Will Cain Country - 30 Years of Fox News: How One Network Changed American Media Forever (ft. Jimmy Failla)

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

As Fox News celebrates 30 years on the air, Will sits down with the host of ‘FOX Across America’ Jimmy Failla for a candid deep dive into media history, manufactured narratives, and how Donald Trump exposed the mainstream press. They look back at where they were 30 years ago in 1996, how Fox News disrupted the monolithic "hive mind" of 90s media, and why the press transitioned from subtle bias to outright propaganda. Plus, the guys discuss the hypocrisy of identity politics through the story of Caitlyn Jenner, celebrity anti-Trump posturing from musicians like Phil Collins and Jack White, and the behind-the-scenes culture that sets FOX apart from the rest. Subscribe to ‘Will Cain Country’ on YouTube here: Watch Will Cain Country!Follow ‘Will Cain Country’ on X (@willcainshow), Instagram (@willcainshow), TikTok (@willcainshow), and Facebook (@WillCainNews⁠)Follow Will on X: @WillCain⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

30 years of Fox News, stories, history, and the media with Jimmy Phelan on Wilkane Country. It is Wilkane Country. Normally streaming live every Monday through Thursday at 12 o'clock Eastern Time at the Wilcane Country YouTube channel, the Wilcane Facebook page. But here, just hit subscribe as Spotify or on Apple. The host of Fox Across America today hanging out with us, it is Jimmy Phelah. 30 years of Fox News. Jimmy Phelah, where were you 30 years ago today?

This is a real story. It was 1996. So I was not doing TV. I was doing whippets. I was near the building. Like, I didn't work in the building, but I was definitely at a Times Square head shop. That was my freshman year of college, Nassau community. So I had a presence in the city.

But I had obviously no relationship to Fox or what would become of me, you know, this many years later. I think most people would agree. They look back at the 30 years and would say it only is what it is because of Phala and Kane. I mean, is that essentially what's. today is about. I mean, I assume it hit its peak in the last half decade. I assumed I was booked today because this is some kind of a victory lap. I'm kidding. But it's amazing. It's a great. What an incredible success story. Incredible. That we are. And we look at a lot of life through the lens of sports fans. And you have to when it comes to Fox News. We were, this is like the equivalent of Division

Avenue High School winning the NBA title. You know, when we launched in 1996, we were a punchline for, you know, five or six years. People gave us a hard time and continued to, but they were forced to respect us because we grew, outworked them, out hustled them, out innovated them. And isn't that like the ultimate American dream story? I think it is. I don't think it's hard to have this conversation while you're sitting on Fox News with two people who are employed by Fox News and come across in any way as though you're being objective. Fair.

However, I think striving to be as real as possible. Yeah. I think the country, the United States of America, would be markedly different. And I think despite the hate, I think it would be markedly worse without Fox News. Yeah, because I think our superpower that makes us so relatable is a lot of times we're not making political points or making human points. Like when we cover the border, you could frame that through a political lens, but the carnage, you know what I'm saying, the humanitarian crisis is human. And that's what people are responding to. When you talked about like 2020, defund the police, all of that insanity, you could frame it again through a political lens.

it was an election year, but the reality is cops. We need them. Okay, that is a human need we all have. I think growing up, well, no matter where you are, if you were in Texas like you or Long Island like me, every kid of our generation played those two games, cops and robbers, cowboys, and Elizabeth Warrens. Okay. And we all knew, okay, where the cops stood in the hierarchy of good. And that's a basic human thing that we at Fox have kind of instilled in our audience that those are the real priorities. That's why I think we resonate, for real. You know, there are, are obviously people who hate Fox News. And so when I say the country is markedly better because of Fox News, the response is going to be it's obviously markedly worse because of Fox. And they're

going to say, and I think I'm characterizing probably the top line criticism of it, is that we are divisive. I want to explore that for just a moment. What if I said to you, yes, we are divisive because the monolithic group think that was not divided that existed before Fox News, and would exist and still does in the face of Fox News is what is actually bad for the country. And I'll just give you one current event. You know, yesterday or the day before, President Trump gives a speech and he says, in his rambling style that he does, often uncompleted sentences, that higher gas prices are a small price to pay for depriving Iran of a nuclear weapon.

In the midst of making that statement that I made, succinctly, he chases his weave and half thoughts into saying they could take Los Angeles or San Diego. With that weapon. With that weapon. With that weapon. With that weapon. And then he returns to, it's a small price to pay. Now, the entirety of the media complex in America willfully ignorant, and I think,

malevolently use that to scream headlines, he says Los Angeles. San San Diego are small prices to pay. As though he was willing to sacrifice those two American cities at the altar of whatever. And Gavin Newsom and the mayor of San Diego all come out and say

horrific 25th Amendment, this guy. It only takes a slight bit of critical thinking to actually understand what he was saying that he was talking about the small price to pay his gas prices so that they don't take a nuclear weapon

to San Diego or Los Angeles. Without Fox News, That is the only narrative coming out from the undivided mainstream media. And that story is only an illustration of thousands of stories over the last 30 years. Charlottesville comes to mind. Joe Biden launched the whole campaign on this is a battle for the soul of our nation. How many times have we played explicitly the verbatim clip of him saying, and you've got people, I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalist,

they should be condemned totally. But without Fox News as a check on that type of, you know, it's like hive-minded idiocy. And it's obviously done because it's politically expedient for them. They're pushing a specific agenda. They want the world to shake out a certain way. But the reality is people are better informed because we're out there. Like we are the world benefits from us. And you should want us, even if you hate us, because if you live in a media ecosystem that's one-party rule, you lose that accountability like they have in those one-party rule states.

