The Young Turks - Tucker Carlson OUSTED

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

Episode summary: Tucker Carlson is leaving Fox News. Don Lemon, CNN star anchor, to leave the network. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Stop with the questions. Celebrate. Woo! While in the Young Church, you ran to Krasperin, with it on a fascinating news day. All right, cable news drums. Brian Stelter joining us later in the program to discuss it live. We will of course have many opinions before and during that. So without further

ado, traumatic news. All right, well, we begin with the ouster of Tucker Carlson. Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have mutually agreed to part ways. Tucker's last show was this past Friday. Tucker Carlson has been fired from Fox News. Down goes Tucker Carlson. Down goes Tucker Carlson. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Down goes Tucker Carlson.

Okay, now. He's going to be right. Let's just, let's just like all of the celebratory nonsense. Listen, he's going to be all right. This isn't the last of Tucker. That's why it's hard for me to feel joyous about the day. No, not only that, there's actually, instead of a silver lining, there's the opposite in this story.

There's something that you should be really worried about in this story. But for the moment being, Tucker Carlson's off Fox News, I'm going to celebrate that. But we'll give you the details now. Well, the details are still a little bit murky. There's a lot of speculation going on, but here's what we know so far. Now, according to the New York Times and they're reporting on this, they write about the statement that Fox News put out, which was pretty vague, right? They say Fox News media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.

Now, a number of different things have happened in recent weeks. Of course, there was that massive, $787.87 million settlement. between Fox News and Dominion voting systems, and of course this had to do with the defamation lawsuit that Dominion had brought forward against Fox as a result of Fox's election lies. So there was that. Also, according to Hollywood reporter, Carlson was also cited in a lawsuit from a former Fox producer, Abby Grossberg, who said the network environment was sexist. Grossberg worked as a senior producer on Carlson's show. Now, the law Angeles Times also spoke to some inside sources over at Fox, who claimed that Grosberg's

lawsuit actually had a lot to do with Fox's decision to fire Tucker Carlson. Grossberg was moved off of Sunday morning futures with Maria Bartaromo and onto Tucker Carlson tonight, where she alleged she was bullied and subjected to anti-Semitic comments according to a lawsuit in New York. Tucker's top producer was also let go, and reports indicate that Tucker Carlson was shocked and surprised about this. The last episode that aired featuring Tucker Carlson as the host was on Friday, and it seemed like business as usual. There was no indication that they were going to part ways.

Now, Jake, I'm curious what you think about all of this, because while Tucker Carlson was certainly a financial liability for Fox and could potentially be even more of a financial liability in the future, he was the top rated host in the network. Yeah, which of course means that he also helped him financially. And in fact, this is a tiny indication. But last I checked Fox stock was down 4%. But that's worth about $700 million, what they paid close to what they paid Dominion.

So all of these are factors. There's never once some oftentimes not one simple answer. So let me give you a rundown of the possible reasons and what I think is most likely, including fund speculation. Okay, so one thing that is the most clear to me is this is, Rupert Murdoch, reasserting control in Fox News. And Murdoch wants to be old school right wingers, establishment right wingers. So do we lie to help establishment Republicans win? Of course, that's the whole point of Fox News. That's why they were created in the first place,

and they did it most spectacularly in the 2000 election for George W. Bush. But Tucker was going to be pushing the envelope past that. He was doing popular stuff, some of which, you know, I love populism when it's directed in the right direction against the establishment. He was against the establishment, but of course he would then misdirected to immigrants are bad, people who aren't in our race are bad, the ugly form of populism. Now, it's not like Fox News minded racism overall, but they prefer the dog whistle. And so when Tucker Carlson was doing ridiculous segments about how sun tanning your crotch is going to make you smarter or something, he's just going so far beyond what the old guard of the Murdox feels.

comfortable with. I mean, as soon as, you know, Rupert Murdoch saw the sun tanning your, your testes, the content. He's not UV no. Oh, okay, she's here all week. Okay, so but listen, so that's the most likely he's bringing everybody back in line. Plus he's saying the machine is more important than any one host, even if it's our number one rated host, remember we got rid of Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and everything was perfectly fine. So, and he's, this is a giant, memo to the rest of the host, when I tell you to support DeSantis and cut the populist crap out and cut the Trump crap out, I mean it. If I fire Tucker Carlson, I could fire any of

you. So that's a Logan Roy like move from Murdoch. So that part is clear to me. The rest is interesting. I don't know if I necessarily agree with you on that. Because what was clear to me based on the text exchanges that we saw through the whole Dominion discovery process was that Fox News was not driving or controlling the Republican Party, right? The Republican Party was really controlling Fox News. And the Republican Party has become the party of Trump. Do you get what I'm saying? I do, Anna. And I think that's exactly what Murdoch is trying to fight against. He doesn't like that. He's not shy about wanting power. He's that's been his MO obviously for the last 50 years as he's dominated media. And he does not like anyone disagreeing with him, including political

