Tangle - Tucker Carlson ousted by Fox News.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

Starting point is 00:01:00 From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson leaving Fox News, being fired, being ousted, being forced out, they parted ways, however you want to put it. We're going to talk about why it's happening and what the implications of it might be. And as you may expect, I've got some strong feelings on this one as somebody in the media space who has talked a lot about Tucker in Tangle. But before we jump in,

Starting point is 00:01:57 I want to give a quick heads up. Actually, we are taking suggestions for people to bring on the Tangle podcast in interview format. We are very interested in talking to folks who are interesting political thinkers out there in the space. If you have suggestions about who we should have on or conversely, you have suggestions about shows or other podcasts that you think I should go on. suggestions about shows or other podcasts that you think I should go on, we have a link in today's episode description to a kind of suggestion form that our newly hired booking person, Will, is going to be looking at. So please consider checking that out. All up, President Biden formally announced that he was planning to run for president again in 2024 with an announcement video he released on social media. Number two, Susan Rice, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, is stepping down. the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council is stepping down. Number three, Disney is expecting to lay off 4,000 employees, bringing its total job cuts in 2023 to 7,000. Number four,

Starting point is 00:03:14 warring groups in Sudan have agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire to allow foreign governments to evacuate citizens safely. Number five, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that will determine whether the First Amendment bars government officials from blocking their critics on social media. We want to begin tonight with a major shakeup in the media landscape. As the most watched cable network, the conservative Fox News has abruptly parted ways with its top rated anchor, Tucker Carlson. Fox News says it is, quote, agreed to part ways, close quote, with host Tucker Carlson. Network has confirmed his last program was last Friday. Fox News says Carlson's show will be helmed by a rotating series of hosts until a new one is named.

Starting point is 00:04:08 The announcement comes just days after the network settled with Dominion Voting Systems in a defamation lawsuit for more than $787 million. Fox providing no reason. The L.A. Times reports the decision came from the top from Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch after months of internal turmoil. On Monday, Fox News announced that it was parting ways with Tucker Carlson, its most popular primetime host and one of the most influential voices in conservative politics. The network released a curt statement saying they had agreed to part ways and thanked Carlson for his service to the network. A rotating cast of Fox personalities will take over the APM slot, starting with Brian Kilmeade, who filled in for Carlson on Monday night. The announcement of Carlson's firing comes less than a week after Fox News settled a $787.5

Starting point is 00:05:01 billion lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems, which has sued the network for airing false claims about its voting machines corrupting the 2020 presidential election. However, the reason for Carlson's firing is still not clear. Many tied it to the Dominion lawsuit, but Carlson largely avoided airing conspiracies about the election and even had a contentious segment criticizing Sidney Powell, who is one of the largest purveyors of false allegations that Dominion stole the election. The Los Angeles Times reported that Carlson was pushed out by Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch due to a separate discrimination lawsuit filed by former producer Abby Grossberg. In the filing, Grossberg claims that she experienced sexist treatment while working on the show, and that Fox lawyers coached her to make misleading statements while being deposed

Starting point is 00:05:49 in Dominion's defamation lawsuit. Carlson's private messages were among thousands of internal documents revealed during discovery in the lawsuit. Among the messages were Carlson saying that he hated former President Trump passionately, an attempt to get a colleague at Fox News fired, and scathing criticisms of Fox News' leadership. For years, Carlson has filmed his show from a remote studio in Maine, where he lives full-time. His primetime 8 p.m. Eastern slot, which he has had since taking it over from Bill O'Reilly in 2016, is the most coveted at the network. He was the highest-rated primetime host on cable television, averaging about 3.3 million nightly viewers and earning an estimated $20 million a year.