Nobody would argue that California having no Republican voices has somehow improved. I mean, the saddest part of this fake controversy is that if Iran showed up to downtown L.A., they'd think the terrorist already hit the place. They'd be like, I don't know. Maybe we should go north to Napa or something. It looks like they haven't hit that yet. And again, that's the reality of human points. This is what we cover.

So I agree with you in that regard that we've made the world exponentially better. And you can almost carry this argument to Twitter. if Elon doesn't buy Twitter. We know what Twitter looks like. You're deplatformed for questioning the vaccine and anything else that doesn't align with the prevailing narrative of the moment. And that's what we're really doing

that's made us so powerful is we're giving a voice to people who've had no seat at the national media table our whole lives. And what's interesting about it is I think when we started, it wasn't as obvious that it was needed. You know what I'm saying? Because we weren't as hyper-polarized

and they weren't as openly activist. Like there used to be the pizza. The reason it wasn't obvious that you necessarily needed it, one of my favorite things, Jimmy, is this graduation speech by David Foster Wallace. And David Foster Wallace,

and I've told this, so forgive me if you feel like you've heard this from me before, but tells a story of two fish, two young fish swimming along who encounter an older fish. And as the older fish is swimming by, he says to the two younger fish,

hey boys, how's the water? The two younger fish swim along after they pass the older fish and they turn it and go, what's water? And that is a reflection of not knowing your own environment. The soup you're swimming in, the water. That's culture. That's everything. Like when people say there's not an American culture, that's like saying what is water?

Yep. You live in the American culture. Yeah, you're just in it. You're immersed in it. And before Fox News, it was almost hard. I grew up watching the Today Show. My mom had the Today Show on every morning. It was really actually hard to know.

Is this liberal? Is this biased? I don't know. I don't have an alternative. at all. That was water. That was what we were told, and it didn't necessarily even occur to us. Oh, we're getting it liberal. And honestly, I want to be clear, because there's a lot of Fox News, Pat's on the back going on. There are other obviously hugely influential people that came along that helped us understand water, Rush Limbaugh being paramount on that list. Yeah, big deal.

And now, as you point out, X and social media also served that purpose. But in 1996, the idea that CNN wasn't just telling you the truth. It was like, what? What's water? News with a skew. No, it's, and then what happened is the media progressed to this place where, you know, even the fact that their claims were being unchallenged, what I saw happen in the last, it's certainly in the age of Trump.

And I think David Brooks from the Atlantic openly admitted this the other day, that it just became a business model. Around 2015, we became more necessary than ever because they had given up any pretense of objectivity when it came to Trump. realized if it bleeds, it leads. We're going to reshape everything out of this guy's mouth and sell the world on this dystopian narrative that we're all under attack, knowing it's not true.

That's my favorite part as a comic about the reality we bring to this conversation is, okay, punchlines don't work unless they think the setup is true. Okay? So if I say, like, I'm a married man, okay? Yeah, they're going to buy in and follow me where I go. But if I said I was just a triple crown-winning jockey,

okay, and they see me a two, 255 pounds, they might not take the ride around the track. You know what I mean? I've lost money on the triple crowd. I've never won it specifically on the back of a horse. But the point is in comedy, this is a reality because you always have to be in this moment. Okay. The moment of politics where Trump wins the presidency is the end of an election cycle that began with him hosting Saturday Night Live. He hosted Saturday Night Live after he came down the escalator in June of 2015. The world knows the rest of the story, which is he wins the election. Kate McKinnon cries, dressed as Hillary Clinton singing, hallelujah, and sets comedy back to the original dungeon where the first Gallo's humor joke was told.

Okay. And as a comic, you realize, okay, because you're trying to diagnose societal truth. We're living in a world where NBC is calling Trump literally Hitler as they're literally paying him royalties from celebrity apprentice. And it's that manufactured hysteria that's ensued in the age of Trump. Trump that's probably made us more critical than we've ever been and probably more appreciated by people looking for an objective conversation. So I, so let's talk about Trump for a moment. So I, my first job, by the way, my first appearance on national television was on this network. It was in 2010 and it was Fox and Friends Weekend.

No way. I think there's a little bit of poetry to that. I don't know that. That's amazing. Which some, what was it, a decade later ended up being my first job at first job. Fox News. Because of course I was doing it for free in 2010. For anybody that comes and does this for free, and let me just tell you, that's how it starts.

But I ended up working at CNN. And I've told that story. Everybody, I think I've told that story how I got from doing free stuff at Fox to being a paid contributor at CNN. And I don't know if I've ever told you, but that is sending my reels from free appearances on Fox to the president of CNN. Guest at his email address, first name. Last Name at Turner.

I nailed this. And 15 minutes later, he responded, come see me. Come on. And that was the start, basically. But when I was at CNN in 2010, and I was there from about 10 to 15, roughly, CNN was liberal and biased. Okay? Now, already? Already.

It was in 1996 when Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ells decided we needed an alternative voice. Sorry, I was a young man. By the way, you don't know my favorite quote about this place is. I think it was George Will. that said it, said Roger Ales and obviously Rupert Murdoch, discovered a wonderful niche. Yeah. Half of America. Let's take a quick break, but continue this with host of Fox Across America, Jimmy Fela on Will King Country.

