The Chris Cuomo Project - Adam Carolla

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

In this week’s episode of “The Chris Cuomo Project,” comedian Adam Carolla (podcast host, “The Adam Carolla Show”) joins Chris to discuss whether Tucker Carlson is being silenced or censored after his Fox News firing, how media outlets act in the moment in order to push an agenda, why he pursued a career in entertainment after working as a carpenter, the media’s incentive to distort stories and take things out of context, and much more. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you like to think? Do you like to be provoked and to think about why you think what you think? I hope so, because that's what we're all about here. And if so, you're going to love our guest today. Hey, I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for being here for the Chris Cuomo Project. Adam Carolla is on the show. So thank you for subscribing, following, being here for us.

Don't forget about News Nation, 8 and 11 o'clock every night Eastern. Check us out. There's a button in here somewhere if you want to push it and figure out how to find it near you. Adam Carolla, you know the name for a long time. Love lines, the comedy, the podcast, all the different appearances and iterations. Funny guy, thinks a lot, pushes bounds of what's acceptable to think and say when it comes to politics. So we decided to have a talk that stops nowhere

and starts with what he thinks about Tucker Carlson leaving Fox. He interviews me, I interview him. Let's see how it goes. Adam Carolla. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from Sundays. Now, we got a problem in the cuomo house we got three dogs who now like sundaes better than the other food that i was giving them sundaes is healthy dog food easy to store okay very tasty very nutritious because sundaes is fresh dog food made from a short list of human-grade ingredients. No, not humans. Human-grade.

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best-selling sheet is a bamboo set, okay? Temperature regulating. Gets softer with every wash. I'm not kidding you, all right? Now, so if you go to CozyEarth.com and you enter the code, enter the code CHRIS, and you can get up to 35% off your first order. CozyEarth.com, your first order. CozyEarth.com and the code is Chris. Adam Bernal, what a pleasure. Thank you very much for participating in today's events. Sure. Thanks for having me and thanks for coming on my show. We'll do a little one for me, one for you. So it's like we're both interviewing the other one. Very, very high concept. High concept. My question is an obvious one. I want your take on recent news of your friend, Tucker Carlson, getting ousted from Fox. Fair, unfair, good for him, bad for him feelings.

You know, I know Tucker on a different level than most people do. There's a sort of cartoon character, Tucker, and then there's sort of who he is more at his core. And I think everybody these days gets turned into a caricature that should be hanging up at a deli, you know, behind a counter. But you know firsthand when you talk to people sort of who they are at their core. And so Tucker is a writer at his core. He doesn't really like being on camera that much, at least that's my take, and he's kind of said it to me. He's also wildly independent. He's not, he's also wildly independent he's not or he has become wildly independent I don't think he's a corporate guy and I don't know if he's going to tow party lines I don't think you can silence people who have a voice an opinion a take like you can get Louis C.K. into trouble for a while, or maybe you can get Dave

Chappelle in trouble for a while, but people that have real voices aren't going away unless they do it on their own terms. Ironically, my voice just got scrambled when I said that. But maybe that was God telling me to shut up. But if you host, I think the new world order is, is if you host The Bachelor, you can get fired and we'll never hear from you again. But if you're a comedian or a journalist or somebody with a voice, I don't know that we can silence you. but it does seem like he was canned and it does seem like they want him to be silenced for a while. Yeah, maybe you're right. I don't know. I don't know him. You decide what you want to do with yourself. There are many people who say, well, you know, he's not who he is on TV. Uh, that is not a mitigating concept for me. I'm exactly who I am on TV. I just curse more when

I'm not on TV than when I am, but there's absolutely no fake in the funk. No, that is, that is him. I mean, he, what is on TV is, is who he is. I'm not, I'm not saying it isn't. I'm saying there's who you are, who you are on TV, and he's the same way. He's exactly the same. He just curses more. But then there is sort of what society turns you into.

Well, look, one of the problems with the media, and on balance, I believe, everybody can attack many things about this country until they have to decide to live somewhere else. And I think media falls in that category as well. We have a lot of it. Some of it sucks. Some of it's great. And a lot of it falls in between. But I believe your friend does what works for him. I think his positions, I don't think that if he had a gun to his head, he would say he believes a lot of the things that he puts on TV, but they work.

And he's created an audience for himself and a following. And I would be very surprised if he worked for everybody else because he has to know on his end of the political spectrum, he can be his own enterprise. He already has the Daily Caller. But I don't think he's being silenced. I think he's a problem for that company. I think that he's an advertising problem, and I think he's a legal exposure problem.

And I think that corporations do what's best for them. But I don't think he's being silenced. He could be back on TV tonight if he wanted to. Yeah, I don't think that's going to be the case just from what I know. I'll just put it to you that way. But I'm saying, you're saying it's not going to be the case that he's right back on TV. I mean, he could do that if he wants to walk away and take no money.

I'm saying, like, he's not being censored. Yeah, I don't, look, you know, I believe that a corporation or a boss has the right to fire people. I mean, obviously, we can go revisit it and see if it's wrongful termination or someone's rights were being abused or something. But I'm a very, like, I had dinner with a very liberal friend of mine the other night. And he was sort of saying, why does Jeff Bezos get to make all this money and his employees don't make any money? And I said, well, you don't have to work for Jeff Bezos. Like, you don't have to. McDonald's pays slave wages.

Okay. But you don't have to work for McDonald's. I'm a very kind of free on both ends, you know, management and employment. Yeah, I think that's very right. I think that makes sense. I'll tell you what the rub is for me. You're right. You can work wherever you want.

What I don't like is when the guy who makes the ton of money needs help, he gets it faster than the people who work for him. That's the part of the equation where we lose the laissez-faire, the live and let live aspect of capitalism, is every time these organizations are in big trouble, all of a sudden there has to be a bailout in a way that the American public certainly never gets. Why? Well, they're too big to fail. They employ too many people. I've always felt that there's just as much bullshit in that idea as the idea of you should make a lot because the guy on top of you makes a lot. Agreed.