Starting point is 00:06:37 Carlson came to Fox from MSNBC, where he also hosted a primetime show. Before that, he represented the right on the left-versus-right debate show Crossfire on CNN, and separately was the co-founder of the conservative website The Daily Caller. Over his 14 years at the network, Carlson became best known for inviting liberal guests to his show and confronting them over the day's controversy live on air. In more recent years, he'd become a staunch critic of the Republican establishment and the U.S. government more broadly, regularly airing segments critical of U.S. military intervention and domestic intelligence agencies. He's also waded into controversy on a regular basis and drawn advertising boycotts for his on-air comments. He once said immigration made America dirtier and

Starting point is 00:07:16 has repeatedly aired segments that have drawn accusations of racism, including a recent suggestion that a Tennessee lawmaker named Justin Pearson only got into an elite college because he was black. In 2021, he produced a series that suggested the January 6 riots were a false flag operation, and in March, he shared unaired footage of January 6 while suggesting the day's events had been overblown and misconstrued, which drew bipartisan condemnation from members of Congress. which drew bipartisan condemnation from members of Congress. Notably, Carlson did not get a chance to sign off to viewers, which many media pundits take as a sign he left on bad terms.

Starting point is 00:07:54 The Wall Street Journal, which is also owned by Rupert Murdoch, reported that Carlson found out he was being let go about 10 minutes before Fox announced it. His last show was Friday night. The news of Carlson's firing comes on the same day CNN announced it was parting ways with Don Lemon, who had recently left his 10 p.m. Eastern slot to lead the network's morning show. Lemon was immersed in his own controversy in February when he remarked on air that women past their 40s were out of their prime. Two weeks ago, Fox also let go of on-air radio personality Dan Bongino. Fox shares fell 3% on Monday.

Starting point is 00:08:50 Today, we're going to take a look at some with what the left is saying. Many on the left celebrated the news, criticizing Carlson for knowingly spreading conspiracy theories and racism. Some argued Dominion's lawsuit helped bring him down and linked Carlson to white nationalists. Others argue that Fox would be fine and that Carlson's successor could be worse. In the Washington Post, Eric Wemple said Carlson is a terrible individual and is now leaving Fox News. Over the span of 14 years, Carlson littered the airwaves with conspiracy theories and racist rhetoric. Carlson's history of misogynistic comments dates back many years, including the time that he called journalist Joan Walsh the C-word. And as a Fox News host, Carlson's on-air pronouncements were replete with racism, sexism, and an undisguised hatred for people with whom he disagrees.

Starting point is 00:09:45 proved willing to run over otherwise powerless people, such as the main base freelance journalist assigned to produce a story about him, or the pro-Trump man whom Carlson wrapped in his conspiracy theory about the FBI in the January 6, 2021 protests. Carlson also menaced colleagues at the network as a New York Times reporter documented in a year-long investigation. It seems that Fox News was fine with Carlson's vicious, often baseless attacks as long as they were directed elsewhere. Once they started landing closer to home, network leaders took another look at the terrible individual on their payroll. In the New York Times, Michelle Goldberg said the Dominion settlement won't change much at Fox News, but it looks like the lawsuit itself did. The timing of Carlson's ousting suggests

Starting point is 00:10:25 Dominion was responsible for shaking loose the information that brought him down. The end of his Fox News tenure should be a reminder to people on the left not to surrender to the cynical illusion that to revive a Trump-era phrase, LOL, nothing matters, Goldberg said. Sometimes the terrible elements of our political culture seem so immutable that it's tempting to give in to despair as a prophylactic against perpetual disappointment. But it turns out that it is, in fact, sometimes possible to shame the shameless. Once in a while, justice is delivered. Carlson was the Trumpiest of Fox News hosts, even though we now know, thanks to discovery in the Dominion case, that he hated Donald Trump passionately. Like Trump, Carlson mined the white nationalist internet for narratives,

Starting point is 00:11:09 promiscuously spread wild conspiracy theories, and hinted at the need for violence to take back America. Both Trump and Carlson were children of privilege who sought the respect of the establishment but never got it. And like Trump, he found success by catering to people who despised the world that had spurned him. In The Atlantic, David A. Graham said Tucker's successor will be worse. Carlson transformed himself from a bowtie-clad smart aleck playing the role of liberal's favorite conservative to a MAGA hero, able to channel the grievances of the Trump coalition despite his patrician upbringing and reputation, or perhaps, like Trump, because of it. He was a font of dangerous rhetoric and preposterous lies,