Welcome back to Will Kane Country. We're still hanging out with the host of Fox Across America, Jimmy Fela. So, yeah, man, they were biased. My son, my 15-year-old son is writing a paper right now on bias in the media for his journalism. class and he called me last night and he's like can you give me some interviews um i'm like yeah i can uh like not me and but i told him for a minute um i have trouble with this premise on bias so my idea my thought is bias everybody is biased okay i'm biased i want to be honest with the audience about my bias yeah my job is not to be unbiased yeah my job is to tell the truth yeah and part of telling the

truth starts with acknowledging to the audience that I have a bias. It's credible. Like every other human being. I have an opinion. Yeah. And so do you. And by telling you my opinion, I hope that you can either discount or co-sign how I'm approaching my process to the truth.

Yeah. And the problem with a place like CNN is the pretense of a denial of the bias. Yeah, yeah. And so therefore, you started with a lie. And I can't trust you. That's who CNN was in 2010. Wow. They were biased.

Okay. Then comes Trump. Okay, now we start moving into agenda. Yes. Agenda. Now I am doing something for the purpose of having you arrive as what I think you should think. Yes. And then it moves from agenda to propaganda.

Yep. Now I'm not even going to tell you the truth because there is a greater truth. Yeah. Okay. We know Trump didn't want to bomb San Diego in Los Angeles, but doesn't matter. There's a bigger truth, a moral truth. But he's a bad dude. so I will lie to you on the way to my propagandized.

Maybe they tell themselves there's a deeper truth. Same thing with Cornell as you talked about, Dan. It may not be that these boys did something wrong, but you know what? The bigger truth is we have to attack rape culture. If you have to break a few eggs along the way and tell a few lies and sacrifice these boys' lives and careers, so be it.

There's a moral truth. My point is Trump became the truth serum. I mean, he's like this roar shock test, this truth serum, this shock to the system, Jimmy, where everything that existed before, okay, And I could literally name the personalities and the network at large. We're just talking about CNN, but it's not just CNN.

It's NBC, ABC, it's everything. It's like he ripped it all away. And now you don't just get to be even pretending to be non-biased. Now I can see who for you really are. Yep. You are propaganda. No, 1,000% and it's funny

because when you're watching like White House press conferences, the questions are statements now. It's like, you're an existential threat to our republic. Tell us what you think about the interms. Whoa, that sounded kind of aggressive. I was funny. I had the privilege.

I was in the Oval Office for a, he was announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Now, I didn't think I was going to be in the Oval. I was only at the White House. And he thought, Jimmy Phelow. No, I was, literally. I was only there to get my cocaine out of the locker. So I had no idea I was going to get in. But he did give me a nice shout out before the press conference began.

It was cool. We spoke afterwards. But the point is, is I sat there and watched the energy, the open hostility. between the questioner who's actually there on behalf of the viewer who's trying to get some insight into what's happening, but they're being told what's happening before the president can open its mouth. And as I watched that, it was really interesting

because he fields every question, kind of holds court the way he does. By the way, he's not sleeping. If you're ever in the room, when someone else is talking, he just looks down because if he looks up, the cameras come to him, the media comes to him, and he diverts the attention against the person speaking behind him.

Okay, and I watched it from a few angles out of my own genuine curiosity. But the minute they walked out of the room, he goes, these people are the worst human beings who've ever lived. And he said it with like such a throwaway candor that it was laugh out loud funny. Like so funny. And then he goes, do you believe these people say I'm losing the war?

And I go, hey, if that's true, somebody should wake up the Ayatollah and tell him. And he goes, that's good. And they just started talking about comedy. But it's like he's in on the joke. And everybody who meets him, you know, It's so telling, you know, that Bill Maher story about how I went to dinner and it's not the bad man we thought it was. Maybe he plays one on TV, but he doesn't even play one on TV. Back to the point you made earlier about propaganda, part of that propaganda is mischaracterizing every word out of his mouth. Yeah. You know, he has said a lot of unconventional things that in previous iterations of politics might have actually harmed him, but because they discredited themselves in their effort to harm him worse, you know, the example of his in 2015, I don't believe Mexican setting their best. They're sending drugs. There's something

crime. There's something rapists. And the rest, I assume, are good people. Kind of funny. Not something a career political strategist would have written, but it's also not what they reframed it as. He says all Mexican a drug deal is a rapist, which is not the thing. But again, apps in a world where Fox News exists in June of 2015, the entirety of the country goes, wow, that's a hell of an opener. All the Mexicans are rapists. And that's the framing. And what drives me crazy back to this California story is once they pump it into the vernacular, it never goes away. No. This is now part of- If we went on the streets, you should do this on your show. You're well-suited for this. And you may

have, if you have them, I apologize. Go to the streets and take a man on the street pole out of 10. How many think, for example, he said very fine, Nazis and whites are very fine people. But keep going. Yeah. How many think the Covington kid was racist? Oh, I do. And then just keep going. So these hoax, when you say the word hoax, it makes it seem like you're doing a right-wing talking point. Yeah, yeah. Give me a better word then. Whatever, give me a better word.

