Speaker 1: It could happen here. It in Today's Harlance, meaning Tucker
Speaker 1: Carlson getting fired, because that's what we're talking about today
Speaker 1: is Today is one of our classic timely reaction episodes
Speaker 1: to the firing of Fox News fascist and popular anti
Speaker 1: semite Tucker Carlson. Today on the show to chat about
Speaker 1: all of this, I've got Garrison Davis, James Stout, Mio Wong,
Speaker 1: and Sophie Lichterman. Hi.
Speaker 2: Everybody, Wow, how was the last time we got like
Speaker 2: the whole crew together.
Speaker 1: A long time? This is a this is the bulk
Speaker 1: of us. Yeah. Yeah, And so.
Speaker 3: Sophie wasn't here for the com episode.
Speaker 1: No, Sophie. Sophie refused to be on for the come episode,
Speaker 1: threatening to quit.
Speaker 3: Sadly.
Speaker 1: Yeah uh yeah. But so you know, today is a
Speaker 1: couple of days since we all got the surprising news
Speaker 1: that Tucker has been let go at Fox. This was
Speaker 1: news that was surprising to Tucker. There's a couple things
Speaker 1: that are funny about the announcement itself, namely that he
Speaker 1: signed off his last episode saying see you guys next week.
Speaker 1: Fox Play in the messaging they've put out was like,
Speaker 1: you know, we both agreed that he needed to leave
Speaker 1: the network, that this is an amicable split. The Brian Kilmead,
Speaker 1: who replaced him the next episode with Fox News tonight,
Speaker 1: was like, Tucker and I are still good friends. He's
Speaker 1: just decided mutually to take a leave from the company.
Speaker 1: This is definitely not true. We'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about all of this, but the gist of I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of worth talking about, like why this happened.
Speaker 1: As far as we know, there's not, you know, objective
Speaker 1: kind of confirmation about why specifically he got fired, but
Speaker 1: the broad speculation some articles have like quoted a Fox
Speaker 1: News insider who says that it was due to something
Speaker 1: either he said in a recorded but unaired episode of
Speaker 1: the show, or that it was something that was found
Speaker 1: in the emails that were revealed during discovery that was
Speaker 1: profoundly anti semitic. I've heard out, like in one source
Speaker 1: at least said that it was anti semitic enough that
Speaker 1: it might have been legally actionable. That's obviously, like what
Speaker 1: the fuck. I would love to know what that specifically means.
Speaker 1: But what we do know is that a former producer
Speaker 1: for The Tucker Carlson Show who was a booking for
Speaker 1: him is currently suing the network both for a hostile
Speaker 1: work environment. She claims that she was exposed to intense
Speaker 1: anti semitism while we're working there, and she alleges that
Speaker 1: she was basically threatened into changing her deposition. So the
Speaker 1: lawsuit came alongside her like issuing a correction to her
Speaker 1: deposition and saying that she had basically lied in order
Speaker 1: like because she was being threatened by people at Fox,
Speaker 1: which is like, So there's a lot going on here.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the gist of what we know
Speaker 1: right now as to like why he got shit canned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the basics.
Speaker 2: It's interesting too that he it's been like a day
Speaker 2: now and he has said nothing. There have been multiple
Speaker 2: people who said that he's not responding to his texts,
Speaker 2: which is extremely funny.
Speaker 1: I saw one.
Speaker 2: Report that I don't I don't know how accurate is.
Speaker 2: I saw one report that says he found out ten
Speaker 2: minutes before Fox like released a statement.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was in contract negotiations, so he was in
Speaker 1: the middle of presumably getting a Fox to agree to
Speaker 1: pay him a shitload more money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and now he has no money, which is very funny.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, he'll still probably get a lot of money somehow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, i'd be interesting to see if he like pivots
Speaker 3: to something like like o Ann or news Max. I
Speaker 3: don't know if they have the means to pay him
Speaker 3: what he would probably see.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I mean this is this is one of
Speaker 4: the questions kind of following this and how and how
Speaker 4: this decision is gonna affect, you know, politics going forward,
Speaker 4: especially with twenty twenty four two big questions being where
Speaker 4: is Tucker going to go and who is going to
Speaker 4: take his place?