parties. And so this is him saying, no, no, no, we're getting back to what I want, not this out of control freight train, which by the way is not getting us tax cuts for the rich that we wanted. Trump got it in the first term, but now he's losing and he keeps on losing and all of candidates keep on losing, where's my goddamn tax cuts? So that's part of the issue here too, is same reassertion of power. But again, there's more to it. Times is reporting on this. They claim to have spoken to some insiders over at Fox. And apparently there were other issues that Rupert Murdoch had with Tucker Carlson and some of the stuff that he

was saying on his show. So let's go to Graphic 5 here. Murdoch was also said to be concerned about Carlson's coverage of the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Carlson has promoted the conspiracy theory that it was provoked by government agents and has called Ray Epps, a Texas man who participated in the storming of the Capitol but did not enter the building, an FBI plant without presenting any evidence. Now, of course, Epps denies that he's an FBI plant. He was recently, just this past weekend, interviewed by 60 minutes, and he called out Tucker Carlson. So I think you might be onto something in regard to Murdoch, not liking the fact that things were kind of out of his control. But I also think that this was a business

decision. Because while Tucker Carlson was bringing in money through his high ratings, at the end of the day, the financial liability associated with someone like Tucker Carlson was too much of a risk. So that brings me to a popular theory about why he was fired, which I think is slightly off. So the first thing that sprung up was, oh my God, the Dominion lawsuit, I wonder if this was part of the settlement, they just didn't say it out loud. No, they've asked the Dominion lawyers are like, but that's not part of the settlement at all, okay? And I never believe that for a second. So Smartmatic is coming next, by the way, and they're suing for even more. They're suing for $2.7 billion. But to me, that's not the deal breaker, because they already

survived the Dominion lawsuit, which means they've already taken into account how much they're going to pay Smartmatic. Roughly, they have a range. That's just the normal business proceedings, okay? So the two things that I think are more interesting are the Grossberg, a lawsuit that man who told you about his producer and the EPS potential lawsuit. Because I remember, and we covered it on the air, he would say certain things, including what he said about EPS, where I would say, see, that one right there, that's so out of bounds because he has no evidence. He's saying it on national TV.

He's inviting a massive defamation lawsuit. And I could pinpoint the several areas where he went clearly out of bounds and was a tremendous liability to Fox News legally, right? And Tucker Carlson is not a dummy. He knows that. He was pushing their buttons, pushing their buttons, daring them to fire him, which is going to get back to the last theory in a second. But guys, number one, Fox News might be firing him to reassert control for sure.

But secondly, because they could then say if Epsu's in the Grosburgh lawsuit, we already fired him. What else do you want from us? And that at a minimum massively limits their liability. That's a really good point. So that could save them a couple hundred million dollars right there. So we'll see how that goes. But guys, there's one thing mentioned in that LA Times story about Grossberg that for me

triggered something that I already know. My theory based on having talked to Turk Carlson several times off air is that he's deeply anti-Semitic. And Grossberg alleges anti-Semitism. If she's got any of that on tape and she's got a lot of tapes, it could be damning. And they have said crazy stuff behind the scenes. And now we're seeing the text, the recordings, et cetera. So would they be willing to say it in front of Abby Grossberg knowing that she's Jewish?

It's Fox News. They might be willing to say anything. I mean, we are privy to some of the abusive comments that were made at Fox News toward female employees, like right to their faces. So I wouldn't be surprised. We'll see how that plays out. Obviously, we're speculating on that angle. But I do want to go to one other theory that is floating around the internet right now

in regard to what Tucker Carlson is planning to do next. Now, Jank, you actually predicted some of this. And I want to go to that prediction from 2021 and then discuss it. Let's watch. Does Tucker know he's crossing a line? Absolutely. What he's doing is, first of all, he's seeing how far he can go on Fox News because he knows The right wing audience loves it.

Remember, Tucker Carlson used to be honestly a ratings failure at CNN, MSNBC, and everywhere that he went. He had like 12 TV shows all across cable news, and every one of them failed. But when he started egging on the right wing to get angrier and angrier and more violent, that worked. And he became number one. So he's doing that for money and fame and power. But then the second reason is he thinks this is my conjecture, all that was facts.

My conjecture is he thinks I'm going to go so far until even Fox News has to fire me because I'm going to break laws. And when I do, they're going to get sued just like happened with Dominion on the voting stuff. And when they fire me, perfect that I'm the ultimate victim. I was number one on cable, most popular. And then I became a victim. And then you run for office. So there have been some theories about him potentially wanting to run for office. He has been interviewed and asked about that question before.