Let's keep going. How many people think seven dudes raped a girl for seven hours? Yeah, yeah. Just keep going, man, the initial framing sets the average mind and it never moves and involves beyond it to the truth. I just want to add to this, because this is what they do, unchallenged, okay, is it becomes part of this qualifier montage

I like to call, this is a man. So when you're watching those panel shows and say MSNBC, now it becomes, this is a man who said Iran should take out LA. This is a man who didn't condemn neo-Nazis. This is a man who said inject bleach into your planes. That's their thing. So it becomes part of the This Is a Man montage. It's almost like someday they're going to be selling these late at night like Dean Martin boxettes.

Get all the claims. This is a man who said dead veterans are suckers and losers, but the man didn't say it is the point. So you have to know this, no matter where you are in the media ecosystem, you know, as Tony Montana says in Scarface, you could hate Fox News, but you need people like me. You need people like me to put your finger. Do they do it like the Joe Scarboroughs? Do they do it out of emotionality, like people with TDS? Do they do it for an actual agenda? Like, do they just really not like him so that's why they do it? Or is it just? It's a lot of things. And that, hold on. That's really, that's hard, Dan. And so. Like, is it personal? I there are people who I have been friends with in the past who I've seen fall down these rabbit holes I'm going to try to explain some of them this way like these people that I'm referencing

in um decade past were rational logical whatever and then they buy Covington they buy this and they they're on hands up don't shoot whatever just keep going that is largely driven I think out of a need to fit in and to immediately be on the verse virtuous side of something. Yeah. And so it's quick. It's almost instinctual. And this is a little different.

So when Joe Scarborough, who I don't know that well, I've met him like twice, maybe three times. I think I was on Morning Joe once or twice. When he says Trump wants to bomb or is happy to give up L.A. or San Diego, I can't explain it, to be honest. I don't know. It's such a willful history of the truth. I don't know. No, I don't think that's. a fit in. I think that's them just cheating at a political attack angle. So you think he knows it's not

true. He doesn't care. He's going with it anyway. Yes. I feel like, you know, they've kind of taken this approach to everything that's going to come out of Trump's, you know, Trump's mouth, is they're going to fit it for maximum strength Tylenol, you know, make this affect the viewer in the strongest way possible. And it's never in a good direction. You know, like it's interesting. If you talk about the successes of this administration, it's really weird. Because it's Like, we're in a week where even like Jack White is trashing Trump right now. And he's trashing in America. Jack White, the musician?

Yeah, from the white stripes. He threw something out last night, piggybacked off Phil Collins and everything. And Phil Collins, by the way, it's from the UK. Bill Collins went after Trump? Yeah, he said he has an unwritten song about MAGA called Fat People with Guns. Damn it. I know. I know, I know, because I love Phil Collins.

Damn it. I know. And like I keep saying, the hardest thing of the last... Phil Collins is like the world's biggest alamo collection. I know. He has all the alamo stuff. I liked Phil Collins so much. And his wife just threw him out of the house. He could use some fat people with guns to get him back in. By the way, have you guys seen the video going around the meme video of Phil Collins singing, I can feel it in the air tonight? You do you want to talk about? Yep. And the meme is like he's walking on stage and he's timing it. He's right when the drums. But the meme, the thing is, whatever, 1980s, Phil Collins walking around in an office shirt, half balding is the ultimate aura.

Like, look at him and he looks like he's on his way to the break room. He's cubicle. Totally. At his accountant's office. He just turned in those TPS reports. He's going to go play a drum solo. That's amazing. But yeah, one of the hardest things of the Trump era is finding out a lot of your heroes

are stupid. You know, virtuosos in so many ways. Because Phil Collins is as talent as any musician in the 80s. Is iconic. Okay, Jack White can play the hell out of a guitar. I love that about them. He's great. What happens is like there's this absence of perspective.

It's like we're living in this America where, what, two weeks ago, we hit the highest median household income, lowest rate of poverty, lowest murder rate in history. So in theory, Donald Trump, this failing president is failing at the greatest time there's ever been to live in America. You should go to bed at night and pray that everybody fails on this level. But they don't know that because the other point you made about people trying to fit in, that's where I think the musicians, it becomes a branding exercise. You know, there's a lot of guys that can game relevance. Like Phil Collins, God love them, isn't exactly running up the score on the billboard charts right now. You know what I mean?

Bruce Springsteen just the same. But by aligning himself with this anti-Trump movement, Springsteen now becomes relevant and gets paid to show up and sing, Born to Walk, because he's, you know, a little older. But the point is, Tom Morello's doing that. Once the last time you heard anybody care about rage against the machine. But so those people like Jack White, I'm not trying to be mean. Yeah.

My presumption is he's not very smart. Yeah. And he's really smart. At the very least, not well-informed. Oh, yeah. Not well-informed. I'd say uninformed. I don't know.

I'm not well enough to say not very smart. I'm actually judging him based upon the idea that most musicians are probably not super smart. Yeah, fair. He is. He's like a mathematical musician. He's smart, dude. Okay, so not well-in-forward. But I can't give Joe Scarborough the same excuse.

No. No, and understand, Joe Scarborough in 2016, obviously had Trump on his show constantly during that election cycle. When that relationship kind of fizzled out, he became a Trump as Hitler guy. After four years of Trump as Hitler and Trump winning against him, Kamala, he showed up to Hitler's house looking for a play date. Do you remember that? They went down the Mar-a-Lago and asked the kiss and make-up. Trump wasn't interested, and what did they go right back to? This looks like Germany in 1939. Well, you were just sunbathing in Hitler's backyard with even brawn. That's weird. I didn't know the Germans to be sunbaters with those fair

skin, but there you were. And that's the scam. Let's take a quick break, but continue this with host of Fox Across America, Jimmy Fela, on Wilkane Country. Welcome back to Will Kane Country. Welcome Welcome back to Will Kane Country. We're still hanging out with the host of Fox Across America. Jimmy Fela. So, okay, 30 years ago today, you are a freshman at Nassau Community College. And yet you're still in the city. Yes.