Starting point is 00:11:51 and Fox viewers absolutely loved it. Fox will probably be fine without Carlson, and anyone who hopes that his disappearance from the air will improve the political discourse in this country is too optimistic. In the past, people such as Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck were pushed out, and the network has always found a new figure to replace them, while the hosts themselves have struggled to match their past success. There will be a new Tucker Carlson, and it's a good bet that he or she will be even worse. To remain on top at Fox, hosts have to be ready to continually ratchet up their rhetoric because the network's business model depends on continual audience outrage.

Starting point is 00:12:29 But the audiences eventually become inert and require new and more extreme input. Providing that is a challenging and soul-leaching job, and someone will be delighted to have it. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. Many on the right criticized the move, saying Fox News could collapse without Carlson. Some criticized Carlson, saying he brought the firing on himself. Others praised Carlson's break from the mainstream media and argue that this will be good for him. In town hall, Matt Vespa asked if this was the end of Fox News. Carlson sent liberal blood pressure skyrocketing with his smart, concise, and devastating takedowns of liberal narratives, exposing them all as logical fallacies,

Starting point is 00:13:22 a liberal hogwash, or outright lies, Vespa said. He was effective, which is why the left hated him so much. He knew their playbook. It's why he was the host mentioned by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who not so long ago said how she wanted Fox to be regulated, citing Carlson specifically over his January 6th commentaries. Who Fox picks next will show where the network wants to go now that one of its most reliably conservative hosts is gone, Vespa said. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

Starting point is 00:13:58 a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu.

Starting point is 00:14:34 It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. With all due respect to Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram, they're both great but need some help. The pair can't carry the network. There's been a slew of other dismissals in the aftermath of the Dominion settlement. Maybe Carlson was a casualty of some house cleaning. Is there something more here? Did Dominion settlement. Maybe Carlson was a casualty of some house cleaning. Is there something more here? Did Dominion threaten more legal action if some people weren't removed? Who knows, but Murdoch has also parted ways with folks like Bill O'Reilly, who drew a sizable audience and earned great ratings if it meant protecting the organization's

Starting point is 00:15:18 integrity. In National Review, Noah Rothman said nobody did this to Tucker Carlson. Given the extent to which he has primed his audience to believe in the omnipotence of the ill-defined forces arrayed against them, Carlson's viewers might be tempted to chalk up the summary cancellation of his show to those same forces, Rothman said. But the sequence of events that produced this outcome was at least as transparent as the last time a primetime Fox host lost his number one rated program following a costly settlement. Carlson's name was all over the embarrassing documents unearthed by Dominion, and the final straw was a conventional one, a discrimination lawsuit from Abby Grossberg. Fox's decision to cut its losses might have happened behind closed

Starting point is 00:16:01 doors, but the conduct that necessitated that decision was entirely out in the open, Rothman said. No shadowy cabal did this. This outcome didn't occur as a result of the machinations of some establishmentarian sect or well-heeled lobbying outfit. They are the consequences that Carlson's own actions inspired, and they are owed only to best business practices. In Hot Air, David Strom praises Carlson's complete break from the establishment. Despite growing up totally embedded in the establishment, Tucker has concluded that the establishment is not simply flawed, but an actual agent of evil, Strom said. In this, he is right, and I say this as somebody who grew up not as privileged as he, but was a child of academics, went to an elite liberal arts college,

Starting point is 00:16:45 got a graduate degree at Duke, and taught at elite schools for years. I, too, have concluded that the establishment is doing evil. Tucker tells the truth that we are not in the midst of a policy or political debate in the United States. We are in a battle between good and evil. The establishment has picked the side of evil, Strom said. Sterilizing children is not a positive good. Promoting crime is not a positive good. Destroying freedom is not a positive good. Tucker knows the media, including Fox, is inherently corrupt, and he's going to come out of this in a stronger, not weaker position. That he no longer fits in the mainstream media speaks well of him, not them.