Speaker 1: For the next few weeks.
Speaker 4: Fox is probably just going to be doing like a
Speaker 4: rotating selection of hosts until they like make a final decision.
Speaker 4: So you know, a lot of people could could end
Speaker 4: up end up with that job. But in terms of
Speaker 4: where he's going, there's there's a few interesting options. Now
Speaker 4: it kind of does come down to who's going to
Speaker 4: be willing to pay the probably pretty high price, or
Speaker 4: if he's just going to try to stay independent. But
Speaker 4: I think something like Newsmax isn't isn't out of the question.
Speaker 4: I think I think this that this is this is
Speaker 4: just like a guess, but I think there's a decent
Speaker 4: chance that the Daily Wire is going to go after
Speaker 4: him really hard. Yeah, he's already pretty friendly with a
Speaker 4: lot of the people there. They've been willing to dishout
Speaker 4: a lot of money for someone like Stephen Crowder. Now
Speaker 4: Tucker will be undoubtedly more, but also he's going to
Speaker 4: be more of a pull, and that that is something
Speaker 4: that's entirely possible. I mean, The Daily Wire already produces
Speaker 4: like usually two of the most popular podcasts in the world,
Speaker 4: like in the top ten. They already have a lot,
Speaker 4: They have a lot of web traffic. They don't have
Speaker 4: like cable, but they get a lot of like other
Speaker 4: other ways to to to to spread their work.
Speaker 3: They have a paid streaming service then they yes, yes,
Speaker 3: they also have The Daily Wire Plus.
Speaker 1: Yep, they are. I think that they're probably the only
Speaker 1: people in their right that can offer Tucker both money
Speaker 1: that's broadly in line with what Fox could and an
Speaker 1: audience that's that's sizable, potentially even an audience that's larger.
Speaker 1: One of the things to kind of keep in mind
Speaker 1: is that Tucker was going to get out three and
Speaker 1: a half million viewers a night somewhere around there, which
Speaker 1: made him the most popular host on cable news, but
Speaker 1: also is minuscule based on historical number one, minuscule based
Speaker 1: on the kind of audiences that like you can get
Speaker 1: on streaming platforms today, which are much larger than cable audiences,
Speaker 1: and is minuscule based on like I mean, it was
Speaker 1: like ten years ago that three and a half million
Speaker 1: viewers on a night ten fifteen years ago would have
Speaker 1: been like an unsuccessful show on ANBC, right for some
Speaker 1: For some perspective, the most successful TV finale of all
Speaker 1: time was the Mash finale, which had like one hundred
Speaker 1: and five million viewers. Like cable don't or you know,
Speaker 1: television period does not get the kind of viewership that
Speaker 1: it does anymore. And I think when you're looking at
Speaker 1: Tucker he is the main draw for him has to
Speaker 1: be the audience. He's not and he's the heir to
Speaker 1: the Campbell or to the Swanson, you know, Dinner of Fortune.
Speaker 1: He cannot be motivated primarily by the paycheck, right that
Speaker 1: that that there's He's simply like it. Just that can't
Speaker 1: be the reason he's doing it. It has to be
Speaker 1: the fame, you know. And so Daily Wire I think
Speaker 1: is a likely place for him as a result of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, another thing that's interesting. I thought it is, like
Speaker 3: Mea mentioned that he hasn't said anything yet and he's
Speaker 3: probably taking advice from his lawyer, Brian Friedman, who incidentally
Speaker 3: is the same dude who's representing Don Lemon who lost
Speaker 3: his job on the same day, which which is.
Speaker 1: A good year for that guy, It.