Well, I'm coming back and forth to the city because that's where we hung out, man. Club Nassau, which is in a lot of ways. You were doing comedy at this time? Not yet, man. I was trying to date attractive girls in the hip-hop community, which came off as comedy. I do believe. I was hanging out of a local club called Bear Elegance around the block. Come on!

I walk past it when I walk up back to the other side sometimes. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. So I will have you know. Bear Elegance has been around for 30 years. At least 30 years. Really? That at F in the window. I can honestly say I can look everyone in the eyes and say I've never been inside Bear Elegance.

Is that true? Well, I don't know that FEMA would let you at this point. They're concerned. But I will have, you know, one of the greatest moments of my adult life, or any life, for that matter, in 1990s. the same month, the Yankees beat the Braves, game six. Charlie Hayes caught the last out and foul territory off the bat of, I believe, Mark Lemke. It was Lemke or Polonia.

One of them pinched ran, one of them popped out. But do you know where they went after the party was over? They went to Patsy's, and then they went to Bear Elegance. That's crazy. Charlie Hayes and some of them did it. I was at Bear Elegance with a gal I knew named Tammy. Is that your local? What are you doing Bear Likens?

A lot of the girls at Club Nassau, where I went to school, were legitimately stripping their way through college. And tuition was only like 600 bucks, so they didn't have a lot of overhead, but that's how I knew girls at Bear Ellicons and I was hanging out there. So when Fox News launched, I was chasing a lot of foxes.

They just didn't happen to be in the news industry. That's all. All right, so 1996, I'm a junior in college. Oh, wow. In Malibu, California. I always get this mixed up. My memory is not what yours is in this respect. is this the year the Cowboys win their third Super Bowl

or the off year that the Niners win? It was two Niners back to Cowboys. I feel like 96. Cowboys won in 93, 94. 95 is the Super Bowl. Steve Young wins. So 96? Yeah.

I went that year. That one was in, I remember this, in Scottsdale Phoenix area, beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, went to that Super Bowl. And I was majoring in broadcast journalism at Pepperdine. Didn't like it.

Went to law school because I didn't want to be an actor on TV. Dead serious. Hated it. Hated reading a prompter. Hated the whole thing about doing TV in college. And I stand by that today.

Solid campus though. Oh, it's beautiful. Right across from Michael Landon Little League field. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do remember that. Me and I played an epic home run derby there this summer with Lincoln,

where the outfield meets the ocean. Yes, it looks right over. It's beautiful. Incredible. Incredible. Right across. That's on the other side of PCH, ocean side. If you go yard, Dan, you can hit a bowl into the Pacific Ocean. That's sick. It's pretty rad. It's like it's beyond McCovey Cove. You know what I'm saying? Except they don't have guys in kayaks out there. It's actually Trend DeIragua drug smugglers.

Not in Malibu. Not in Malibu. Really nice. Yeah. So I was a year away from heading off to law school and thinking I would never do what it is I'm sitting here doing today back in broadcast. That's so rad, dude. And I wasn't super political. I wasn't, like, I don't think I was aware at the time of the launch of Fox News. I was aware of CNN because CNN hit everybody's radar during the first Gulf War. Yeah, and at a presence. That was the thing, like, that they covered a war live.

And you remember the green, you'll remember, we can remember the green tracers. Do you remember that of the Scuds and the Patriot missiles? Yeah, that was amazing. That were being shot. Yeah. So. That didn't happen before that? I don't know.

First Gulf War was literal live-covered general cover Joe War. That was like 91 and now you had people on the scene. So you can see it. We're so spoiled in this day and age. Now we've got Trey Yinks filming TikTok videos as a mortarflies. Or is Ukrainian soldiers. But he is so beyond the beyond in terms of doing that.

If there's a Michael Jordan of what he does and you can see him on camera, he knows the direction something's coming from based on sound and everything. that's a skill I don't have. You know what I mean? I can listen to Stiletto heels and know which stage she's going to go on two decks. I know what the bouncer's feet sound like if I'm touching too much.

You know what I mean? But we don't all have training skills. We all have our skills developed over a lifetime, Jimmy. But that's why that was the first kind of, you know, war on TV. There would have been before that you would have filed a report. Sure. Do you know what I mean?

Like a little package? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You would have got some B-roll from somebody who shot it from far away. Yeah. And it would have not been literally live.

That was the key. Right. Live. I mean... Now it seems normal. That's what we see it all time. Yes. Yeah.

So, okay. Interestingly, while I do believe that Fox has played this important role for us in, in the media and in the country and the culture at large as a result, you know, we bring up that there are other people playing that role now as well. And Elon buying X is a huge, huge moment. I think about... The next 30. And I think that a big part, Jimmy, of what we need to do.

And I don't want to say this in any way that sounds like self-aggrandizing or patronizing, because I think this is what the mistake a lot of media does, is now while social media has done a great job of providing us, it's not just Fox that tells you, the president didn't actually say that. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? But now on social media, that comes with a huge heaping. more than a healthy dose of bullshit. Yes.