So I want to just quickly bring that up. This is from July 7th of last year where he said, quote, I'm not running. I'm a talk show host and I enjoy my job, by the way. What a blessing it is to say what you really think, only women can get pregnant. I dare you to say that. That is what he said in the context of this interview. Yeah. Okay, so I, of course, Chuck Carlson is a giant liar. I don't believe anything he says. And how do I know he was still pushing buttons? Well, after the Dominion lawsuit, he came out and did a

segment implying the January that the 2020 election was stolen. The same exact thing they got sued for. So that's like taking like a banana cream pine like splashing or splattering Murdoch's face with it and go, yeah, I just cost you $787 million. And I'm going to do it again. do about a tough guy? Well, he just got his answer. Look, guys, Murdox is a very, very conservative person, a very old school. He's not a soft corporate Democrat. He's like, oh, what am I going to do about it? I'm going to fire your ass and explain to you who the hell is boss. That's what I'm going to do. But unfortunately, everybody on their side could be a winner here. Now, that's deeply ironic. And this is the, you know, the opposite of the silver lining that I was talking

about. I think Tucker wants to run for president. I'm not sure that he's made up, he had made up his mind between 24 and 28. This pushes him more towards 24, but it is tough sledding in 24 with Trump and DeSantis in there. Be curious to see what he does. He would have almost definitely run in 28, almost no matter what happens, in my opinion. But 24 now becomes super interesting. So maybe he's thrilled. He hired the top lawyer to go and get a gazillion dollars from Fox News. He doesn't have to do the show anymore. He's a populist martyr for the right wing.

It's kind of a win-win for him. And then for Murdoch, he resorts control. He's going to take his company wherever he wants to kind of win for him. And it's not like he's going to get replaced by a progressive or anyone's saying, right? he's going to get replaced by an establishment right wing robot. Even if it's somebody like Greg Gutfeld or Jesse Waters, who's already in the house and who's already relatively insane, they're going to reel it all the way back into exactly what Rupert Murdoch wants because they didn't have anywhere near the leverage Tucker Carlson

Hand and he just got fired. Yeah, and it sends a message for anyone else who might think about saying things that are out of line and could be a financial liability to the network. Well, speaking of Tucker Carlson positioning himself as a martyr, it doesn't seem like he needs to do much work in that area because the MAGA crowd is losing it. They are not happy about this, which is so insane considering what Tucker Carlson actually thought about Donald Trump. So we'll get to that in a moment. But first, let's get to that story. Tucker Carlson out at Fox News, your reaction.

I mean, I think it changes things permanently. That's one of the few voices in the in the Republican Party that would call out the nonsense from GOP, senators, governors, and otherwise. I think he's probably, you know, a once in a generation type talent. And to see him go is, it's mind boggling. I don't know what they're thinking. Don Jr. probably didn't read the news about Tucker Carlson referring to his father as a demonic force. But nonetheless, now that Tucker has been ousted from Fox News, there's a lot of coping going on among the MAGA crowd. And so, of course, Don Jr. is just one of them. Charlie Kirk really had a rough go at things today. It seemed like someone had passed away in his family when

really it was just Tucker Carlson getting fired from Fox. Now Steve Bannon said, there's nothing in Murdoch's empire worth watching anymore. And now that Carlson is gone, he said this, according to Mediite, you got Maria in the morning, meaning Maria Barteromo. You've got Jesse, right? He's getting there. But Tucker is really the reason to watch Fox. With this, I don't know why Anybody needs to watch anything on the Murdoch Empire because Tucker was the mainstay of the populist voice over at Fox. Well, he was the mainstay of the populist voice on Fox for for worse in their case with the populist right pushing out the anti-immigration, anti-rate, you know, the racist talk is he does it all get it all over the top. The conspiracy theories, the lies about the 2020 election, he was their bulwark. one of the pillars of like hate driven right wing talk.

And so they're definitely going to miss him. But if you notice Donald Trump today put out a statement basically going, ha ha about Don Lemon being fired, but didn't say anything about Tucker Carlson. That's because he's a little bit more savvy about politics than Don Trump Jr. Donald Trump Jr., I can't believe he's less bright than like than Donald Trump because I can't believe anyone is less bright than Donald Trump. But his son is. He's like a clone of a really dumb person.

So Junior's like, we really like Tucker, didn't we? That Tucker is amazing. Meanwhile, dad's in the corner going, like, there's some percentage chance that Tucker Carlson is going to run against Donald Trump. And if he does that, I mean, don't you know what he said behind the scenes, how much he despises Trump, how much he thinks Trump is a distrable. and a demonic force, and you don't think that might turn against you? That is so unsavvy of Trump Jr.

Now, Bannon has a vendetta against Fox News. That's a different story. Yeah. And I'm curious to see how that plays out now that Fox News all of a sudden is kind of missing their populist pillar. And Tucker was a perfect little propagandist for Steve Bannon's purposes. So that probably didn't bode well for Bannon because that that tool that he likes to use to push the kind of messaging that Tucker Carlson would push is no longer there. But we don't know where Tucker is going to end up, right?

We don't know if he's going to start his own media venture, if he's going to maybe join an existing right wing media company like maybe the Daily Wire. I know that that's been floating around. We have no idea where he's going to end up. But I do really want to turn to Bridget Gabriel, who I still don't really know, like, what does she do? It doesn't matter because she provides insightful commentary, like what you're about to read. Fox News has gone woke. Now they must go broke. She can rhyme.

