where we are, you know, where people like Joe Rogan are, where a lot of people are, is absolutely the part of the media thriving and exploding.
	And I really hope Tucker goes to an independent platform because I do, I think you're totally right.
	That will vastly increase his credibility.
	And I even think his influence and his reach.
	Obviously, I hope he comes to Rumble.
	I know they have a lot of money waiting for him to try and lure him there, but you're right.
	He's going to have no shortage of opportunities.
	And I think maybe getting away from Fox and freeing him in all those ways could be the thing that actually makes him even more consequential.
	Yeah.
	I'm sure they will offer him a bunch of money, but I will say too: this, nobody offered me any money.
	I started up on YouTube.
	First, I launched my podcast.
	Nobody was offering me money.
	I just did it on myself.
	I was going out there getting advertisers.
	And I said, I said to my therapist, what if nobody listens?
	I'm like, what if?
	And he said, well, Doug and I will listen.
	So I'm like, I got those two.
	And then he said, the next week, you probably have nine and you'll build it.
	And sure enough, we did.
	And now we're consistently in the top four or five of news podcasts in the country consistently.
	I mean, that's where we always are.
	But that was entirely on our own.
	Now we partnered with Sirius.
	So now we have an additional platform, but they don't really promote us out there.
	You know, it's just us rowing and rowing and rowing.
	We launched YouTube a year and a half ago.
	That's on fire now.
	So you can do it without anybody giving you money.
	They will give Tucker money, but he can do it on his own.
	And Tucker's already got Family Doe.
	We talked about that when he came on our show.
	Steve will find the episode number.
	It was a great interview with him.
	He's not in this for money.
	He wants to support his family, but he's in this to shape people's minds and the way they think about things.
	Wait, let me say one other thing because I know I know Tucker is a big story, but it is kind of interesting to talk about Don Lemon.
	What the hell?
	The contrast is so funny.
	Why now?
	Literally, Chris Licht was just out there publicly.
	He was on some panel like 10 days ago, Steve will tell me.
	And he was saying, Oh, only old Don Lemon is controversial.
Contrast with Don Lemon 00:02:58
	Once, you know, now he's past all that.
	Now he's on mornings.
	He's past all that.
	And then boom, he's fired too.
	And Megan, like, there may be some hidden thing we don't know about that caused it.
	And presumably, if there is, that will come out.
	It just happened, you know, a couple hours ago.
	But here's what I will say.
	First of all, the contrast is funny because on the one hand, you have Tucker Carlson, who is watched by millions and millions and millions of people and is setting records for ratings in cable news.
	And on the other hand, you have someone, Don Lamont, who has no audience, even with the gigantic CNN brand behind him.
	Just people don't want to see or care about or listen to Don Lamont.
	The thing about it is, I will say, and we've talked about all these weird, like misogynistic tensions and resentments he has that were so visible.
	I've seen a couple of clips coming through my Twitter feed and elsewhere.
	And his anger and just like bitterness and resentment with his colleagues and just in life is so palpable.
	Like you could just tell he's so angry when he has to wait for his co-host to get done with their questions.
	He really feels like all the attention should be on him.
	And I, the personality flaws that caused him to have so many problems to have to go to formal re-education therapy or whatever, these are intrinsic in who he is.
	And it's only getting worse the more he's humiliated.
	And so I'm not surprised it kept building.
	Maybe he failed camp.
	He got abs on the re-education test.
	Maybe he failed on it.
	To your point, just last week, they had on the morning show.
	It was Poppy Harlow and Don, and they had on Vivek, Ramaswamy, running for president as a Republican candidate.
	And it was an annoying exchange.
	Vivek was trying to make a... point about black history in America and Don Lemon accused him of like, don't race Splain or something.
	I don't know.
	He's like, don't tell me about Black history in America because I guess you're only allowed to talk about it if you are Black.
	You're not allowed to just have knowledge about it and comment.
	And so it ended kind of tensely between Don and Vivek, though there was a handshake.
	And then Poppy was clearly trying to be the peacemaker and say, Vivek, the next time you come on, we'll talk about some of these other things we didn't get to.
	Here's how the ending of that exchange went.