Speaker 3: Is a good year for this guy. He like, this
Speaker 3: is the guy who gets a shit ton of money
Speaker 3: from networks when people get fired from networks, like he
Speaker 3: has represented like Megan Kelly before. Like, when you hear
Speaker 3: of a famous person getting let go by network, it's
Speaker 3: probably this guy who's representing them. I thought it was
Speaker 3: utterly hilarious that, yeah, both of them retained the same
Speaker 3: guy on the same day having been fired. But thinking
Speaker 3: about lawyering up, it made me think about like Topi
Speaker 3: mentioned it that like Carlson defames people, he lies on
Speaker 3: an almost daily basis. Right, we recently spoke about how
Speaker 3: he took the statistics of Russian deaths from those Leaks documents,
Speaker 3: that he used the blatantly altered version of those documents
Speaker 3: long after everyone knew they'd been altered. Right, he needs
Speaker 3: serious legal clout to defend him from the fact that
Speaker 3: he lies. Into fames people every single day, So like
Speaker 3: going even though he has a sign simple fortune, going
Speaker 3: out on his own would be costly in the sense
Speaker 3: of like he would almost have to be permanently defending himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I think this is one of
Speaker 2: the things where, well, I'm it's not clear to me
Speaker 2: what the impact of the Alex Johones trial has been,
Speaker 2: but this is one of those things where I think
Speaker 2: the dominion people actually just nailing Fox to the wall
Speaker 2: is going to be a sort of big factor here
Speaker 2: because it makes it seem easier and more plausible on
Speaker 2: things that like lawyers are willing to risk getting in
Speaker 2: fights about for actually going after these people, for just
Speaker 2: like defending people. And so yeah, it'll be it'll be
Speaker 2: interesting to see, like how how long Tucker can last
Speaker 2: on his own before he gets into a giant court
Speaker 2: battle with someone, and whether he is I don't know,
Speaker 2: attempts to be slightly more careful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I yeah, exactly, I didn't think if he's
Speaker 3: if he goes to YouTube or don't think he's not
Speaker 3: going to be spending his his frozen dinner fortune on
Speaker 3: legal fees. I don't think. So he just and he
Speaker 3: can't do what he does without spouting shit, right, Like
Speaker 3: his right thing is just straight up lying and doing
Speaker 3: this sort of credulous fool routine that he does, which
Speaker 3: always results in these ridiculous conclusions that he comes to.
Speaker 3: So like, I don't know with that, maybe the daily
Speaker 3: why I can sudstain that I don't really have a
Speaker 3: good sense of sort of their clout if people aren't familiar.
Speaker 3: Should we summarize the Dominion case? I know you've spoken
Speaker 3: about it on Fast.
Speaker 1: Yeah I did. I mean, you can listen to the
Speaker 1: two parter I did with Katie and Cody on the
Speaker 1: Dominion lawsuit where we basically just go over the entire
Speaker 1: document that Dominion prepared for that. But the gist of
Speaker 1: it is that Tucker knowingly and knowingly We know that
Speaker 1: he knew because the discovery process revealed a bunch of
Speaker 1: his text messages and emails where he talked about knowing
Speaker 1: that the election fraud conspiracy theory was bullshit and he
Speaker 1: propagated it and attacks against Dominion and another company, smart Matic,
Speaker 1: in order to keep his audience on board, which is
Speaker 1: a criminal you know, defamation or not criminal, but at
Speaker 1: least like legally actionable you can sue as as Dominion
Speaker 1: did and one like eight hundred million bucks. So and
Speaker 1: I do think that's really worth that. That is kind
Speaker 1: of pertinent when we're talking about who's going to take
Speaker 1: him next, because like, obviously the Daily Wire would want
Speaker 1: a guy like Tucker except for the fact that he
Speaker 1: could cost them another eight hundred million dollars, which has
Speaker 1: to be has to be part of the calculus of
Speaker 1: any company looking at taking him on. And I think
Speaker 1: is something none of us, nobody really knows what's going
Speaker 1: to happen with this, but I think there is a
Speaker 1: good chance he is permanently marginalized in terms of audience
Speaker 1: just because of how much like eight hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: is not enough to sink Fox on its own, but
Speaker 1: it is enough to make anybody looking at bringing Tucker
Speaker 1: on board the second guest himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I SA also numbers that were I think I
Speaker 2: think they were saying he was bringing in the highest
Speaker 2: like amount of revenue of any like like him will
Speaker 2: do his anchor, but was like it was like seventy
Speaker 2: eight million dollars a year and he lost like so
Speaker 2: he lost ten years of his income.