Okay, well, if it fits, you must acquit. Okay. So Cat Turd, of course, has weighed in on this. Oh, thanks, Scott. Yeah, the Fox News just pulled a bud light. Marjorie Green has also weighed in. Cable News is about to be taught a powerful lesson after Fox News caved to the woke mob and fired Tucker Croson. But did they?

Did they cave to the woke mob? Was anybody even asking for Tucker Croson to be fired? I mean, a few years ago, I remember there was this campaign to try to get advertisers to pull support from Tucker Carlson's programming. That went nowhere. So, I mean, what is what is this? No, no one in this moment was asking for Tucker to get fired. Because to be quite honest, I didn't think it was even possible. Considering he was the highest rated host at the network, I thought they would keep him no matter what.

But apparently even Fox News has its limits. Let me read you the rest of Marjorie Green's tweet here. Americans no longer blindly watch the news like they did decades ago. Really? They only watch the ones who have courage to tell the truth. Americans are about to quit watching. Okay, there's one part that I do agree with though. So now with Tucker Carlson getting fired and then Fox News is going more towards the establishment right wing that Murdoch likes. Don Lemon getting fired at CNN. We're going to get to that story later in the show. But unbelievably, New York Times saying that Don Lemon was doing thundering monologues that were, and he was a fiery partisan on which planet. But the point being, CNN is saying, Don Lemon was way too far left for us.

Okay, so they're going to go back to the middle. So when they all go back to the middle of establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats, which is the same kind of hegemony that has been on television my whole life, people do hate that. And so now their audiences are already literally in the 70s, their age. God bless, but that is, it's 68 for MSNBC and CNN and 70 for Fox News. really, really old. And maybe they just can't turn the channel, they'll stay, right? But for everyone younger than that, what is the point of listening to establishment propaganda,

whether it's on Fox News or MSNBC or CNN? And that's all you're going to get, wall to wall here. So that's the one part where Marjorie Taylor Green does have an element of truth. People are just going to search out things that they believe to be true in other outlets. Lauren Bobert had a very similar tweet. Wherever Tucker Carlson goes, America will follow, yada, yada, just showing support for Tucker. Yeah, I'll add one thing to that too. Everybody keeps thinking, oh, where's the audience going to go on cable news? They're not going to go to cable news.

They're going to go to other places. And yes, some will go to places like Steve Banna's War Room, right, if you're on the right. A lot of, you know, people have already come to progressive shows like ours and away from MSNBC, etc. It's just the old folks cannot think of it in any other way. And I don't mean the audience. I mean the people in media. Like in their world, there is nothing other than cable news. Dude, no way, man.

Look at TikTok. Look at all of the social media. Whether it's bigger networks like us or individual, you know, commentators on the right left and everyone else. It's already gone, guys. It's already gone. So what is Tucker most likely to go? Look, I don't know.

I don't think he's going to get back into media. That's my guess. I think he's going to go into politics. But if he goes back in the media, Daily Wire offered Stephen Frickin Crowder $50 million. How much do you think they're going to offer Tucker Carlson? That's a good point. Now, speaking of Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro also tweeted about this saying that Tucker Carlson is immensely talented and one of the most important voices on the right. And he's going to continue to be those things no matter what comes next. Now, there was some talk about what it would be like for the Daily Wire if Tucker Carlson decided to expand on what he began with the Daily Caller. Remember, the Daily Caller, which is a right wing publication,

was founded by Tucker Carlson. So if Tucker Carlson wanted to stay in the media bubble and kind of build a media venture, you know, building off of the Daily Caller, that could end up being a competitor to the Daily Wire. And I'm really curious to see how that would play out if it goes in that direction. There's no indication at this point that that is what Tucker is considering. But something to keep in mind. And so let's go to Carrie Lake, who says that the best decision I ever made was leaving Fox. Good for you, Tucker Carlson. You're free and uncensored. She worked at Fox? No, I don't know if she's referring to Tucker Carlson, but maybe she briefly worked at Fox. Maybe a local Fox affiliate because she was an anchor. Oh, because she was a local news actor. But those two

things are. They're very different. Yeah, they're not really that related. No, no, local Fox affiliates can be very different news-wise from Fox News. And of course, some of our least favorite grifters really tried hard to spin who Tucker really was. I just, it makes me sad reading these tweets, but let's go to Glenn Greenwald, who has now lost an opportunity because Tucker Carlson, of course, would have him on their show regularly. Tucker was the cable host who most opposed U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, denounced CIA, FBI, and DHS for its systemic lies and corruption, devoted himself to a pardon for Julian Assange, objected to regime change efforts in Cuba. Did he criticize Trump administration's militarism?

There's some truth to that last one for sure, but. Yeah. And he did oppose the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, partly because he loves Russia. So I know Glenn, get triggered, get triggered. But our brave white fellow Russians, dude, Ukrainians are also white. I don't know what you're, but like I don't know why Tucker Carlson went down the road of Russia can do no wrong. But you go back and watch his clips. They're over the top. He doesn't say like, hey, I don't know that we should get entangled in a war like this. Maybe we could support, but not with weapons. No, he doesn't get into that kind of nuance. He tells you how awesome the Russians are. It's absurd.