And circling back to Tucker, I know many what you would call right-wing pundit types, or at least a handful. You know, I know Ben Shapiro pretty well. I know Tucker pretty well. I know Dennis Prager pretty well. I know these guys pretty well. They are exactly as they are in front of the microphone or without the microphone. And whether I think the idea of, oh, he's saying a bunch of stuff he doesn't

believe. I don't believe that. He believes what he's saying. Now, we can argue the merits of it, but I think he's sincere. I think all these guys are sincere. And I never, I assume people on the left are sincere as well. I believe they believe, you know, the ladies from the view, I believe that's what they believe. Yeah. I mean, I think that you take, you know,

people as they come. I wouldn't put Tucker in the same basket with a Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro is an ideologue and you can like his ideology. You can not like it. You can like what he picks or not. You know, that's, that's all subjective. I'm just saying I've been in this business a long time, and I've seen different Tucker Carlsons. I've seen the affable prep school, you know, bow tie guy who's the kind of conservative you can like. And then it's morphed into, you know, it's whatever works. And he's not alone in any way in being like that on television. I'm just saying that what he's arrived at as what works for him and who he's celebrating and what he's celebrating, you know, it's hard to reconcile it with conservative orthodoxy, let alone what he was before that. But I also don't really give a

shit, to be honest. I want him to be able to do what he wants to do. And if there's an audience for it, great. I don't know him as a person and I'm not, you know, unlike many people in my business, we love to judge people personally. We love it because it's easy. And negativity can be a proxy for insight. It's so easy to not like people. You can literally have a business based around saying shit about other people. I mean, that's what, you know, that's what Megyn Kelly is. Megyn Kelly is somebody who gets on a

microphone and decides to take the piss out of somebody every night. And that's good enough. And, you know, I get it. I just don't do it. People say, were you happy he was fired? Are you happy this other guy? I'm like, I'm never happy when anybody gets fired. You know what I mean? You got a job. You got a family. I don't want to see bad things happen to people. But I believe that your friend Carlson is in good shape. I think he's going to have a lot of options if he wants them. He has to figure out what he wants to do. Yeah. He's also very, I think people would be surprised how sort of bizarre his life is. He lives in a guest house with his wife and his cocker spaniel behind the main house.

He pretty much sits in the sauna every morning. He doesn't have a TV set. He takes a piss on the hedge and like showers outside. And then he rides his beach cruiser in barefoot to, to go to work. Like he has a, his life is the kind, you know, if somebody said he's going fly fishing and he's never coming back to work, I would not say that person was a liar according to what I know about him. Well, look, I mean, he doesn't have to work. You know, he never had to do any of this. He's always had money and that's a blessing. That's fine. But I'm saying it's not like my situation where I had to figure out how to get back up off the ground, not just because I felt that wire was fired was wrong

and I got to litigate that, or that I thought what was done was wrong, was that I got to be an earner here. And I have to be involved because it's really important to me. So you got to know what somebody's motivations are. You take money out of it, you start getting a lot more optionality.

And then if you take the righteousness out of it, and I don't know him, so I don't know where his head is on why he does it. But for me, it was like, hey, if I were going to get paid, but I had to stay on the sidelines, that would have been unacceptable to me. This period in our development isn't too important to me. This is the part of my life where, and your life,

this last 10, 12 years, and we'll see how long it goes, this is what people are going to remember about when you and I were alive is this period of time. A lot of pressure. But are you going to look at CNN parting ways with you as a blessing at some point? Do you look at it that way now? Do you think when you go fast forward 20 years and sort of look back on it? Because I did lose a sort of national radio gig, and that was almost 15 years ago, and it did turn out to be a blessing. I think that your situation was very different than mine. All pain is personal, by the way. I don't mean in any way to diminish anything that you've dealt with.

And I've been a big observer of yours for a long time. And I've liked the iterations. I've liked the industry. And I appreciate a lot of what you do. And so this was different for me. And it was personally very destructive because, not that because I lost a job, it's because of how it went down and how it was perceived and being caught up in this maelstrom surrounding my brother that I really had no business being a part of. I never worked for my brother. I didn't even know any of the people who accused him of anything.

Like, it's not my world. And the people who I worked for knew that. So this idea that I was lying to them because I was some orchestrating genius behind my brother is just demonstrably bullshit. And what happened was, and you'll be no stranger to this idea, the media loves to eat its own, and they had a great chance to not just take out my brother, who people found insufferably successful during the pandemic with the Love Gov and all that other shit, and me, another bold-faced name

who was always antagonistic towards the media. And they just basically went after CNN until CNN had to make a decision about who to save. And I was going to lose. So then they just came up with a reason. My whole beef with it was, hey, look, if the new ownership or people inside have grown tired of what I bring to the table, just tell me and I'll leave. And I'm not going to hold you up for money. I'll make money. I'm good at what I do. I'm not worried about that. I'm not one of these guys

who's going to litigate you to death. I've been forced to do this. So it was very ruinous of what I had understood to be my reality, not just the job, but just how things worked and what had power and what didn't. And what really cemented that for me is

so many of the same people that wanted me out in the succeeding months when they wanted to do stories on me or whatever, and I will never do a profile with anyone ever. It's a complete waste of time. They couldn't explain why I was fired. And they increasingly then said it was wrong. The same people who ran me out. Right. And that's what bothers me about the media. It's that so much of what people consume

is done for the moment and done for convenience or a particular narrative or an agenda. And that happened to me, in my opinion. And I'm not a victim. I'm not upset about it. But I cannot call it a blessing because I'll tell you, you are where you are, Carolla, and really are a big reason for success

that anybody has in the podcast space because you led the way here to a large degree because of what you made happen. It wasn't luck. There is no power from above that decided Carolla now gets a break because he got a bad break. You made it happen. So we'll see.