And it's part of my job every day, literally as I'll send something to my staff and go, is this true? Yeah. I'm interested, is it true? Yeah. And so I think that becomes a bigger part of our job. Like, the public's mind is being fed so much information

and it's no longer just from the NBC, CBS, CNN world. It's from people purportedly on our side. Yeah. It's people from every side. And now it's like, how do I wade through a swamp of bullshit? And somebody's got to help me, not dismiss it as a conspiracy, no, but help me to know, is that actually true?

Yeah, you know one of the biggest challenges is in my feed right now is people will post an old video today because in today's context, that old video is that much more offensive. Yeah, you know what I mean? And you think it happened recently. Yes, and that's an engagement farming. It happens on the right a lot actually, and it sucks when I'm cutting sound for radio

because I have to say, when is this from? Saying, I will send videos to my staff sometimes. They'll be like, that's actually two or three years ago. Yeah, you know, there was one that went viral of Amy Klobuchar holding the upside-down Somali flag. I know, but I was like, how does she not know better than this? But you know what? It's crazy.

Yeah. But that is, you know, part of the challenger right now is that everybody in a weird way, okay, and I think this is another Fox News superpower, everybody in this modern moment is a prisoner of it. Because we're now consuming news out of this fire hose. It's hard to think beyond the blast. But one of the things I give us a lot of credit for is we are constantly as a channel discussing the what next, the axle rose, where do we go now? You know, when it comes to a lot of these societal developments.

And I think that is why we resonate with people because there's a lot of latitude in that thought process. Whereas if you look across the aisle to an MSNBC, we know where we're going to go. Whatever Trump did is horrible. We're all under attack because of it. Tune in tomorrow to see if we pull through. You know, we're not doing that. you know, to our credit. And I think of-

What will they do post-Trump? I think about that a lot. Do they think about that? What's comical because I do, okay, and I do that, I do believe they do as well. I believe whoever comes next gets the same treatment. Same treatment. We know that, yeah.

Is the devil. Actually, he's worse than Trump because he's more calculated. He's more coherent. He's more strategizing. I heard of my circle already. Of course you do. And what's so funny is,

I always, back to the where do we go? I think of it in that terms, and you know this is true. We will live in a world, where the media is citing Donald Trump of a better example than what the Republicans come along. How long? Next guy.

No, it'll be next guy. It can't go that fast. Think about Dick Cheney. Okay. Think about the late Dick Cheney. Hold on, just back and forth on this. Back to my time at CNN. Okay, so first of all, I wasn't in the media

during George W. Bush. I came along right when Barack Obama arrives on the scene. But I watched, and George W. Bush was Satan. Yeah, Satan. Literally, I know. War criminal. Keith Olberman every night. There was nowhere to go.

We learned that there is because he didn't call him Hitler. Yeah, yeah. But he called him the devil, basically. You know, he was the worst that could possibly exist. Then, now we're in a pickle because Romney comes along. Okay? And I'm not seeing him for Romney. And the bar has been raised.

How am I going to make Romney the devil? And they did it. They didn't make him the devil, but they made him have binders full of women. They made him a racist. They made him a high school bully who chopped people here. And he changed his dog to the roof of his car. All of those things. And now Romney, I mean, Romney is the patron saint of sensibility or whatever.

And George W. Bush is rehabilitated. Of course. And they love Dick Cheney is. Well, he endorsed Kamala and they, you know, they sang open arms by journey when he did. Okay. he suddenly went from Darth Vader and war criminal to come on down. It's very transactional. So this is the one thing about Trump is you can't discredit the fact that at some point he may be out of office two years and take a shot at whoever the Republican in office is.

Could be? At which point, come on down. It's so transactional. You know how you say you weren't in politics? Like, I wasn't in politics. Do you know what drew me to the national conversation of all things? It was actually Caitlin Jenner because in 2015 I was still a cab driver. and I obviously knew the entirety of that life story.

The guy on the cover of the Wheaties box was who had become Caitlin Jenner. I think a younger generation treated Bruce Jenner as the dad on keeping up with the Kardashians and nothing more. So when I saw the transactional nature of how she was, in terms of the national trans conversation, she was the Jackie Robinson of that movement.

You used she. Well, she doesn't matter. She doesn't care. I will tell you, I'll go all the way through the gamut on this because I also get yelled at for dead naming her on stage, but she thinks it's funny. He, she, them, doesn't matter. Okay.

Okay. I'm not trying to qualify. I'm just, that's why this is so ridiculous. It's like, wait, you don't say it? I'm like, no, everybody has to probably get it. I just want to tell my fucking story. Okay, sorry. No, I get it.

I get why you said that, okay? But the point is when, if you remember, okay, the manufactured, you know, enthusiasm of, like, this is the greatest human being who's ever lived. She's on the cover of Vanity Fair in a white dress. And they were literally like, anyone who doesn't say she's beautiful is obviously a transphobic bigot.

We should fire you from your job and burn down your house in the name of love. Yes, do you remember that? Courage award. Courage award. And I'll never forget this because I was sitting there. Now, again, I'm a cab driver. And they're like, she suffered her whole life.