The dictatorial, you know, imperialist Vladimir Putin? No, no, no interest. Anyways, look, Glenn is bitter because nobody else would have his, would have him on their shows. And by the way, there's a little bit of, again, a grain of truth in that grain and that Glenn Greenwald is in like now the populist wing of the right wing, right? And so he's in the cuckoo land of like, no, the Republican Party's not radical enough, right? And so, yeah, Murdoch wants to turn away from that. So they're not going to have Glenn Greenwald on anymore. And not only does that affect the attention that he gets, but it could dry up funding as well,

especially if he's not getting that attention and driving into places where he collects, you know, subscriber fees, et cetera. So this has a devastating impact on the grifters. And Jimmy Dore compared him to Phil Donahue. Okay, hilarious. This guy, man, he, oh, okay. No one else, okay, I'll read it. No one else in all of corporate news ever brings on anti-war voices.

The one that did just got axed. Does it matter that he's the most watched show in all of news, much like when MSNBC fired Phil Donahue for his anti-Iraq war coverage. But Jimmy, Fox didn't fire Tucker Carlson for his views on the war in Ukraine. Exactly. Come on. Okay, guys, that's the most important part of this. So I write about how MSMEC fired Phil Donahue back in the day of my book, Justice, is coming.

And that was because there's internal memos that say we are firing him because he's against the Iraq war. There's no question about that. And they did it to Ashley Banfield, Jesse Ventura, everyone who was opposed to the Iraq. war, MSFAC, which was owned by G at the time, a defense contractor, fired everyone opposed to the war. So that is a very clear thing, it's outlined, it's historical, there's no question about it. There's a million reasons why Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, one was that he was costing him a ton of money.

But one of them isn't, oh my God, he's just too right wing on, and true populist on anti-war message. No, that's not what. Fox News is so opportunistic if they are pro-war when a republic is in charge, they pretend to be anti-war when a Democrat is in charge. I mean, Fox News, they were like the number one cheerleaders for the war in Iraq. Yeah, I mean, look, these guys like Glenn Greenwald and Jimmy Dorp, making it seem like Fox News was the bulwark for the peace movement is insanity. Total insanity.

Only one, all right, anyway. it. Well, Tucker Carlson wasn't the only one who got fired. There's some big changes over at CNN as well. We're going to take a quick break and come back with that story and more. with you guys more cable news firings news. All right. Well, in a surprise move, CNN has decided to fire Don Lemon, who was a fixture of the network's primetime lineup. Now, the news wasn't just shocking to the public in general.

It was apparently shocking to Don Lemon himself, who tweeted that the news was stunning. Now, I'm going to give you some excerpts from the statement that he posted on Twitter, where he wrote, I was informed this morning by. my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN, I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. He continues to write, at no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. Now, in response to that, CNN tweeted this, Don Lemon's statement about this morning's events is inaccurate.

He was offered an opportunity to meet with management, but instead released a statement on Twitter. In addition to the statement I've already read from Lemon, he also wrote that it is clear that there are some larger issues at play. With that said, I want to thank my colleagues and the many teams I have worked with for an incredible run. Now, a few months ago, Jenk and I actually talked about some tumultuous situations happening over at CNN with Don Lemon really being at the center of it. And there were some theories, there were

some predictions. I want to just quickly toss to that video and then we'll discuss. Here's reason number two that I know that they're considering firing him, because they're leaking like crazy against them. They are. There is like so, look, I consume a lot of news that I don't even talk about on the show. I've been keeping tabs on the drama unfolding at CNN. And CNN's people at CNN, I don't know if it's the executives, other producers, they're

definitely linking stuff to the press, because there's been like a slow and steady flow of anti-Don Lemon content. Now let me tell you what this is all actually about. It's not about anything he said on air. So you're mad at that, sure, be mad, whatever. It's a dumb thing to say, right? No, their ratings are horrible. Very bad. they need a scapegoat. So they're going to say, oh, well, Don Levin. Really, it was Don Levin that was causing it. And then they start talking about his ratings of his prime time show.

Wait, why are we leaking about that today? Okay, so they're going to imply that it's not Chris Link, the guy running CNN that's causing the ratings problem with his dumbass strategy of being more right wing. I'm sorry, moderate, right? Which of course is means more corporate and more right wing. It's not his fault, it's not the owner's fault that told him to do that. that. It's Don Lemon. He doesn't respect older women enough. Are you kidding me? This is the only time you've ever done anything interesting on CNN since you've taken over. People might

accidentally watch. And so he'll be fired. No question about it. Well, he's been fired. And just to give you some more context in what sparked that conversation, you know, Don Lemon had this kind of awkward exchange with Caitlin Collins. because, and Poppy Harlow, he was co-hosting with Poppy Harlow. Caitlin Collins had just ended an interview with a pro-Trump guest. I forget exactly who the guest was. But Don Lemon on air essentially accused Caitlin Collins of doing like a softball interview. And so, you know, when it comes to the ideological slant of the network and how, you know,