Speaker 1: He basically lost everything he'd made Fox during the time
Speaker 1: when he was the number one Kettle news house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that has to be that has to be
Speaker 2: a huge part of the coculus of like, Okay, you
Speaker 2: know these are these people like as as as as
Speaker 2: much as the right is ideological, it is also capitalist
Speaker 2: and the risk award on that is terrifying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I like, especially when it comes to the
Speaker 4: Daily Wire, a cost like that would just probably make
Speaker 4: their entire company fold.
Speaker 1: Because they don't have Murdock behind them.
Speaker 4: They're not they're they're not that big of a company.
Speaker 4: They just have a disproportionate amount of influence because their
Speaker 4: hosts are really good at like marketing and social media manipulation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I ad revenue now would be a
Speaker 3: great time for us to pivot to And there's some
Speaker 3: go to coins with Reagan.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah. You can hear the ads for the
Speaker 1: new podcasts that are your colleague Tucker Carlson's gonna be doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's way heyman, Don Lemon just.
Speaker 1: Have yeah, him and Don Lemon, we we're calling it.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's there's a good there's a good
Speaker 1: there's a good joke with their two names somewhere. I
Speaker 1: haven't figured it out yet though, So you do that
Speaker 1: for yourselves, audience. Ah, what a good what a good
Speaker 1: time that we're talking about here. This is just just
Speaker 1: a just a great day, great week. Uh So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're looking at you know, I think kind of when
Speaker 1: we're talking about what's possible here and Daily Wirey agree
Speaker 1: is kind of the most likely thing. If you look
Speaker 1: at what leaked recently during their drama with Stephen Crowder.
Speaker 1: The contract that we're offering Crowder was somewhere around thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars, which from everything people have said, is a
Speaker 1: big deal for them. That's one of the biggest bigger
Speaker 1: offerings as they're capable of doing. Uh. That is, you know,
Speaker 1: probably the most Tucker is realistically going to be able
Speaker 1: to get. But also, uh, one of the things that
Speaker 1: kind of is noteworthy about the contract they were offering
Speaker 1: Crowder is that it included clauses where like crowders take
Speaker 1: home could be reduced significantly if he got kicked off
Speaker 1: of platforms and fucking Tucker Carlson is not going to
Speaker 1: keep it a YouTube count.
Speaker 4: I mean it is. It is interesting in that sense
Speaker 4: of like they were they all of his content was
Speaker 4: able to be kept up when he was under Fox,
Speaker 4: Like on YouTube you can find all of his segments,
Speaker 4: and it'd be interesting to see how the content moderation
Speaker 4: differs if like he starts his own channel and how
Speaker 4: and how comparatively what things would be would be counted
Speaker 4: as like community guideline strikes. But yeah, I mean just
Speaker 4: I think I think, like last week Matt Walsh's show
Speaker 4: got demonetized on YouTube, which if his contract is anything
Speaker 4: like the Crowtters, means that he is going to be
Speaker 4: suffering up like a personal financial hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's they're taking probably you know, in the millions
Speaker 1: that he's losing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's something I think this is an interesting
Speaker 2: thing that's been happening in the last maybe like six months,
Speaker 2: has been there's there's been sort of increasing tension between
Speaker 2: sort of the far right that's basically sees control the
Speaker 2: Republican Party and like the money, and they keep running
Speaker 2: into these issues where in order to keep their base going,
Speaker 2: they need to say stuff that like their sort of
Speaker 2: like corporate backers are like this is either losing us
Speaker 2: money or is so far out there that like it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's either directly losing US money from lawsuits,
Speaker 2: or it's losing US elections, or it's losing us like business.
Speaker 1: And now I'm never.