I'm like, oh, Bruce Jenner, put a hundred million in the bank, bang three supermodels by the age of 30. I'm like, I'll sign up for that suffering any day of the week. But again, it just had piqued my interest. Okay. So I'm following the story

and the deification of Caitlin Jenner, all the way till day three, pretty much, when she went on the view, said she was a Republican and was completely kicked out of her own movement. Like, imagine 1947 Branch Ricky Sons, Jackie Robinson, he breaks through all over baseball. And within three weeks, he's backed down on the minors. And like, never played in this league again,

but they're not saying it as nicely as I am. Okay, that's what they did to Caitlin Jenner. She's the face of the movement. And at the time, because I was a sports fan. And I always say, I don't think young people in the Democratic Party realized how bad it looked to just objective observers because I was not a politico per se.

It was a guy driving a cab trying to dodge bookmakers, okay? But you think about the lineage of Bruce Jenner was the biggest male athlete in the world at one point. So you could argue this would be like if Serena Williams became a woman.

Like, well, stop it, good night, everybody! I love Serena Williams. Actually, it was my get out of jail free car when I met Jenny. Back to the hip-hop women of bear elegance. Let's take a quick break, but continue this with host of Fox Across America, Jimmy Fela on Wilkane Country.

Welcome back to Will Cain Country. We're still hanging out with the host of Fox across America, Jimmy Fela. Okay, so imagine Serena becomes a man. Yeah, yeah. But for real. Yeah, of course. And let's say she did, okay,

which is fine and it would be her right as a American over the age of 18. I'd supported E. Pluribus Unum out of many, one. But the point is, if she would go do that right now, and then they were to turn around in the athletic community and banish her as if she never existed, it would discredit them to this generation of sports fans the way the treatment of Caitlin Jenner

discredited media to me. You know, it was a guy who wasn't following politics. But when I saw the transactional nature of everything and that was the beginning of identity politics in a lot of ways, that kind of bug lighted me into this conversation. I think one of the, it was a camp because it was later in my career,

much later, but that very fine people thing which we talked about earlier. Yeah, yeah. That was the nail in the coffin. Yeah. For me. And it took years. Because that came out in...

2017. Yeah. Do you know when I first learned the truth about very fine people? Oh, God, was it like later? 20, 2020? Yeah, dude. Like 1920.

Yeah. Because that's how long it took for like every... I mean, maybe I was in sports. I wasn't as plugged in politically at that time, but... That's the power of that narrative and the difficulty in pushing back

to what we said earlier on something that is solidified in the first weeks. of these things. And that's my point. It's 2026, and I think a lot of people still don't know. No.

And all you have to do is... They don't want to know either. You just extend the clip. Yeah. Just extend the clip 15 more seconds. They don't even care, though. 15 more seconds. Why would they do that?

Okay, we only extend the clock in Michigan football games. You know how it works. Stop it. 30 years. It feels like a birthday party around here. There's food on every floor. It's a good vibe.

Is there? Where? Get into the pantry on 20? Maybe not on every floor, by the way. I was going to say, not this one. It's like, bro, what else? This might be the only day of the year

where I could pick up a pastry and not hear a sneer from Manny a wardrobe. If I did this yesterday, forget it. He sends in Jenna to jam me with an ozempic needle. I feel's good around here. It's happy. Yeah. A lot of people coming in that I haven't been here a while. Gonna go to the bar a little later.

Yeah, we are. Oh, it's a Langen's. Today's a big Langen's day for the kids, for the American people. Yeah. Excited for that. But yeah, it's a good time to be us. And I always tell people, if everybody had the opportunity to spend three minutes inside this building, their entire worldview would change.

Because I came here as a comic driving a cab. My view of Fox News was greatly informed by The Daily Show, which, speaking of disingenuous propaganda, but it is. And there's a lot of contextual manipulation in what John Stewart does in the name of comedy. But my experience with Fox News being outside of it was so counter to what happened when I walked in here. Because I was told everybody was just like punching babies and throwing darts at Obama stuff. but there's so much joking, there's so much sports talk before you punch the baby.

You don't just walk in. You know what I mean? They don't just hand you a dart. I want to say that before we go as well. So I've worked at CNN, I've worked at ESPN, and I've worked at Fox. And I guess

there's a couple of things I would want people to know about this. And I, like you came at this, even though I did some free appearances in the 2010 or whatever, I wasn't a part of the building. I wasn't a part of this. First,

I've only met him once and I don't think he listens to anything he's not listening to this Rupert is I mean whatever you want to believe whatever documentary an entrepreneurial visionary like the entrepreneurial Cajonais

to create this and I didn't know this and I want to ask more because I heard was it Brian this morning on Fox and Friends say the money that Fox made from Titanic helped fund Fox News Channel

that's crazy if that's true that's incredible What an entrepreneurial role. What a bet. You know? That, I think, is laudable on its own. Just think about the entrepreneurial vision.

Anybody that's been involved in anything that's a startup understands exactly the, quite honestly, the balls it takes to do something like that. It is one of the happiest places I've ever worked. Yep. Because then I want, the reason I brought up Rupert, because then I want to talk about, like, what's below at every level.

Yep. I have never felt the camaraderie teamwork, and I can't speak to every environment. Maybe other shows, maybe other places in this building are not as the same way. But I have worked at other media enterprises. Yeah. It doesn't feel like this.