licked is trying to kind of, you know, bring it back to the center, maybe that has something. something to do with this? So look guys, there's two factors at play, in my opinion here. So number one is, yeah, I mean, they even cited an interview that he did with that guy, Vivek, who's running as an independent, as he's running on the Republican side in the primaries, and he just has not had political office before. But Donovan challenged him fairly aggressively, and the media talked about, I mean, fairly aggressively for cable news, still super light, don't get me wrong, right? But the rest of the media

was talking about like, oh my God, his two co-anchors were visibly uncomfortable because there was an act of journalism breaking out. And so they got really nervous about it. So that CNN is saying, we don't want this challenge the powerful, even if it's like Rando Vivek, whose last name I don't remember running. Right, God bless, whatever it is, right? So, no, they don't. But guys, Don Lemon's challenge the power was like 2%. It was, you had to use a microscope to find it. CNN used the Microsoft, found it, and thought, outrageously left wing.

What, Don Lemon is outrageously left wing? See guys, that's the disconnect between the old school that thinks that if you say something slightly challenging to a Republican, you're outrageously left wing, right? And the news school, which is online that thinks Don Lemon is one of the softest establishment figures there is. And you guys think that he's, as the New York Times said today, that he did thundering monologues. Don Lemon did thundering monologues? And that he was a fiery political commentator. Fiery.

Okay. So, but that's the smaller part of the equation. And nothing is just always black and white. There's nuance all over the place and there's always several different factors. The larger factor was they definitely needed a scapegoat. We nailed it. I've got to be honest with you guys, we nailed it when we said that earlier. And it's, and how do I know for number one, it's partly happened to me.

When they're going to move you out, they start leaking about rando stuff, okay? I remember in my case, they leaked about ratings from six months earlier. And then you know the handwriting's on the wall, they're not getting those, the people in the press on, again, that story out of nowhere. It's being planted in the press. So we mentioned a couple of examples. I'm going to go to the last graphic here, Graphic 7. So when I saw this in Variety a little while back, Don Lemon's misogyny as CNN exposed.

Malicious text mocking female co-workers and diva-like behavior, I thought, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, no. Don Lemon was already fired at that point. The rest was just playing out the hand because that had to have come partially from CNN. And if it's coming from CNN, that means they're getting, they're poisoning the well and they're getting ready to fire him so that when they fire him, people can go, oh, all of the bad ratings was not Chris Lick's decisions. It was not their decisions to do even more vanilla programming. It was all Don Lemon's fault. Well, they took him from evening programming and moved him to morning programming, which, you know, apparently his style isn't a great fit for morning programming. That's when people. are in like calmer moods, they're having breakfast, they're getting their kids ready for school, that's like one of the theories. But one of the other things that came up over and over

again as I was reading about this was how people didn't want to come on the show because of him after his Nikki Haley statements, right? So the Nikki Haley statements were bad. I mean, I didn't lose my mind over it, but it wasn't a good look because he basically said that she was too old. And that did make his female co-host uncomfortable. So I want to go to that moment and just fill you in with some more details of what happened after the fact. She says people, you know, politicians are something and not in their prime. Nikki Haley isn't in her prime. Sorry. When a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. What do you talk? Wait. That's not according to me.

Prime for what? So that led to quite a bit of backlash. He ended up apologizing for it. But multiple reports indicate that after that whole controversy happened, it was a little more difficult to get some conservative or Republican guests on programming where he would be interviewing them. By the way, they might have had progressive guests that said the same thing. Hey, I don't want to be on with someone who says women are past their prime in their 50s. So look, was it a dumb thing to say? Absolutely. No question. But remember, Don Lemon previously said that that airline that came out of Malaysia,

I believe might have been sucked into a black hole. So we're not treading new ground here and no one broke a sweat then. So this doesn't have to do with one bad comment on air. This has to do what they had to pin the awful ratings on someone. Anybody watch Succession? I mean, I'm in this business so I know. But if you're not in the business, watch Succession. They plant stories all the time.

Adam McKay has said on many occasions, yeah, that's based on the Murdox, that's definitely what happens on cable news. All right, well, final thing on this, Nikki Haley is already fundraising off of Don Lemon's firing. She's selling coosies. They've got to stop selling coosies. Yeah, what's up with coosies? Hashtag no more coosies.

Republicans love cooosies. They're selling cooosies left and right. Such an uncomfortable word, let alone anything else. Absolutely. All right. Well, look, we're theorizing here, but have no fear. We're going to bring on a guest who's going to provide hopefully some clarity on this matter. When we come back from the break, Brian Stelter, who used to work at CNN, will join us for a discussion on these cable news firings today.

Don't miss it. We'll be right back in just a few minutes. All right, back on TYT, Jankana with you guys and all these lovely new people that just joined. N.H.R. Lewis, Douglas Carson, Ingram, and Pam Durgut or Dourget. Guys, you're awesome for signing up. We appreciate it. We do this show with the members. Hit the join button below the video on YouTube if you'd like to sign up or go to t.com slash join. We appreciate that you make this show possible. And I like a new member. I'm not sure if there's a new member, but Cleric of Truth wrote in Lemon knew the squeeze was on. But I'm having fun, guys.