We'll see what I can do. I'm not someone who's used to staying on the ground and I'm a grinder and a fighter. So we'll see what I'm able to make happen. But I certainly don't like anything about what happened to me at CNN. Yeah, no, I mean, I wasn't suggesting that you liked it. What I was suggesting is my sort of philosophically, I believe that all change, most change is good when you get some distance from it you know most of the things something of it i'll give you that all change is opportunity all challenges are opportunity this

is an opportunity we'll see what i do with it i just wasn't looking for it and i know you weren't you're a smart guy i know you weren't suggesting oh did you like uh getting knocked on your ass no of course not and i know that's not what you mean. Maybe at some point. I just never would have envisioned it this way. And, you know, I would rather not have to find my way to the top of the stairs by getting thrown down the staircase first. What do you think, you know, do you think your brother got sort of Al Franken with the sort of Me Too stuff? sort of Al Franken with the sort of me too stuff. I've been, I've been a very strong advocate of, you know, it's like 10 women come forward and give you 10 stories and none of them are, they're mostly nothing burgers. You know, I, I sort of likened it to saying, you know,

of likened it to saying, you know, you got a ticket for rolling through a four-way stop sign 10 times or jaywalking 10 times, but it still doesn't add up into making you a felon or criminal. Well, look, the first problem we have is that we're not talking about the standard of proof required at trial. This is culture. It's crowdsourced consequences via culture that is often hyper-media driven. Andrew is not Franken. Franken, I don't even think it has ever been alleged in a meaningful way, let alone demonstrated in any way, ever touched anybody. demonstrated in any way ever touched anybody we saw one photo of him making fun of somebody who was asleep with his hands positioned over her torso and then some side stories after that that we never really vetted or went anywhere because he had to leave for the same reason that andrew in my opinion was a dead man after the second allegation, regardless of the

merits, which is that in the Democratic Party, allegations are enough. And you can look at that as a good thing or as a bad thing. But he's on a team in a game that has rules, and he broke the rule of his team. Now, it's a different discussion. Do I like the team? Do I like the rule? That's a different conversation. His team has rules, and an allegation is enough. And he had a lot of allegations. He didn't have a lot of friends. He had a lot of jealous people, for whatever reason you want to ascribe to it. And I think that that's why he got taken out. Different from Franken, because I think Franken was an embarrassment for the Democratic Party. My position is different than yours in as much as I am, and people may say this is irony, but I don't. I'm very much in favor of

what people want to do with what hashtag Me Too started out being about. I believe that you have generations of women who haven't been able to say anything out of the convenience of their superiors. And it's important that that culture changes. I just don't like that it largely stopped with the low-hanging fruit of the media and Hollywood and politics, because that was easy for the media to expose and exploit or maybe even distort, to your point. But it didn't go to all the places and industries that have women who are far less empowered than the ones that we have been saving with this. position where she's got to tolerate whatever happens to her because HR is going to be more a foe than a friend in a nowhere industry where nobody will ever know who she is, is not a news anchor at a major organization. I mean, they are far more empowered than that woman will ever be. So I was in favor and still am with the goals of allowing people to make their witness. But I don't

think you can ever divorce that from the idea of having to prove it and for there having to be corroboration that's rigorous and confrontation of an accuser. These are really important things that just weren't made up by a bunch of guys with wigs for the purpose of a system. You gotta have those pieces because not everybody's telling the truth

and not everybody sees things the way that they were. And we've lost sight of that with crowdsourced consequences, I suspect. Not always, but sometimes. And to me, that's a problem, but it's not unique in our development, Adam. I mean, our change is always pendular. It goes from too far this way to too far that way. And we now have a political system that plays right into it with a binary game of two parties that are constantly battling to the bottom of who's worse. So, you know, it's kind of a symptom

of a larger syndrome that I see everywhere with us. What's your take on Don Lemon? Personally, and again, you know, you can hear this and be like, oh, this fucking guy, he's just saying what he needs to say. But that's just not who I am. Look, there was a lot of personal fallout for me

with what happened at CNN. And there was a lot of disappointment and a lot of pain, okay? And I know men don't often talk that way, but I'm talking that way. It was painful and still is. I do not like the idea of anything bad happening to Don Lemon. It does nothing for me and it does nothing to me except make me feel badly for him.

And I think that he's very talented. I think that if he wants more options in television, he'll have them. But I think it's a really shitty business, Adam. And it's a really scary situation when you work in places that don't know who they are or what they're about or what matters. And when you're just trying to please people who are outside you and outside influences, and you don't really have your own bearings, your own compass, that's a scary place to be because you don't know who's going to be in favor one day

and out the next. And, you know, people are saying, well, he made it easy for them. Maybe. Lemon was always a guy who took chances. He's always somebody who, for the most part of his career, frustrated guys like you

and people more to the political right, saw him as an antagonist. And I get all that. You know, that's part of the deal you make when you take positions on television. But I don't like it. I saw him as more of a narcissist than an antagonist. Like I didn't really have strong feelings about him. He just became, he came across to me like a narcissist, I think. Well, how many guys you know who have TV shows who aren't narcissistic?

It does seem to come with the territory. That's for sure. I mean, it's hard. The only pronoun you use most of the time when you're in his position or Tucker's is I. You know, everything's first person. I mean, look, clearly he had some impact because your boy Tucker went after him on a regular basis.

So he obviously was doing something. Yeah, I guess I know it's an interesting way to think about sort of circling back to this sort of narcissism thing, which is, yes, anyone who talks into a microphone for several hours a day or stares into a camera, you could sort of argue is a de facto narcissist. But I do think it's more nuanced than that. And it's sort of in the eye of the beholder, And it's sort of in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

But I don't know about you, but I never wanted to be on camera. I just wanted to talk. I just want to kind of take ideas and put them into people's heads. Maybe that's the ultimate narcissism. I don't know. But I've never thought of myself as a narcissist. I just thought it was also I was a pragmatist. I was like, I'm a carpenter. I was a carpenter.