Speaker 2: Gonna claim that like Murdoch is not the far right,
Speaker 2: because he is is. But it's interesting that we've gotten
Speaker 2: to a point where people like Murdoch are getting more
Speaker 2: gun shy about what they can put on air because
Speaker 2: it's finally like the money is finally starting to see
Speaker 2: actual consequences, and they're starting to pull back from the
Speaker 2: stuff a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, see, that's part of what I'm questioning is I'm
Speaker 1: sure that that is something that's entering his calculus more
Speaker 1: now since the settlement, but it's at least the early
Speaker 1: reporting suggests that's not really why, or at least not
Speaker 1: most of the reason why Tucker got shit canned. It's
Speaker 1: a bunch of shit like stuff that is not revealed
Speaker 1: yet in the deposition that he was saying an email,
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things came out that woman
Speaker 1: who is accusing him of creating a sexist and anti
Speaker 1: semitic work environment, is that he like when she got hired,
Speaker 1: he plastered swimsuit photos of Nancy Pelosi over her office
Speaker 1: and that's what we've heard, like the shit that, Like,
Speaker 1: I think it's possible, uh that what actually got Murdoch
Speaker 1: to make the call to can him is that he
Speaker 1: Murdoch himself found out through discovery that he was saying
Speaker 1: shit in emails that would sink the company, Like if
Speaker 1: he's saying full on Nazi shit. Yeah, and there's there's
Speaker 1: documentation of that, which I don't think is unlikely on it,
Speaker 1: like yeah.
Speaker 2: There's no there's there's there's no there's no limit at.
Speaker 3: That point, like yeah, no, the like clearly that ship
Speaker 3: aligns with his views, and he's made a concerted effort
Speaker 3: to mainstream more and more outright fascist and genesis white
Speaker 3: supremacist talking points every year that he's had that show.
Speaker 3: So it would not especially when they got his text messages,
Speaker 3: Like he might be smart enough not to like maybe
Speaker 3: use his work email. But I think that the fact
Speaker 3: that there were some things in his text messages and yeah,
Speaker 3: that wouldn't surprise me. It's either that or he said
Speaker 3: something personal about one of the Murdochs and they.
Speaker 1: Well he did. He did talk shit about Fox executives,
Speaker 1: which some people have suggested as like part of why
Speaker 1: they made the decision. It can him that he actually
Speaker 1: just pissed off the moneymen too, and this was kind
Speaker 1: of an excuse to take more action. Again, like it's
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of unclear exactly what happened. I think
Speaker 1: it's probably worth talking about in the last portion of
Speaker 1: this what impact, because it is likely that whatever happens,
Speaker 1: He's he's going to have less reach, and at least
Speaker 1: less reach in like a practical way. Because if Tucker
Speaker 1: starts a podcast, even if the podcast has kind of
Speaker 1: more you know, through Daily Wire or whatever, even if
Speaker 1: it's got on paper more listeners than Fox, I think
Speaker 1: there's something about cable news where you're reaching an audience
Speaker 1: that's that's different with the ideas that he was He's
Speaker 1: when he was on Fox, he was hitting people who
Speaker 1: would never have encountered some of this like fascist shit,
Speaker 1: this great replacement stuff, Whereas if he's saying the same
Speaker 1: thing on a Daily Wire podcast, he's probably talking more
Speaker 1: to people who are already pilled, so to speak. So
Speaker 1: I do think there's a good chance that overall this
Speaker 1: kind of tanks his ability to.
Speaker 4: Actually like influence culture in a meaningful way.
Speaker 3: Radicalize boomers, like everyone listening can probably think of a
Speaker 3: person who they know or is in their sort of
Speaker 3: greatest circle of people who their friends know, who is
Speaker 3: an older person who is very much offline and has
Speaker 3: encountered these great replacement ideas through Tucker Carlson and become
Speaker 3: a significantly worse person because of Tucker Carlson's program.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and you can see how all of
Speaker 4: the Daily Wire guys like like Walsh and Mike, Michael
Speaker 4: Noles and even someone like Andy No, they suck up
Speaker 4: to Carlson so much and have been for the past
Speaker 4: few years because they realize that that actually gives the
Speaker 4: cultural access to be on his show on that platform
Speaker 4: in a way that they're much.
Speaker 3: More like Peterson too.
Speaker 4: Pete Peterson, Sure, I think pet Peterson's broken into the mainstream.
Speaker 2: I think a bit more.