	We appreciate you coming on.
	With due respect, Don, I look forward to continuing that conversation.
	Thank you for the conversation.
	Thank you.
	Thank you, Poppy.
	We'll talk about China.
	Yes, does that show?
	You come back.
	Oh, thank you.
	Much to say on declaring independence from China.
	Something you can add.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Right?
	You see, the audience, in case you didn't hear, he was like, okay, we'll move on now.
	Thank you.
	Without even looking at the guest, he's annoyed that Poppy's saying you'll come back on to talk about China.
	He's like, I wrap this interview.
	Shut the fuck up.
	We're moving on.
	Shut up.
	That's really what was happening there.
Rotating Hosts in His Slot 00:16:04
	I mean, it's just, it's unpleasant to watch somebody.
	It's not like an interesting tension, right?
	Like sometimes, you know, like people used to love Gory Vidal and William Buckley, like those debates, they really didn't like each other, but it was like driven by a kind of ideological passion and they were both super charismatic and incredibly well spoken.
	People loved it.
	This, though, is just like trivial small vindictiveness, you know, like diva behavior.
	And it expresses itself as obvious misogyny.
	It's unpleasant to watch.
	And maybe you can get away with it if you're a big star, but as Trump pointed out notoriously, but Don Laman is not a big star.
	He's well known, but nobody, he doesn't bring any ratings in.
	And so your ability to get away with that is practically zero.
	None.
	Their ratings on that morning show are in the toilet.
	The entire daytime and primetime ratings at CNN are in the toilet.
	Their main competitor, MSNBC, is doubling them right now.
	They got nothing going, absolutely nothing.
	And I'm sure he's making a nice salary, but so far, he's been untouchable.
	So I'd love to find out what changed because it was very, the last straw was felt very sudden.
	Much, much more in all this to come.
	It's always a pleasure, Glenn.
	Thank you so much for coming on.
	Great being with you, Megan, as always.
	Yeah.
	And again, I want to say, Adam Curry, we want to have you back.
	The pod father was coming on today, but we want to give him the full episode as we promised.
	So we moved him and we'll tell you what day we moved him to, or we're trying to.
	Up next, Rich Lowry of National Review will join us.
	He, I don't know if he's still a Fox News contributor.
	I don't think he can be and be allowed on this show.
	So he must just be a guest, frequent guest of Fox News and a fan of Fox News.
	So this is not like a bunch of Fox haters.
	Glenn is on Fox all the time.
	I worked for Fox for 17 years, but there's a lot happening right now.
	We need to be honest about it.
	He's up next.
	Federal regulation in terms of what's allowed on air and what isn't.
	And when you look at what Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on Fox do, it is very, very clearly incitement of violence.
	Very clearly incitement of violence.
	And that is the line that I think we have to be willing to contend with.
	She's an idiot.
	She's an absolute idiot.
	She's a congressional Kardashian.
	I've said it before because it's true.
	There is nothing close to incitement in anything that Tucker has done.
	Absolutely not, nothing.
	She doesn't understand the meaning of the word.
	Incitement is when I issue a statement so incendiary that it spurs immediate action causing somebody to harm somebody else.
	Where did he do that?
	What'd he say?
	Show me the statement.
	Show me who got hurt.
	When, where?
	She doesn't know.
	She makes shit up all the time.
	And now she's saying it publicly, but she is definitely not the reason Tucker parted ways with Fox News, because if there is one person in this world Rupert Murdoch does not listen to, it's that moron.
	Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show.
	Here with me now as we go through this massive breaking news about Tucker Carlson leaving Fox and less massive, Don Lemon fired by CNN, Rich Lowry, editor and chief of National Review.
	So that's congressional Kardashian with the congressional spelled with the K.
	Yeah.
	Kardashian.
	Okay, good.
	Thank you for picking up what I'm putting down.
	I want to add this, Brian Stelter.
	I'll actually have to figure this out.
	I can figure this out when I'm off the air, but he's tweeting out.
	I'm told that both Tucker and Don Lamon have retained the famously aggressive entertainment lawyer, Brian Friedman.
	I've reached out to Friedman, no response yet.