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Restrictions apply. You see the website. You'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. You made a point earlier. You've made a lot of good points.

And it's interesting. Every time I listen to anything that you're in, I always wind up stopping it and going back. You're kind of a pain in the ass to listen to because you do deal in nuance and half the time I'm laughing. And then half the time I'm like, wait a minute, I just laughed my way through something I got to think about for a second. And that's good. It's good. And I think we need a lot more of that. I think we need a lot more of provocation of pragmatic ideas. You know, that's not what we're doing right now.

Like in prepping for you, a member of my team was like, you got to go after him because he's against school lunches. And I was like, all right. Oh yeah, do. Whatever anyone said for you to go after me for, by all means, bring it up

because I like to discuss all this stuff. But my point is this. I then look at it and it's as the, of course it's not, I don't want to, if anybody's hungry, I never want to feed them. That's not what you think, and it would never be right for someone to challenge you on that basis, but that's exactly where we are in our political dynamic. And I have that done to me all the time.

I can't tell you how many offers I've made to Ben Shapiro, anybody out there. You take every quote that has been taken out of context or made into something else about me that you want, and I will go 100% in defending every one of them to the satisfaction of any reasonable person. Because we live in a world of bullshit and twisting. And it really bothers me. And that's why I enjoy so much what you do. No, look, you bring up a good point sort of globally, which is they'll say this about Don Lemon or you on one hand, and maybe they'll say something else about Ben Shapiro.

Yeah, like I hate even being put in the same bucket as Don Lemon, by the way. He's a much better performer than I am, but the idea that we think the same things are the same way- No. Is not- Should be insulting to both of us. I'm not suggesting that. What I'm suggesting is, is there's an aisle, and on one side of the aisle, there's- They're teams, they're lanes, they're tribes. You're right. suggesting is is there's an aisle and on one side of the aisle there's their teams their lanes their

tribes you're right and on the other is um you know rachel maddow all right just to remove remove us from the equation um it's insane to think that adam carolla wants kids to go hungry. This is sort of a concept, you know? And it's also kind of insane to think that this person, 90% of racism is this way. Like, do you really think this person is a racist? Or do you really think this person hates women? The person that has daughters and has been married to the same woman for 25 years and has a sister and a mom? Like, first things first, I won't even go along with this person hates that thing.

Now, you may say I'm for beefing up the border and this person is for the dreamers or a path to citizenship. Okay, that's an argument. There's nuance there. But just these sort of he hates kids is almost like saying he hates puppies. It's insulting, but also it's sort of nonsensical. You know what I mean? Like, I've been called a misogynist a thousand times. I have a daughter who I'm deeply devoted to and I take care of, and I've never had any allegations of doing anything to anybody. I just think in my head, I hate women or in my head, I hate blacks or Hispanics or my head. I don't want kids to eat. And that whole allegation came from me saying, I want parents connected with their kids. I don't want the government feeding your kids. I want you to feed your kids. Not for me, not for tax dollars. I don't care about the money. I made that super clear. The symbolism of mom making lunch or dad making lunch, taking care of your child, I don't want it outsourced. And I don't think the government does a good job of it. I don't think they're going to get nutritious food,

but it has nothing to do with the money. It has everything to do with the family and the connection. And then the young Turk sort of just took it and announced that I don't like kids and I want them to go hungry. But they don't give you the benefit of context or nuance, as you say, because it's counterproductive. I want you to lose, Adam. I want to beat you. I want to be the better option. And we're in a binary system that is fundamentally zero sum. Cooperation is weakness.

Agreement is weakness. Opposition is strength. So Corolla is an idiot who hates kids and believes that everybody has a mom and dad who's there available to make them lunch. And if not, then too bad for you. And therefore, I am better. Listen to me. Vote for me.

Buy from me. And that's where we are. So that's why you're going to get played that way. And I got to tell you where the most dangerous place to be is. And I often believe this about why I'm constantly in trouble, even though I'm now like studiously trying to avoid it. I had moms on last night who are part of an organization to take certain books away from younger kids. And if we were talking about The Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird, you know, you're going to have a big problem with me. I believe in ideas. I believe in offensive ideas.

The idea of a trigger warning, my kid goes to Cornell and I called her up. I was like, please tell me that you're not behind this trigger warning bullshit, you know, please. And she's like, no, no, the administration already voted on it. It's not there. I had nothing to do with it. I was like, oh, thank God.

Because you should be offended. I want to offend you. I want to test you. I want you to think about things. And if you're bothered, great. I'm not going to do it gratuitously. I'm not going to say ugly things gratuitously, but you should be bothered. You don't have a right to not be bothered. But these moms hold up this book that is animated and it's of one guy blowing another guy

and one guy having sex with another guy. And I don't think it's wrong for parents to be worried about their nine-year-old having that book in their library. And I had to think about it because I knew that I was going to get lumped in with being pro-book burning. And I am on the opposite side of that. I would rather have more provocative and offensive things in our society, in a marketplace of ideas than not.

But that was obviously beyond the pale and it had nothing to do with it being male-male. I don't care what gender. I don't care if it was an elephant and a rhino they had in the pictures. I don't think that that's right for kids K through three. I think that no one in my life would disagree with me, but I also knew I was gonna get my ass kicked and sure enough, I am. That they found something about this group

that they don't like, and that you didn't discuss this part, which I never even heard of, and I don't even know is true. But that's where we are. If someone can show that I'm part of the problem, that they're therefore better than I am, that's where it's going to go. And it has left us exactly where we are, which is there is no problem solving at play. None. You're open border or you're build a wall. And what is the net result? Nothing changes at the border.