Speaker 4: But like all of these other guys like Andy No, Walsh, Knowles,
Speaker 4: they're all heavily like Internet people, and they influence like
Speaker 4: Internet shit, and sometimes that can start crossing over. But
Speaker 4: in general, the cable news platform kind of reiffies things
Speaker 4: into broader culture in a way that someone like Walsh
Speaker 4: just doesn't because he's like most people don't know who Walshes.
Speaker 4: But most people do know who Tucker is, and.
Speaker 1: That is my dad is lifelong Republican voter. And when
Speaker 1: I talked to him complaining about shit Matt Walsh is doing,
Speaker 1: Like the first thing he said was like, I've never
Speaker 1: heard of this guy. Yeah, And it's like, yeah, because
Speaker 1: he's he's a fucking internet weirdo. And my dad doesn't
Speaker 1: you know, he knows Ben Shapiro because Ben breaks through
Speaker 1: to the mainstream, but he knows Been Shapiro from like
Speaker 1: catching clips of him randomly being shared on Facebook by
Speaker 1: other people in his age group, as opposed to like
Speaker 1: seeking this shit out. And that's kind of the power
Speaker 1: of Tucker. And I think one of the things you've
Speaker 1: seen Gear that you were kind of talking at, which
Speaker 1: is the thing that is maybe most hopeful to me,
Speaker 1: is how scared people like Andy know Glenn Greenwald flip
Speaker 1: the fuck out when this gun announced because they see
Speaker 1: this is a major threat to their reach into their
Speaker 1: earning potential. Yeah, Tucker can't host them anymore. That's potentially
Speaker 1: disastrous for them. And the fact that that's happening right
Speaker 1: as we're gearing up for twenty twenty four is something
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful about at least I'll say.
Speaker 4: Right, it is a massive like rejection of that platform
Speaker 4: to yeah, people like that like this type of like
Speaker 4: rhetoric that Tucker is doing. Having this be like publicly
Speaker 4: rejected in this way will make all these people that
Speaker 4: are more on the fringes probably make it harder for
Speaker 4: them to breakthrough in little ways like they used to
Speaker 4: try to by being on Tucker is a show.
Speaker 1: Speaking of reifying things into the broader culture by these products.
Speaker 2: In Okay, So there's one other thing that I we've
Speaker 2: could have been touching on it, but I think it's
Speaker 2: really interesting is that Tucker. Tucker basically has a sort
Speaker 2: of media ecosystem that revolves around him. And you know,
Speaker 2: there's a very established pathway for how you can become
Speaker 2: a sort of like a successful and profitable right wing
Speaker 2: grifter which goes through you know, you sort of go
Speaker 2: viral on Twitter, you go viral on TikTok, and then
Speaker 2: you go on to Tucker and you know and like
Speaker 2: like people like lives at TikTok, right, Like, I think
Speaker 2: I think there's there's a certific kind of media campaign
Speaker 2: that even with whoever, like whatever, absolute asshole that like
Speaker 2: Fox puts in that slot after Tucker's you know, when
Speaker 2: whatever they sort of figure out who that's going to be, Like,
Speaker 2: there's still I think going to be sort of a
Speaker 2: hole there, Yeah, where I think it gets harder to
Speaker 2: run the kinds the very the very very specific kinds
Speaker 2: of campaigns like little TikTok, like the sort of mods
Speaker 2: for liberty shit that that's been just making the country
Speaker 2: unfathomably awful for the past few years.
Speaker 3: With like that, I've been kind of working on writing
Speaker 3: something scripted about this trans panic that happened in a
Speaker 3: town very near me in Santi right, which like was
Speaker 3: an extremely clear like like that was the goal, right,
Speaker 3: like like do to speech, go go viral, go on
Speaker 3: Tucker create, you know, then go on the speaking circuit,
Speaker 3: make money. Like to me, at least, it seems very
Speaker 3: clear that that was that was the goal.
Speaker 1: And I yeah, he's he's a weapons system that they
Speaker 1: they have learned, like has become kind of the center
Speaker 1: of right wing strategy really is like get on Tucker
Speaker 1: car as you know, moral panic culture warship yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and you know and like obviously like other
Speaker 2: Fox shows do this stuff. It doesn't work anywhere anywhere
Speaker 2: near as well.