	Brian Friedman is my lawyer, and I would submit one of the reasons why all these people now run to Brian, because he represented me so well in my fight with NBC and absolutely crushed his job.
	Crushed it.
	Okay.
	Brian Friedman is an amazingly talented lawyer, and you should be running to him if you get in any sort of a legal dispute because he's awesome.
	So we'll see how that goes.
	And I'll get back to you when I have news on that.
	Newsmax CEO reacting to the news, Chris Ruddy, saying, quote, this is again Per Stelter.
	For a while, Fox News has been moving to become establishment media.
	And Tucker Carlson's removal is a big milestone in that effort.
	Millions of viewers who liked the old Fox News have made the switch to Newsmax, and Tucker's departure will only fuel that.
	I recognize Ruddy's got competitive reasons for saying that, Rich, but he's not wrong that this is a good day for Newsmax.
	Yeah, I don't know how much of a good day it is for Newsmax, but this was stunning news, obviously.
	I was at the Heritage Foundation 50th anniversary dinner on Friday, and Tucker was the featured dinner speaker.
	And it may have been the best after-dinner remarks I've ever heard.
	And I've heard a lot of them, and a lot of them aren't very good.
	He was just winsome.
	He was funny.
	He was memorable, had profound moments.
	He's just an incredibly talented communicator.
	And no one else, whoever they get in that slot, obviously is going to move news, create news almost every night the way Tucker Carlson did.
	But Fox is a, you know, it's a juggernaut.
	They are very good at TV, better at TV than any of their competitors.
	So I think they'll be fine.
	But it's definitely a blow, as Glenn was saying, for populism.
	Even if the APM, new APM person is a guide-in-the-wool populist, no one will be as good at advancing that point of view and make it matter as much as Tucker did.
	I mean, Fox, look, they had when I left, O'Reilly was in the eight and I was in the nine.
	I left.
	They did just fine.
	Now, that was right as Trump took over.
	And they put Tucker in my slot.
	So he crushed it.
	And then eventually, I can't remember.
	They put him there and then they moved him to eight when O'Reilly left.
	But when O'Reilly left, a lot of people thought that slot would collapse.
	Then they moved Tucker to eight.
	It didn't collapse.
	It did better than ever.
	So it's like Fox does have a machine going.
	And I think they learned the lesson that they can have their biggest stars go and the juggernaut will continue.
	But I predict they're going to take a hit as a result of this.
	I think Tucker's core audience is going to be angry and they're going to try to send Fox a message.
	So, I don't know about long term, but I think certainly short term, Fox is going to take a hit on this.
	I remember this.
	When Tucker first started in that APM slot, there was someone at Fox who was very skeptical.
	And I was like, I saw him at a party or something.
	It's like, oh, the first week ratings were okay, right?
	You know, like O'Reilly ratings.
	Just wait.
	Just wait, Rich.
	It'll come down.
	And of course, it never did.
	And the secret sauce of Tucker's show was one, having original thoughts, being new and different.
	I didn't like some of that difference, but also just being a fantastic writer.
	Some of those opening monologues, you could print them in a magazine or newspapers and op-ed, and they'd stand up.
	They were just so well done.
	And I think, Glenn, and you were also right that, you know, when Tucker, you know, he was ousted at MSNBC and CNN.
	And I remember him saying when he started Fox, well, I've exhausted all my alternatives.
	Well, there's no exhausting the alternatives now, right?
	You're not dependent on three cable networks or a couple broadcast networks to have a huge platform.
	And he clearly has the potential to be like a Joe Rogan type podcasting behemoth, given his loyalist and his native talent.
	He could go all subscription and do that.
	Subscription is harder to do because you're asking people to pay money out of their pocket as opposed to an ad-supported show.
	But he'll find advertisers too.
	I mean, the people who Steven Crowder has lots of advertisers, Ben Shapiro does.
	I do.
	You can say controversial things in this world, and they're great, awesome advertisers who will have your back and they're not afraid of the mob.
	So I think he'll do very well here.
	I want to bring you this report from MediaIte, which is, of course, a website that covers our industry and very well connected.