We just watch the statistics and blame one another for them. And that's what bothers me. I just wish I knew how to fix it. one another for him. And that's what bothers me. I just wish I knew how to fix it. Well, I know you disagree with Tucker on most subjects, but one page- Only on me, I disagree with him. Everything he's ever said about me, I disagree with.

You could tear out of his playbook, and I would say everyone could use this play out of Tucker's playbook, is he consumes no information about himself, at least according to him. He says he doesn't have a TV set and he doesn't read anything. And I have that impulse with myself as well. But I think it's an impulse or wiring, which is if somebody said to me, so-and-so was talking about you at a party, do you want to know what they said? My impulse would be no because it could be good, which would be fine, but it could be bad, and I wouldn't want to hear it. So I try to avoid stuff that has to do with me. And I talk to people all the time and they go,

oh, Twitter's a hellhole and everyone's attacking everyone and all this. And I'm like, I don't really see it. But I avoid stuff that has to do with me because I don't think it leads anywhere emotionally that I want. I don't want to go to wherever it is emotionally. So, but I don't know what you do. I don't know how you approach that. Well, I'll tell you what, I definitely took time away when I was deep in the hole of dealing with my own demise, which was not exaggerated. And that was just because my family, I felt so bad at him.

I had no idea. I have no regrets about helping my brother. I have no regrets about anything I did in helping my brother. If anything, I have regrets that I didn't do enough because I wasn't able to really help him in any way. But I had no idea what I was doing to my family. I had no idea.

It was probably in an otherwise profoundly selfish life. And I am a selfish bastard. I had no idea how much I was putting on my kids and my wife. I had no fucking idea. And if I had known, I would have done it differently. I love my brother. He's the only one I have. And it is like an oath to me to be there for him. But I would have called him right away if I had known and said, I had no idea that my son is having to deal with this. My daughter, my young one, I had no idea. My wife, her business, I can't do this.

And he would have understood. He would never put me in that position. I would have never, he would have never put them in that position. Me, that's my job is to be there. If it's going to be bad for me, that's family. I'm there. I had no idea that I was doing that to them.

And it made me so, so angry and so dark that I shut down for a while to just get away from that and figure out how to make it right for them and how to start doing that differently. But in general, and when I'm on the job, I'm very responsive to the audience and I want to hear their comments. I'll go at them sometimes, but less and less.

So I'm not playing it the way you do, which is probably a more emotionally healthy thing. I have a pretty thick skin. And I also have, you know, I don't really belong in our current media culture. You know, I really believe that there's nothing wrong with me coming up to you and saying, say it to me now, Corolla. Say now that you think I want little girls to be exposed to male genitals in a bathroom.

Say that when I got a 13-year-old girl. Say it now, and I'm going to make you a little bit richer by putting my head into your nose. I don't have the problem with that that I should have in a civilized society and as a lawyer and an understanding of someone who is against violence most of the time. I don't belong in this business because this is not a business about, you want to fight, let's fight. You want to have an argument, let's have an argument. I don't have to beat you up. You don't have to beat me up, but let's go. Tucker Carlson. I've made this offer many times and I'm sure I'll make it

again. I'll be in any room with you anytime you want and you come at me directly the way you were coming at me in my absence. Let's see if you do it. And I guarantee you, I don't know him. I don't need to know him. I don't need to know him. It doesn't matter that I've been fight training for 30 years. I'm not talking about violence, but I really believe Tyson had it right. The internet and our media culture has made people forget that sometimes what you say can get you punched in the mouth. And I'm not saying that bullies should win. I'm saying that we have lost regard for the impact of our own words and that negativity is the end sum. And I can say whatever I want about you and it's okay

because it's free speech. And yeah, sure, legally, but I think it's put us in a bad place. And I don't belong in this media culture because it's filled with people who are all talk and no walk and looking to be a victim, and they're swinging a bat at your head, and if you do anything but accept the blow graciously, they'll say that you were mean to them and sue. It's such a perverse place that is, to me, such anathema to America.

And again, I see the problem so clearly, I just don't know what to do about it uh did tucker ever invite you on his show and did you ever invite him on your show it would be a hollow suggestion because we're not allowed you know what i mean you don't the networks wouldn't allow it you don't work at cnn and go present you, sometimes they'll give you a loophole if you're like selling a book or something like that. Um, but we don't go on each other's shows because we're in competitive outlets. Um, but it's also not what he does. You know, there's a reason he doesn't have a co-host and there's a reason that I bring people on to debate person to person. I'm very comfortable in confrontation. I'm not there to be hostile.

I don't have that as a commodity. Sometimes I'm painted that way, but it's never fair. But that's the nature of the business. And I'm not allowed to defend myself. When you work for an outlet, NewsNation's a little different. I haven't tested this theory there yet, and hopefully I don't have to.

But at CNN, and I say this with respect, not ruefully, if you had said something about me and I didn't like it, and I said, tonight I'm going at Carolla, forget him for saying that I said that he's totally wrong and he shouldn't have said it, I'm calling him out. There would be a conversation. Well, hold on a second. Do we want to give attention to this? Do we want to give attention to him? And you got to think about what does it mean to CNN? So CNN would not let one of their talents go on to Tucker Carlson's show. Well, not so much that it was Tucker Carlson's show. I mean, that would be one of the easier things. I don't know if you've ever seen him interview anybody, but it's not exactly, you know, he's not pitching flames the way he is direct to camera when he's interviewing somebody.

pitching flames the way he is direct to camera when he's interviewing somebody. Right. And, you know, it's not about Tucker Carlson. It's about another outlet. I'm just, I'm trying to figure out the ethos of the network and or networks. No, they just don't let you go on competitors. So it's like, you don't see a CNN anchor or an MSNBC anchor. You know, Rachel Maddow is not going to be a guest on my show. Why? Because she's got her own show and she's their property, you know, and that's just the way it works. I don't have any problem with that. That's not

unusual. You don't see a Ford executive hanging out at a Chevy meeting. Yeah. But when I used to do a show called Loveline, which is a syndicated radio show. Oh, I know it very, very well. And it was on K-Rock. And a couple of its orientations. I remember watching it on MTV also. It was on MTV, but it was out here in Los Angeles. It was on K-Rock radio. And I would get invited to come on other guys' radio shows on KLSX. Yeah, it's different. Competitive. It's different. And I would be yelled at by my boss, but then I would explain to him, I'm just advertising your product on their network, their show. Yeah, I agree with your argument. I just don't have the power that you had.