Starting point is 00:17:36 Alright, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So, I actually wrote my take today before reading any other arguments about Carlson, and I decided I'm going to leave it as is, so you can get the purest look at how I actually view him. Let me start by complimenting Tucker Carlson earnestly. In a sea of news that is both predictable and boring, Carlson was one of the few primetime television hosts who could still surprise me. He didn't shy away from picking a fight. He was one of the only conservative pundits on the planet who could criticize Trump

Starting point is 00:18:10 and Senator Mitt Romney in the same breath without upsetting the base or the establishment, and he did it regularly. He also did some genuinely valuable work, like when he recently got all the major Republican nominees for president to share their views on Ukraine. In a world where CNN and MSNBC regularly hire former press secretaries or heads of intelligence agencies to come on their show and perform the news, which ends up being akin to government propaganda, Carlson was one of the few hosts regularly interested in questioning the mainstream narratives. He hammered the CIA and the FBI on a regular basis. In recent years, he seemed genuinely anti-war and anti-intervention, and he took care not to

Starting point is 00:18:51 blindly repeat the government talking points, something that is basically absent on other primetime cable news shows. At his best, he also made excellent television. He brought on guests he disagreed with vehemently and went to war with them. He brought on guests you thought he'd agree with and then embarrassed them. See Ted Cruz. He covered stories many other news outlets ignored, and he took fresh angles on the news stories every other network droned on about with predictability. On his truly best days, he was a skeptic and a fierce interviewer, and he displayed ideological consistency in taking some stances that were oppositional to Republicans. But Carlson wasn't always at his best. In recent years, the interviews he did on his show were fewer and fewer. When he did interview

Starting point is 00:19:35 guests like Kanye West, Carlson hid footage from his viewers that substantively changed the interviews. As the Dominion lawsuit revealed, Carlson had an obsessive eye on ratings and was willing to mislead his viewers and was essentially cosplaying as a Trump supporter. He fed his most loyal viewers what he knew would get them to tune in, rage. He produced and aired genuinely awful nonsense, claiming that mass immigration made the U.S. poorer and dirtier and more divided, and that there was no economic case for immigration. Disagree or not, there are many. He seemed hell-bent on convincing his viewers that immigrants from the third world, i.e. non-European nations, are more dangerous, less productive, culturally incompatible,

Starting point is 00:20:18 and primed to align themselves with liberals. He has repeatedly denied that racial animus is responsible for any violence in the U.S. today, even as we've watched killers in El Paso and Buffalo and South Carolina target minority groups in mass shootings. Throw a dart at any show on the calendar and you will hit an absurdity. Carlson once said vaccine requirements in the military were used to, quote, identify the sincere Christians in the ranks, the freethinkers, the men with high testosterone levels, and anybody else who doesn't love Joe Biden and make them leave immediately, end quote. He called January 6 rioters orderly and meek and tried to reframe them as sightseers. He told his viewers that

Starting point is 00:20:59 teachers who discuss gender in the classroom should be arrested and get beaten up. He once told his audience that Senator Tammy Duckworth, the Democrat from Illinois, a retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel and helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in the Iraq war, hates America. In 2020, we got a clue into why Tucker's show turned so toxic. His chief writer, Blake Neff, was outed as an actual white supremacist. Now, I know the liberal media overuses that term, but in this case, it's actually appropriate. In one online forum where a user asked, would you let a jet black Congo N-word do LASIK eye surgery on you for 50% off?