	They report as follows: Tucker Carlson's departure from Fox News was not voluntary, multiple sources told Mediaite.
	A source who spoke with MediaIte on condition of anonymity revealed that Carlson was, in fact, shocked by the news.
	He was totally surprised, quoting, said the source.
	He had no idea it was a firing, the source added.
	And Carlson, quote, was informed today, explaining why he had closed Friday's show, saying he would be back on Monday.
	The Fox News newsroom is, quote, in a state of shock, the source said, confirming reporting by Mediaite's Aiden McLaughlin that multiple sources within the network said the news, quote, hit like a bomb inside the network, shocking even staffers close to the ex-primetime host who had no idea this was coming and found out not from any internal communication, but when the news broke online.
	The source did not know the precise reason for Carlson's firing, but speculated that it was part of general house cleaning after the Dominion settlement, plus the grumbling and litigation worries from Fox News shareholders or something related to former Fox producer Abby Grossman's complaint that was specifically connected to Carlson.
	That's all kind of interesting, but also suspected.
	I do think it's stunning to me that I just don't know what would make you fire Tucker Carlson other than the board making you saying we're getting hit with shareholder lawsuits now.
	We're facing a smartmatic lawsuit.
	And whether he's the cause of our troubles with Dominion, P.S. he wasn't, or these other things or not, we're tired of it.
	And he's got it like somebody had to somehow strongarm because I just can't imagine Rupert Murdoch bowing to the AOCs of the world saying he does incitement every night.
	Right.
	Well, you know, when Rogers were on the show, he would occasionally yank the primetime talent around just to show them who was boss.
	There's none of that lately, and especially not with Tucker.
	You know, he seemed totally immune from anything.
	So this makes it completely shocking, as that's just the only appropriate word.
	And I kind of thought, you know, all right, you've lost this big lawsuit and paid or settled this big lawsuit and paid 700 million.
	You can keep Tucker Carlson now.
	You don't have to worry about it.
	So it's just, it's stunning.
	Maybe there's something else floating around and that Abby Grossman is at her name.
	Complaints.
	I'd be shocked if it's the Abby Grossman complain.
	I mean, you know how many, how often Fox gets sued gross burger by a disgruntled ex-producer?
	I mean, that's like a day ending in why.
	Yeah, it's like the 1927 New York Yankees firing Babe Ruth or Lou Garrick.
	It's just hard to fathom and we need to know more.
	I want to give you some reaction from the right.
	Eric Trump tweets out first.
	It was Lara Trump.
	Did not realize that his wife Laura got the boot from Fox, but apparently that happened in December.
	Then Don Bongino, now Tucker Carlson.
	What is happening to Fox?
	Carrie Lake tweeted out the best decision I ever made was leaving Fox.
	She was a Fox local anchor in Arizona.
	Good for you, Tucker Carlson.
	You're free and uncensored.
	Yashar Ali, who is a reporter who has a lot of media sources, total and complete shock at Fox in response to the Tucker Carlson announcement per text from staff and talent.
	Everyone outside of top executives, including Tucker's staff, found out about his exit on Twitter.
	No internal email was sent.
	That still remains the case.
	I have lots of friends inside Fox who send me the stuff, and nothing's come out from Fox internally to the staff yet, though they did put out this anodyne statement.
	We've agreed to part ways.
	We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.
	His last program was Friday.
	Now we'll have rotating hosts in his slot.
	We've agreed to part ways.
	Let's just get the audience up to speed that's joining us now and Don Lemon.
	Unbelievably, Don tweets out the following: I was informed this morning by my agent that I've been terminated by CNN.
	I'm 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've loved at the network.
	It's clear that there are some larger issues at play.
	That's interesting.
	It's clear that there are some larger issues at play.
	Hint, right?
	Right.
	But it's like larger issues besides you?
	Like, what does that mean?
	And then he goes on to thank his colleagues.
	Then CNN just added this, Rich, to the conversation.
	Don Lemon's statement about this morning's events is inaccurate.
	He was offered an opportunity to meet with management, but instead released a statement on Twitter.
	Sounds like perhaps that opportunity was offered after his agent told him he was canned.