I would go on other people's shows. I mean, look, I have Bill O'Reilly on my show once a week. He has never said a nice thing about me or to me. And I believe that there is no one else in my position who, and look, we know it. Nobody has Bill O'Reilly on on any kind of regular basis if they're not there to agree with him. But I'm open to it because, one, I don't really, you know, I've been so beaten up for fucking so many stupid reasons that I now don't, it's not that I don't really, you know, I've been so beaten up for fucking so many stupid reasons

that I now don't, it's not that I don't care. It's that I just can't process all of it. And I've just kind of retreated to the idea of, wait, well, who's saying it? Carolla said that what I said made no sense. Let me listen to his argument. I'm going to listen to it. I'm going to figure it out.

Don't you think if there was more of that, we might be able to, I don't know, bend something? I don't know. And I'll tell you why. Here's what happens when I have O'Reilly on. Okay. I have him on. I think that the conversations are always productive. Now, one of us is gravely mistaken about their own personal truth. I'm not sure if it's him or if it's me, but I do not see myself as an ideologue. And I do not see him as a fair broker problem solver, which is what he calls himself. I believe that he is constantly saying that Biden or some other Democrat is the cause of the ruination of our society and that Trump was basically a step shy

of Lincoln and Reagan in his estimation. That's just how I see, that's how I experience it. He would disagree. But the audience, if they are reasonable, and that's the only audience I'm pitching, Adam, I am not playing to the left. And obviously, I'm not going to play to the right. They like it. Sometimes they like it because they think I stopped them in his tracks. Sometimes they like it because they think it's funny what he said about me. Sometimes they like it because they liked hearing exchange of ideas that helped them flesh out an issue.

And I love that. But here's also what happens. that help them flesh out an issue. And I love that. But here's also what happens. I get crushed on social media for having him on. Many on the left will attack him personally or they will attack what he represents to them ideologically. And they will see me as a traitor to either a cause or a team.

And now you can look at all of that and wave it away and say, so what? You don't need it. Find me people who are successful on cable television to a significant degree who don't have a team. Yeah, well, I think there's a problem. I get it a lot too. And I found, maybe it's convenient, but I think the left has less tolerance for it in that I have

many progressive liberal people on my show. I mean, first off, you want to interview someone, you know, you want to interview Bryan Cranston, you're going to get a perspective that's pretty left, pretty liberal, pretty progressive. And then at some point, and sometimes people will say this to me, you know, like they'll go, oh, why don't you go hang out with your best friend, Dinesh D'Souza? And I'll go, I don't know Dinesh D'Souza. He's been on the show twice in 15 years. I don't think that would be my best friend. And I also don't think all I'm doing is highlighting Dinesh D'Souza and his talking points. He averages an appearance on the show every seven and a half years.

So there's just sort of no, and what I've sort of found too is like, you can have 10, you know, I'll have Rob Reiner on this show and he'll talk about anything Rob Reiner wants to talk about, but you're going to have 10 Rob Reiners. But if you do one Dinesh D'Souza or one Ted Nugent, people get pissed off about it. Well, you're violating, you're violating the rule. The rule is you can only have on, especially, you know, you take a provocateur who's extreme and been somewhat exposed, not somewhat, been exposed to sometimes be grossly inaccurate in D'Souza. Well, you've proven you don't want to be fair because it's not a fair balance. To an ideologue, you're saying, well, so I've had nine good apples and then I have one that's filled with tomaine, and you're upset.

Yes, one toxic apple is too much. The question is, well, what are you calling a toxic apple? D'Souza, it's a little bit of low-hanging fruit, just to keep the metaphor going. But I don't believe Bill O'Reilly comes even close to being in that category. Bill Maher, you. I'll get shit for this. I know I will. I just don't care anymore because if I do have an ax to grind that I didn't have before,

it's, oh, really? You're disappointed in me? Where were you for me? When I needed support, where were you? So that doesn't resonate with me the way it did in my last iteration. But it's a binary system. The reason I'm telling people to leave the parties is not because I think the parties are equal. I don't. I think that the Republican Party that I knew, that I grew up with, that I have in my family,

that I married into, has been co-opted by a more extreme form of populism in a way that I do not think is equivalent on the left. The left has its problems. The Democrats have their problems. The fact that Biden is the best the Democrats can do is a problem. No disrespect to him. He was nice when my father died. I think he has an affability to him, but I don't like that he's the best that they can do. I feel the same way about Trump. I don't see the parties as equal. I see them as equal participants in a game that I hate and that is destroying us. And we need independence and for people to make candidates play to their interests and not vice

versa. And that is a real solution that will make a real difference in our political culture. We're just so tied into these parties. I mean, you know, even my brother gets mad at me when I say that. He's, you know, and, you know, we're pretty tight if you haven't noticed. So, you know, he'll be like, yeah, but what do you think? Are you going to have Republicans win every election? I said, no, you see it like that because you're on the other team. But I see it as blow up the game and let people run for office who don't have to be beholden to one or the other. But I see it as blow up the game and let people run for office who don't have to be beholden to one or the other. Sure, there's going to be a lot of money coming from the parties, and I'm not crazy enough of magical thinking to believe we're going to have three, four,

five viable parties. But if you have independent voters, you're at least having these parties have to think about how to pitch them in a way where you don't just get their vote automatically because the other side's worse. That's what I want to get away from. I agree. There were some rumors that News Nation was reaching out to Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson. I don't know if you have any insights. I'll tell you what, I can tell you something as a matter of fact that is really interesting when you're in the media. And I saw this in my own situation also, and in others where I've just been ahead on the reporting. Literally everything I have been reading is wrong. I shit

you not. Literally everything, for instance, I'll give you one that will certainly be true as of the date of whenever we both use this. Tucker Carlson and I have the same lawyer, okay? A practitioner named Brian Friedman, who is really just a gold standard guy and practitioner. He did Megyn Kelly's case as well? He did do Megyn Kelly's case and many many others. He does a lot of things. Carlson did not just get him now.