Speaker 4: And now I think it's the person the person that
Speaker 4: gets the closest is probably Laura Ingram, but I think
Speaker 4: she she kind of suffers from the glass ceiling problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she actually cannot be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, but.
Speaker 1: I'm brad Masogy.
Speaker 3: I think I stand with Laura.
Speaker 4: Ingram rub Big specifically viewing Tucker as this thing that
Speaker 4: was like a targeted weapon. I think it's a really
Speaker 4: good way to look at this, and specifically now that
Speaker 4: that weapon no longer can like actually aim correctly because
Speaker 4: or at.
Speaker 1: Least may not be able to write. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: he'll come back and we're wrong, but I I am optimistic.
Speaker 1: I think all say, yeah, it.
Speaker 3: Puts a spanner in the works of the hate machine
Speaker 3: that that he built and the folks built, and that's
Speaker 3: a good thing.
Speaker 4: But Mia, you were saying before I rudely interrupted you.
Speaker 1: U asshole.
Speaker 2: You cannot remember what what I was gonna say.
Speaker 4: You're talking about how how how other other hosts kind
Speaker 4: of do the thing but not.
Speaker 2: The Yeah, well, I mean part of it also is
Speaker 2: just you know, part of the power of Tucker is
Speaker 2: just the time slot that he's in, Yeah, which is
Speaker 2: you know that that that's the one where like all
Speaker 2: of the people who've gotten off of work, who are
Speaker 2: like turning on the television at night get to But yeah,
Speaker 2: like Tuck Tucker was I think was really in the
Speaker 2: entirety of the sort of TV and media sphere, was
Speaker 2: uniquely good at that stuff. And no one else, no
Speaker 2: one else can do it like that. And you know,
Speaker 2: like the like if the Fox people will create someone else,
Speaker 2: but until they fill that spot, A, there's a gap,
Speaker 2: and B it really remains to be seen whether seeing
Speaker 2: whether they're going to sort of pick someone who is
Speaker 2: as embedded in like that part of the sort of
Speaker 2: fascists right as Tucker is, or if they're going to
Speaker 2: find someone who's like, i mean still really really right
Speaker 2: and sucks but isn't like having ye on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it's I mean, I am kind of
Speaker 1: curious slash worried about who's going to follow him into
Speaker 1: that time slot. Folks, real old heads will know. Tucker
Speaker 1: got his job after Bill O'Reilly, who was the Fox
Speaker 1: News fascist of my childhood, got shit canned for sexual
Speaker 1: harassment on an industrial scale. Uh, And so that's that's
Speaker 1: why Tucker is in and Obviously as bad as Bill was,
Speaker 1: Tucker was worse, and maybe the person who follows Tucker
Speaker 1: will be worse than Tucker. I do have trouble imagining
Speaker 1: what that could be, because my god, he really he went.
Speaker 1: He went right up to the edge of putting on
Speaker 1: a fucking swastik arm band.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say about the Bill o. Riley people,
Speaker 2: people have been like, oh, like, Tucker's going to disappear
Speaker 2: in the way Bill O'reiley did.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's I think he's going to be
Speaker 2: a bigger like, assuming he winds up somewhere, I think
Speaker 2: he'll still be a bigger influence than like Bill was
Speaker 2: after he got fired.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean Bill was also a lot older, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, No, I think that is that is an
Speaker 4: accurate assessment.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: Well excited, excited to get my new Rumble subscriptions so
Speaker 4: we can watch Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: No, it's going to be uh glorious to see him
Speaker 1: finally pair up with Tim Poole, the two the two
Speaker 1: of them carrying AK forty seven, so doing field journalism
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Tucker casting for those are not familiar, carried
Speaker 3: a gun when reporting in a rock, which for many
Speaker 3: reasons it's a fucking terrible idea, including putting f one
Speaker 3: else doing your job changer.
Speaker 1: But it is really funny, it's very well. I will,
Speaker 1: I will say that it is funny.