	I can't quite tell what went down there, but your thoughts on Don Lemon done after 17 years at CNN.
	You know, he is a smooth talker.
	He's glib.
	He's good looking.
	But if you're going to have a new CNN, how can you keep Don Lemon?
	I mean, he was all in on the anti-Trump stuff.
	He knows nothing.
	He totally is a representative of the conventional wisdom at any given moment.
	And if you really want to be a news network, you have to get away with it from that.
	I don't know whether CNN ever actually will manage to escape the gravitational pull of that, but he wasn't a natural fit in the morning show.
	He's shoehorned in there to give him something and obviously seems to have some deep issue with women.
	If he doesn't, he just didn't like his two women co-hosts very much.
	We saw reports behind the scenes of that and we saw the evidence in front of our eyes.
	And just morning TV, you at least want people to be fake liking each other.
	You don't have someone want someone to be bitchy towards his co-host every other day.
	And that's what you got.
	So it seemed, it seemed inevitable.
	This is not shocking.
	On our podcast a couple of months ago, went around predicting whether Don Lemon would still be there in six months.
	And most of us said no.
	And I said no as well.
	So this is one of my rare predictions that actually panned out.
	And Charlie said no, but you won't give him credit for it on the next Saturday.
	Exactly.
	I was right.
	I don't know about anyone else.
	I'm on to your patterns.
	Rich Lowry, thank you.
	Great to see you.
	Thanks very much.
	Just getting some more reporting in Semaphore, which is a new news agency run by the guy who Ben Smith used to run BuzzFeed.
	They're reporting that Tucker's EP, executive producer Justin Wells is also out at Fox News.
	Look, all we know for sure is that they did do a hit piece with Ray Epps on Tucker on 60 Minutes last night.
	And it would have been very on brand for Tucker to respond to that today.
	So whether that was the catalyst for getting rid of him, I cannot tell you.
	But for sure, I mean, you can take it to the bank that there was some rumbling internally about that today.
	But even if that were the last straw in Fox's view, it's stunning to me that there would have been any straws on that camel's back because Tucker was number one.
	And he was the man who brought all sorts of buzz about Fox News into the papers.
	Yes, often negative, but that's going to happen.
	How many nice pieces did you see on Bill O'Reilly when he was there?
	Go check my Media Matters write-ups when I was in the Fox News primetime.
	There's a whole website called IhateSeanHannity.com, right?
	That's part of the job.
	So I don't know.
	I will say this about Don Lemon, now variety reporting.
	In the wake of his unacceptable sexist comments about Nikki Haley, you know, about women being in their prime only when they're in their 30s, maybe 40, his fate at CNN hung in the balance with many colleagues privately calling for his ouster.
	So we don't know how much things had ratcheted up internally there for Don Lemon and whether even that exchange I just showed you that he had with Poppy Harlow at the end of last week's program, you know, he was on very thin ice, I'm sure, in the wake of Nikki Haley and all the other incidents with him.
Life After Cable News 00:00:38
	What a day in cable news.
	Look, it's a very fickle business.
	You really are, you know, the bride one day, the bridesmaid the next day, and then divorced altogether the day after that.
	But there is a wonderful life after cable news.
	And I say this to Don Lemon too.
	You know, I'm not a fan.
	I've never made a secret of that, but there is life after cable news that having lived them both is so much better than life inside the cable news machine.
	You are free.
	You can craft your own show the way you want to and see if it connects with an audience.
	And if it does, you can count yourself as one of the luckiest people alive because you get to do the news, which you love in the way you want to do it.
	So welcome.
	Tomorrow, Vivek

Chapters

00:00:50 Tucker Goes Independent
00:15:15 Fox Agrees to Let Him Go
00:28:30 Leaving at the Pinnacle
00:31:21 Why Janine Isn't Fired
00:39:13 Massive Applause for Departure
00:53:42 Toxic Post and Ideological Split
01:04:21 Public Enemy Number One
01:06:50 Removing a Flashpoint
01:12:14 Optimism After Huge Loss
01:16:57 Contrast with Don Lemon
01:19:56 Rotating Hosts in His Slot
01:36:00 Life After Cable News