They have a relationship. Don Lemon to my knowledge, which is better than anybody who's reporting on it, does not have a lawyer. Is he interested in my lawyer? Sure he is. Everybody is. I don't know what's going to happen with that,

but he certainly hasn't retained him. That's a matter of fact as of the date of this. But you're not going to see that in the media. Why? Because they don't give a shit. They want to advance the story. And they know it's kind of a harmless foul if they're wrong about it. And somebody told them, and that's good enough. And everybody else is reporting it, so it's kind of a harmless foul if they're wrong about it and somebody told them and that's good enough and everybody else is reporting it so it's okay and that happens in the media a lot

um so i know that's not true is news nation reaching out to don lemon not that i know of would i know yep uh would they talk to tucker carlson probably is that a rejection of what news nation is supposed to be about no because the point is NewsNation is supposed to be about? No, because the point is that NewsNation is going to be a true cross-section of everybody's interests. So, you know, would I let Tucker Carlson have no guardrails? Well, only if you have this is opinion flashing on the screen most of the time when he's talking. Otherwise, you got to have an understanding with the guy about what passes muster in the place. But I'm not the boss, and I don't say who's on and who isn't.

That's for sure. I'm lucky to be there myself. But whatever is good for the business. I've said to most people, you have no idea how inaccurate most of what you read and see is until they're talking about you. That's right. Because most Americans do not have that opportunity. They'll go through their entire life without so much as a corner of the back page dedicated to them.

But the second you start reading articles about yourself and some of it's innocuous. Some of it was just born here. Now I wasn't born in Philadelphia. I was born here. Others are like, as bizarre as this sounds, I once did a tour of Los Angeles, Adam Carolla's favorite eateries and hangouts, you know, this is a fluff piece or something. So I said, well, why don't we meet at a diner that I like over in Studio City? That's one of the places, one of my favorite places, a diner. I said, okay. Met at the diner.

I said, oh, I like this taco place over here and that. And when we walked out of the diner, the guy who was interviewing me, he pointed up at an Italian place that was across the street. And he said, eat there? Do you ever eat there? And I said, oh, years ago when I was in the Groundlings or something. I think we ate there once, but no, it's not. I don't hang out there.

And he went and wrote the article. And then he wrote that the Italian place is one of my favorite places to eat. And then Jimmy Kimmel got hold of the article. It's like, how can you say Giuseppe's? Their food is shit. And I'm like, I never said it. I didn't even say it. He just, he pointed at a sign and I said, yeah, I've been there before. It's like saying you've been to that gas station before. Yeah. It doesn't mean I work there. And it was, it sounds like a nothing burger, but is it exactly how it works? When they start writing articles about you,

you realize how wildly inaccurate the media is. And if one of your friends who's a foodie and half Italian gets a hold of the newspaper, then you can upset him because he's believing that you did that. I would say the only modification I'd put on it is that how inaccurate the media can be, not is. Because there are a lot of people who do a lot of good work. And I don't even count myself in that. I have gotten things wrong many times in my career, especially in breaking news, because you don't have time to check it. especially in breaking news, because you don't have time to check it. But the benefit of being on cable news most of the time is that you have a chance to correct it.

And what's interesting is how sensitive we are to the culture of correction, which really speaks to me about what the real problem is in our society. The problem is not being wrong. It's that you get destroyed for apologizing. And, you know, if I were doing crisis PR, that you get destroyed for apologizing. And if I were doing crisis PR, I would tell people,

rule number one is shut up for seven to 10 days. Rule number two is after that, shut up. And 99% of what is coming at you will go away if you can tolerate how unfair some of it may be. Because all you do by talking or let alone apologizing is just feed the beast and prove to everybody that you're exactly what they think you are, even if that's not what it means. So I don't have any problem with being wrong. It's that you refuse to correct and the way you do correct never equals the initial

mistake. And I correct for that on my show by having it done in real time. So my control room will get in my ear and say, by the way, you said that Carolla was born in Los Angeles and not Philadelphia. And you said he played defensive line and not offensive line, whatever the fuck it is.

And I will then say, oh, if Adam's still there, great. Hey, Adam, I said this, I'm sorry. Thanks for not correcting me yourself. You're very polite. And if he's not there, I'll say, hey, I did this. And editorial deals, ah, people forget. They don't remember that segment. Don't say it.

No, that's bullshit. They want to stay away from the correction because they know somebody's going to pick up on it in the media and use it as a cudgel. That's why we don't do it because we're gonna be judged for it in a way that we won't be judged for the mistake because the media all knows it makes mistakes.

It's fallible, it's human, like anything else that human hands touch, but we are a gotcha culture. And that's why, and I know that this is something that is of importance to you and to a lot of people. And I said this at the time, I said it in private, I said it in public. I was worried personally, and I was disappointed professionally that the United States government had people in white coats out in front messaging during the pandemic. Tony Fauci, I know very well and for a very long time. He's a good man.

He is not a guy who's been made rich from Fugazi lab experiments and weird operations around the world. He is not a bad person. He should not have been the face of the pandemic. And I'll tell you why. Science is about evolving understanding with facts and principles. And as the facts change or the properties or principles change, the knowledge changes. You start off thinking that

you got to wash all your fruit. Now it turns out that this thing is not about contact. It's about aerosolization. So you got to change. Masks will make you sick. Masks will help you not get sick. One way it's true, one way it's not true. Now in science, all of that can be reconciled with the data. Vaccines are good.