Speaker 2: I I genuine like part of me doesn't, but part
Speaker 2: of me does. Hope he decides to do a thing
Speaker 2: where he's like, I'm gonna go do field journalism in
Speaker 2: Ukraine and just seemed so, I will.
Speaker 1: It's fucking marked by God, damn like happens.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, you know what happens. He he imbeds
Speaker 4: with the aesof battalion. Yeah, and they all get taken
Speaker 4: out God willing kindness. But I think one thing I
Speaker 4: was deerfinally thinking about, like the past few years, less
Speaker 4: less so that this this like past year specifically, but
Speaker 4: for a while it was a quite frightening prospect to
Speaker 4: think about what if Tucker was going to run for president?
Speaker 4: And I don't think he is. He is not going
Speaker 4: to do that in twenty twenty four. Absolutely, that's that's
Speaker 4: that's not happening. But I mean it's still possible he
Speaker 4: could in the future. Twenty twenty eight is likely. Uh,
Speaker 4: if if he wants, But I think the loss of
Speaker 4: this position at this point in time will probably affect
Speaker 4: that decision because it's something he's certainly been thinking about.
Speaker 4: Considering he's one of the most influential conservative people on
Speaker 4: the Yeah, like on the planet.
Speaker 3: He determines policy or did it if he did?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and and and now it's interesting with him with
Speaker 4: him leaving his job in this way, it'll be interesting
Speaker 4: to see if how that, how that affects any kind
Speaker 4: of potential of prospect for him for him, yeah, running
Speaker 4: for office.
Speaker 1: My big question around all that, and this is kind
Speaker 1: of unanswerable, is like, does Tucker have any appeal outside
Speaker 1: of the right wing base? Three and a half million
Speaker 1: cable news viewers is not evidence of the kind of
Speaker 1: broad based appeal that can drawn independence and win an election.
Speaker 1: And Tucker has never you know, the one the closest
Speaker 1: thing he's been to a political candidate is when he
Speaker 1: went up against John Stewart and that didn't go great
Speaker 1: for him. No, he and he moved aft after John
Speaker 1: Stewart kind of destroyed his crossfire career. He moved to
Speaker 1: a situation where he was he had unprecedented control over
Speaker 1: his show, It was almost entirely recorded and stuff out
Speaker 1: of a studio in Maine that he set up. He
Speaker 1: built everything he was doing around being able to totally
Speaker 1: control how he was seen, what was shown, what of
Speaker 1: his was like put out to the public. And you
Speaker 1: simply can't do that as a presidential candidate. You have
Speaker 1: to accept and be able to make work for you
Speaker 1: the fact that every eye is on you and you
Speaker 1: do not have total control over what about you is
Speaker 1: put out and published, among other things. You're going to
Speaker 1: be repeatedly questioned in situations where you can't edit the
Speaker 1: footage or stop things from going out afterwards. And I
Speaker 1: don't know that Tucker has what it takes to succeed
Speaker 1: in that kind of environment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, enchilade, he fucking never succeeds again and we never
Speaker 2: have to hear about him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we should shout out this lady, kat Ab Gazzale,
Speaker 3: that the person who had to watch Tucker Carlson for
Speaker 3: years and years and years and then explain it to people.
Speaker 3: She works at Media Matters for America, but she is
Speaker 3: taking the biggest victory lap that anyone has ever taken
Speaker 3: right now, and it's kind of glorious to.
Speaker 4: Watch doing the lord's work. Truly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, taking on trauma for all her stuff was quite good.
Speaker 3: Like she she did a good job explaining how toxic
Speaker 3: Tucker was to people who might not have been aware
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Anyway, in conclusion, Tucker, we would love to have
Speaker 1: you on at cool Zone totally welcome to come host
Speaker 1: your own podcast. We'll bring you on to It could
Speaker 1: happen here. You can do a bastard's guest appearance. He can, Yeah,
Speaker 1: right into the jungle.
Speaker 3: Directly.
Speaker 1: Come on, come on, Tucker, We'd love to have you anyway.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's a sode. It could
Speaker 1: happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Speaker 1: zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4: You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated
Speaker 4: monthly at cool zone meedia dot com slash sources. Thanks
Speaker 4: for listening.