All right. Okay, thank you, Bart. Appreciate it. Now, let's do some real analysis. So, Don Lemon let go today at CNN. Obviously, Talcott Carlson also fired from Fox News. Brian Stelter used to be on CNN. This same management had issues with him as well.

And of course, he's a media analyst. So we brought him on here to talk about this. Brian, good to have you back on the show. What a day, what a day. Indeed. We'll get to Tucker in a second. But you've got more experience with CNN, obviously, having worked there and having dealt with this management. So right out of the gate, why do you think Don Lemon was fired?

That's the harder question. I think the Carlson case is actually more clear. I think the Don Lemon case was, you know, a longer term, had a longer fuse. This had been rumored for more than a, for more than a year. This had been rumored for more than a year. The rumor was that the new management of CNN might want to cut lemon loose. But then he was moved from prime time to the morning show. And the conclusion was maybe he was safe.

You know, this is all just speculation. I don't think we know what exactly happened. But we do know that CNN's management is trying to lower the temperature, trying to try to de-politicized, depolarize CNN. Maybe Don Lemon's removal is part of that, but I don't think we know for sure yet. What does that mean exactly, Brian? Because, I mean, we're in our own bubble, you know, digital media is very different in that we're untethered to the old school decorum that governs legacy media.

But at the same time, when I would watch CNN, I never had the feeling that the temperature was up. I never had the feeling that Don Levin was this, you know, rabid left winger who was screaming at right wing guess. I felt like the approach was pretty mild. What exactly did new management want? Like, were there any specifics? Well, you know, this is complicated for me because new management canceled my show last August. And they were very gracious to me. You know, I was able to sign off on CNN. There was nothing but respect in both directions. And now you can go off if you want. Now you can go off if you want.

But I, you know, the truth is if I wanted to, I would. Like if I actually had that kind of feeling with I would be happy to share it. My feeling is that CNN is mostly a news gathering machine. You know, its job is to gather information, cold hard facts, original reporting, gather it and then share it out to the world. And occasionally they also have a lot of people with perspective and point of view and opinion. And you know, Don's show in the Trump years definitely had a lot of perspective. But here's the thing, right? When a president of the United States is calling you the enemy and trying to destroy your network, then and also lying through his

teeth to the public every day, then the anchor should try to be louder than the liars. You know, that's the thing about cable news. Some of these stars on cable news in the Trump years, they were trying to be louder than the liars. And what happened as a result? They were demonized. They were vilify, they were attacked. What happened to Don Lemon? The president attacked him and insulted him, right? So I think what we're seeing is some of the downstream effects of the Trump years. What I mean by that is John Malone, who is a top shareholder of Discovery of Warner Brothers Discovery, the mentor to the current CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery, he said in an interview on CNBC in 2021, I want CNN to go back to having real journalists. That's kind of insulting to the journalist of CNN, right? He also said he really, he also expressed his respect for Fox News.

So if you try to connect some dots here, when Don Lemon says in his statement today that he believes larger issues are at play, he may be referring to that management situation. I don't know that for a fact that this is just me trying to connect the dots. But I know that those comments from John Malone were concerning to some CNN staffers back when they happened, back when they were made. And, you know, that may be, I don't know, let's see what Don says on the record, that may be a factor here. Yeah. So, you know, Brian, again, you're thinking, of course it is, but I don't know. As a reporter, I don't know.

Yeah, I hear you. No, no, look, I want to double down on what Anna said. We live in a different world, right? And in our world, the cable news is all establishment, right? To be fair, Tucker wasn't very established, and he was populist right wing, which is a different animal all together and has its own problems, right? But so to us, Don Lemon was very comfortably inside the establishment with a little, you know, and by the way, Brian, honestly, you were too, right? But you guys would every once in a while say, hey, what that politician said isn't true, which I view, again, I'm being super frank here, I view to be the bare minimum. But that proved to be too much for CNN. That's what it seems like to me too, exactly, because I mean, I, what exactly is so objectionable? Like Malone's statements in regard to CNN and in comparison to Fox News really do blow my mind.

What do you mean you respect Fox News? Do you think Fox News is this like straight and narrow news gathering operation? I mean, Fox News is nothing but right wing propaganda. And I don't see CNN as ever being the antithesis of that, meaning left-wing propaganda. Not even close. Right. So I just don't really understand what's really transpiring here. But I want to ask another form of question.

Yeah, go ahead. So, Brian, what is it that, like, people in traditional media think that journalists should do? Should they not question politicians? Should they not challenge them when they're on their air? because he just got criticized for that interview with the Republican candidate, Vivek something or other. And is he, again, I just don't know what the standard is. Are you not supposed to point out lies of politicians? What is it that management seems to be trying to get across in firing Don Lemon and honestly earlier letting you go? Well, listen, you know, when it comes

to me and my show being canceled, you know, my little Sunday morning show. To me, I don't know why it was canceled. Truly, to me, it's truly a mystery. Like, I'm not here to claim that it was political. I'm not here to claim it was anything else. I don't know. What I do know is that CNN mostly exists as a news operation. And Fox, as you said on it, mostly exists as a political operation, right? To win Republican votes and to win Republican Party races. In that context, Tucker Carlson was doing a great job of that. He was winning his audience over. And yet maybe for other more personal reasons, maybe it was something he wrote in emails or text messages.