Vaccines are bad. Which vaccine for who, when, what, why? That doesn't work in politics. And we both know it. You believe something, you believe it forever, and you never believe otherwise. And if people tell you otherwise, they're the problem. That's politics. too quickly through the political lens and not through the scientific lens. And science became another political football and casualty of our own subjectivity. And he should have never been the face. Burke should have never been the face. Trump was afraid to own it because he knew it was bad for him.

Biden is hapless. And there had been a precedent set already by having Fauci come out. And it was a mistake because it was political messaging and that's what people needed was not science, wasn't facts because there weren't enough certainties.

It was if you stay inside, it's better. If you're old and weak, you better stay inside. But most of us are not old and weak, thank God. And the people who were the most likely to beat it were the most oppressed, the young people. Do I have more forgiveness for the situation than you do? Yes. Why? I lived it very closely and I know how hard the calls were. And I had a lot more access to the inner workings than you did. And how overwhelmed everybody was.

And how they were so worried about making, you know, as they should be, worried about making mistakes that were going to cost people lives and people were dying all over the place. And I get it. But I know that the fundamental mistake was you don't put a clinician to do a politician's job of convincing people why they should feel a certain way. That's not science and it's not his role and it's not his

skill set and it wasn't her skill set or her role. And it really put us on a bad track and it's not his role and it's not his skill set. It wasn't her skill set or her role. And it really put us on a bad track. And it had us questioning things that were fine to question, but we were questioning them as if they were political positions, even the vaccine. Who's the vaccine good for? Who isn't it? Well, I don't know. It depends. Am I doing a science interview? Am I doing a political interview? And you can say, well, no, it's the same thing. No, it isn't, Adam. It's not the same thing. Why? Well, because politically, the right answer is to say, I don't know. It depends. I don't know that I want anybody to take it. Why? Because I don't want it on me. That's why. I don't want it on me. But that's not what scientists do. That's not why we give our kids all these vaccines.

We do it because they go on what they tell us that is the best understanding they have at that moment. I felt the same way about the lab leak. I start off being one of the early voices saying, did this come from this lab? Because isn't this weird that the market's over here and the lab is in the same place and they have it? And then somebody calls me or I talk to somebody and they say, by the way, do you know how big that province is, by the way? Do you know how big that province is, by the way? Do you know how many labs are there? Do you know how many markets are there?

I didn't know. So then I said, okay, I get it. You're right. It's not like it's around the corner on Mott Street. I get it. But do we know where it came from? And they said, no. We think it came from the wet market, but we don't really know.

And then the story just went away. And then it comes back and all of a sudden I'm one of the people who was trying to keep it quiet. Why would I care where the virus came from? I was one of the first person that got it almost, you know, it literally sickened me the way nothing ever has in my life. I'm still dealing with it. You got it in March, 2020,? I'll tell you, my man, and this is the truth. And another thing, I can't tell you how many people believe I didn't have COVID or that I left my basement in some fake way. It's like, it's the stupidest shit. Anyway, I was so sick that I don't remember that period.

that I don't remember that period. I had no idea what I had even meant to people until like months later when my producer was giving me a hard time about not posting on social media and showed me the numbers. And the last time I had looked at him, I had like 100,000 followers and then all of a sudden I had a million and a half. That was like, I didn't even know. I was sick. I lost 25 pounds. I wasn't breathing right

for a long time. I couldn't spar or train for weeks and weeks. My brain was fucked. I had to do like, you know, I had to like get stuff back. And so I know that that's not the norm. I never said it was. I never put it out like that. But once I was able to get my legs back underneath me, I realized how screwy, and of course I got to see it so acutely through Andrew, where I was like, God, we are just causing all our own problems by how we're looking at this. Mask mandates, kids out of school, you know, all of it was imperfect. The vaccine stuff, did we wind up being better off than we could have been otherwise? I mean, I guess if you look at the world data on the vaccine side, yes, on the practices and the duration and the economic things, I think it's kind of a wash. I could argue it either way.

But I don't think it was malevolence. I don't think it was a Biden conspiracy or a Trump conspiracy. The only thing that even approaches that was Trump got it wrong that it was going to be no big deal, but that's because of the information he was being given and because he's a hype guy, and that he played China both ways. But that's politics. That's politics. Yeah. I mean, I lived in California.

At some point, they shut down outdoor dining. Yeah. It bordered on malevolent at a certain point out here, but that's a story for- But there was a governor exception, wasn't there? I'm baiting him. Listen, I hate Gavin Newsom, but I'm in a good mood,

so we'll save it for another time because I am going to be on your show when I'm out in New York- Yeah, I love it. In several weeks so we can continue our conversation in person. You're always welcome. I love that you make people think. I love that you put thought into what you say. Sure, some will like it, some won't. I think more often than not, when you're trying to be funny, you are. And I think we need ideas and we need people who think about them

and who have good minds and good hearts and you check those boxes. And I appreciate you giving me an opportunity to talk to you and you're always welcome where I am. I appreciate your candor, Chris, and I look forward to seeing you in person. All right, thank you for the opportunity and the time, Adam.

I'll see you soon. Continued luck. You too. I know a lot of you guys thought we'd be fighting the whole time. You see what happens when people are talking to each other instead of about each other? Not so much toxic disagreement, just conversation about what matters and why. I hope you enjoyed it. I know I did. I can't wait to have him on the show again. Get him on News Nation as well. Thank you for subscribing and following.

Don't forget the free agent merch. Wear your independence. It's the only way out of this toxic game. Is to make them think about how to come to you instead of just assuming you'll be following them. News Nation, 8 and 11 o'clock at night Eastern. I'll see you there and I'll see you here. Take care of yourself.