Starting point is 00:21:39 Neff responded, I wouldn't get LASIK from an Asian for free, so no. He called black people lazy and joked about, quote, foodie faggots online. In an interview with Dartmouth Magazine in 2018 under his real name, Neff bragged publicly that anything Carlson is reading off the teleprompter, the first draft was written by me. That same year, Carlson cited Neff by name as a wonderful writer who helped shape the show's content. When Neff's pseudonymous online personality was outed, Fox News fired him, lambasting him for racist, homophobic, and misogynistic language. But it brought real questions about Carlson's worldview

Starting point is 00:22:16 to the forefront, revealing who he surrounded himself with and what was just beneath the surface of his most controversial segments. I don't know why Tucker Carlson got fired. To his credit, it is almost definitely not for airing election fraud allegations about Dominion, which he was actually quite hard on. You might remember he lambasted Sidney Powell on air for not being able to provide evidence for her claims, something other Fox News personalities wouldn't do. What I can tell you is this. He had an opportunity. something other Fox News personalities wouldn't do. What I can tell you is this.

Starting point is 00:22:46 He had an opportunity. He will go down as one of the most influential primetime hosts ever, certainly. But he could have been so much better. He could have been one of the greatest. He had the skills, the mind, the skepticism, and the platform. He knows this country and he knows his audience. But instead of engendering a place where we embraced debate, rejected partisan lines, questioned our own biases, talked across the aisle, and saw fellow citizens as partners in improving our country, he did the opposite. He spread fear. He taught viewers to

Starting point is 00:23:16 hate the opposition. He told them that the opposition hated them. He called for anger, for revenge, for division, and he misled his viewers, a lot. His on-air corrections were far less frequent than they should have been. But his show had so much potential. I know because I often saw it, even at the end. On several occasions, maybe once every five or six episodes, he really did move my position, cover a story I hadn't seen, or reveal something about the establishment I never

Starting point is 00:23:45 noticed. He sometimes offered thought-provoking perspectives, and when he had evidence of them, he uncovered the absurdity of a guest's lies. Instead, though, the norm for his primetime slot was to descend into something far uglier, something different but no better, no less predictable, and no more informative than the other cable news shows he so regularly and rightly criticized. Of all the regrettable things, that is the biggest shame of the Tucker Carlson story. It's not just how bad things got, but how good they could have been. Alright, that is it for my take. Next up is our under the radar story for today. A group of crisis experts and federal advisors released a report today saying that a lack of

Starting point is 00:24:31 disaster preparedness and coordination led to the failed pandemic response. The report says COVID-19 exposed a, quote, collective national incompetence in governance. While the group praised Operation Warp Speed, which was led by the Trump administration to fast-track vaccine development, it questioned why similar programs weren't launched to provide protective equipment or antivirals. The 34-member group was designed to offer a 9-11-style commission and forged ahead on its own without approval from the Senate or the Biden administration. It concludes that we aren't ready for the next pandemic either. Axios has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description.

Starting point is 00:25:13 And next up is our numbers section. The increase in spending at restaurants in 2022 was 21 percent, according to Commerce Department data. The increase in spending on groceries in 2022 was 29.5%. The average viewership for Tucker Carlson Tonight during the 8 p.m. hour in 2023 was 3.3 million people. The average viewership for MSNBC in that slot was 1 million. The average viewership for CNN in that slot was 703,000. The percentage of Democrats who said Biden should not run again in 2024 is 51%, according to a new NBC poll. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day story. A Turkish baby who miraculously survived an earthquake has been reunited with her mother, who authorities had previously thought was dead. We covered the baby girl's story in a previous Have a Nice Day section when she was

Starting point is 00:26:09 found buried underneath rubble in Turkey 128 hours after an earthquake. The baby was separated from her mother in the quakes, which killed some 50,000 people, and she was dubbed Gizem, which means mystery in Turkish. She was placed into government care until a family member approached officials saying the baby's mother was actually alive. A DNA test confirmed the relative's assertion, and the two were reunited in Adana, where the mother is still being treated for her injuries. CBS has this remarkable story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast.

Starting point is 00:26:46 As always, if you want to support our work, please go to readtangle.com slash membership. We'll be right back here same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by John Law. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bukova, who's also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more on Tangle,

Starting point is 00:27:15 please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. Thanks for watching! the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for

Starting point is 00:28:20 ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at fluselvax.ca.

Tangle - Tucker Carlson ousted by Fox News.

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