Maybe it was something that was going on with a lawsuit by a former producer. Fox decided to let him go. When it comes to CNN, I hope there's more reporting in the next few days about what led up to this moment. Because people have talked about Don Lemon's controversies, his comments about Nikki Haley that were very foolish. But CNN brought him back after those comments. Remember, that was like a month ago, or maybe more than two months, almost two months ago, they brought him back on the air. So it doesn't seem to me like it was any one moment.

I think we're gonna learn this was like pretty complicated situation. And you know, I take your point about the establishment. I always like to think that I was like on the fence, right? One foot in, one foot out. That's how I viewed my role or, you know, but others are happy to disagree. I mean, you would flirt, you would flirt with figures who weren't establishment figures. I mean, I remember going on your show, and that was the first time ever. I was on any cable news network, so thank you for that.

And I came on there to talk about the issues with corporate media. So I was grateful for that opportunity. Can I say about that? Like, I loved booking different kinds of people on TV. Like, to me, the only thing I missed about cable news was the power of booking people. because when you get to book people, you get to bring in different perspectives. I don't miss being on like for the makeup or the hair. I don't even have hair, but I miss the booking ability, you know, to bring people in. And when I would bring

someone like the two of you, when I would bring the two of you on, it wasn't like anybody said, oh, that's not a good idea or let's not bring in those folks, you know, there was never that. It's just that cable news in general, not CNN. It seems to like, it seems to encourage just booking the same old person from last week, right? Isn't that how, You all, does that what you notice? It's like if somebody does something different, I mean, by the way, Tiger Carlson, he did book people that were not ill anywhere else on TV. That's true.

And it's just the problem is that rest of cable news, the incentives are oftentimes. Oh, well, yeah, that guy was good last month. Just book him again. Yeah. No, look, I know for my time at MSNBC, if like guests disagreed with me, and my executive producer would say, oh, my, it would be enraged and say, we're not going to have that guy on again. And I was like, why? I want to disagree. I want to have a conversation with people.

That's much more interesting. But look, the people who had other folks on that were outside of the normal range were you, Chris Cuomo and Tucker Carlson, for better or for worse, right? And they're all gone. They're all gone. So there is, I don't know if it's a memo, but it certainly feels like a memo. So now one more thing, Brian, that's important. I want to talk about the process. It's not a memo. Okay, read my book. We'll talk about. about it afterwards. Okay, so that's going to come out in September. Anyway, and I refer to the Ashley Banfield thing at MSNBC as the memo. But anyways, look, Brian, on the process here, when I started seeing Don Lemon being, like when I started seeing leaks about Don Lemon, and that seemed to come from sources inside CNN, and that was a while back now, a month,

two months, et cetera, about the diva-like behavior, not getting along with female colleagues. I thought they're leaking, that means they're going to fire. And usually they lay some groundwork before they fire someone. They usually leak about things from the past. They started leaking about his ratings from prime time when he was already in the mornings. Is that not an indication that they were preparing the fields to get rid of him? Wait a second, are you saying the stories about me from the spring of 2022 about how I might be in trouble at CNN? Are you telling me those came from the inside? I am telling you

that, Brian. I have no idea. I'm very happy. I live out on a farm now. You guys are seeing my bedroom. I haven't even had time to make the bed today. It's been so crazy. Like my life is better now post CNN. But you are getting at something significant, which is that these networks ultimately are the ones in charge. Tucker Carlson was the biggest star at Fox News, had more power than anyone at Fox. But at the end of the day, the Rupert Murdoch and his son, Lachlan were able to basically do the TV version of an execution and go out there and just keep them off the air and not let him sign off.

So that does get to this, the way that the, what you guys would call corporate media works or doesn't work. And I'm so curious now, does Carlson go out on his own? Does he do something truly independent? This is going to be an amazing. I think that's why he has not commented today. He could go any direction he wants right now. And I am fascinated to see what he does.

All right, Brian, other than on a farm, can you let people know where they can find you? You know, other than the horses, and I do want to raise goats. So if you have advice on raising goats, email me, be seltzer at Gmail. In all seriousness, special correspondent for Vanity Fair. and I'm writing a book about Fox called Network of Lies that comes out in November. So I was probably supposed to turn in yesterday, but now I have to rewrite it because of Tucker. Okay, that makes sense. All right, Ryan Seldon, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

Thanks, guys. Good to see you. Yep, you too. All right, guys, we've got to take a quick break here. When we come back, the DNC has said that they will not do debates. That is crazy. So we've got breaking news on that and more when we return. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks, support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.combe. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.