No, no, there's nothing close to this. It really doesn't feel like this. This is an actual community and that's the thing we're drawn to. You walk in here and it feels like a well-dressed high school. You know how in high school, you see your friends in the hall and you joke till the bell rings

and you run the class. The only difference here is we're dressed better and we run to a studio instead of a classroom. But that is the communal vibe that defines the culture of Fox News. The reason families watch Fox News is because they are a part of a family. What I mean by that is there's not a channel besides us where you'll see the 9 p.m. host on the morning show or the morning guy on a panel at 7.30 at night. They don't cross-pollinate the way we do.

And because we have those on and off-air relationships and the community vibe that we do, those conversations totally make it onto the screen. And when you meet people, you know this. They're always like, oh, I feel like I know you guys, because they do. I know. They never meet you and go, you're different because that's, our authenticity is our superpower. Very few people. I'm not going to name them. Yeah.

And I are different, are different than the person you know on TV. Yeah. Very few. Well, wow. There are some in any place you're going to go. Yeah. But very few. And one of the other thing to add to that camaraderie, just I'll add this.

The, the, this is super hard. This is super hard to accomplish from an organizational standpoint, especially one as large as this. the focus on winning. And you said, what does that mean winning? Ratings? Dan knows, I gave my, I had a team meeting yesterday. I love that.

I started with, I just wrote win on the board really, I love it. I was. I defined what winning was. I defined what winning was. And winning, yes, ratings are a part of that,

but complacency is the human default status. And everyone can get there and it's easiest to get there actually when you're winning. Yeah. And there's an edge and focus on being

best and better and that exists here that I would add is super unique when combined with the other thing you just like like this teamy camaraderie environment there isn't us against the world thing going on here yeah but the us happens to be particularly driven in a way that few people can be sustainably you know and I think that's who we are I mean I think that when you look at the factory settings of what this place is it was built by people who want to win and they're very good at diagnosing it in other people that's why people so many people succeed here when they get here. You look for winners. Yes. I mean, imagine, you know, the world where this place told you, Will Kane, we're

going to throw our weight behind you and put you on every day at far. You, in that moment, that's like the most empowering thing in the world, but you want to do right by it. A hundred percent. That's what I mean. You want to do right by it. You feel this obligation because you understand they have a vision, and you rewarding that vision makes the next person who busted their ass and really wanted to represent on some form of greatness, possible, you know, in a weird way. And that's what I love so much about this place is the spectacular possibilities of life in America are reflected in this building.

You brought them up, so we can't go without acknowledging this. I've also never experienced. I did first take for years, and we would get live audiences, and they love the show. I've never seen anything like the relationship between us and our audience. No, man. Never close.

Dude, it's a monster. Not even in the ballpark. It is a monster truck rally. So can I tell you? I did an event. Last summer, for all things I do, I probably go on the road like 47 weekends out of the year. And it's, again, from a guy who started out in opium dens, like, for real, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. They have opium dens?

Yeah, you can't even imagine. I was performing around the block in a place called Hamburger Harriers. I think of 1905 when I think of opium dinners. That's funny. Well, when I think in 1905, I think of Nancy Pelosi. So it's just different wiring of the brain, but stick with me. You know, to be sitting, like, what I'm playing now, I'm not playing the garden, but I'm playing like 2,000-seat venues. for a comic, understand, a comedy club is 200 seats.

So if you sell 2,000 seats, you sold out 10 shows at the comedy club. That was obviously not a consideration for me five years ago. I'm mindful of what this place has afforded me. But what I understand when I get on stage is they're not just coming to see me. They're coming to see us. What really makes this place unique,

and I think they know this, is the channel is the star. For as many individual ecosystems that have their own millions of viewers and stuff like that, there's this bigger thing we're a part of. And when I do a Q&A, that's my favorite part of the show, because I'm interested to know, like, last week, I was in Richmond, Virginia.

What is on their mind in Richmond, Virginia? What are they going to ask about? Obviously, is Will Kane a Pain in the ass? Yes, but that's like one, one A every. He dies here. Yeah, it's you, it's Tarloff. We get on with it. She knows that I love her.

It's a bit. Okay, but the point is we have that actual connection. We meet these people. We talk to these people. They know our dog's names. our kids' birthdays, because there is a realness to this place. Like you've never been alone with an executive and found them to be difficult to talk to, even if the trajectory of the conversation is challenging or difficult, given the news cycle,

everybody here communicates well, they're efficient, and they're actually funny in a way that's hard to explain to everyone else. There is a phenomenal sense of humor that permeates this building, and it's on sets, you know, guys that are working gyps, you know, guys that are wiring you up for sound, somebody's going to have a joke, somebody's going to make a comment, somebody's going to do a character voice. And you're like, wow. And what's so funny to me is like having spent most of my life on this side of the TV, not behind it, you know, where the things are happening. You know, you always imagine what that environment must be like. I don't know that there's anything like this environment anywhere.

Because I've been on other networks like you said as a comic, they ain't joking around during commercial breaks. They're usually Lawrence O'Donnell's yelling, stop the hammering. I love it. I love it's one of my favorites. The only hammering. It's here. Yeah. Stop the hammering. I'm going to make a phone call. I love that. Call Phil Griffin. Call whoever.

That's what he says. I'll get Phil Griffin on the phone. We're not doing that here. We're having fun. All right, 30 years. I'm proud to work with you, Jimmy Fela. Thank you for being with us here today. And thank you for listening to Homebill.

You're the massive part of this whole enterprise. Thank you for 30 years at Fox News. We'll see you again next time. Listen ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast. and Amazon Prime members. You can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon music app.