Tucker Carlson FIRED From Fox News Over January 6th Coverage, Plus Don Lemon Fired From CNN Because He Sucks

Welcome to the Liz Wheeler Show. It’s kind of a monumental day for our country. I know some people are gonna be like, oh, that’s a little hyperbolic. Just a cable news host was fired. Tucker Carlson is officially out at Fox News. I don’t think I’m speaking just for myself here when I say I got that push notification, and I was like, what? What? That came out of nowhere. But it is a monumental day, not just for those of us who are, who work in media, or those of us who are media consumers. He got over 3 million people watching his primetime show on Fox News every day, which means 3 million people are gonna have a shift in their daily habits. This is a massive cultural thing that’s an hour of your day, every day, five days a week. And now they’re gonna have to decide what they’re going to watch or what they’re gonna do with that hour.  

This is, this is a pretty big deal. So what I wanna do today is I wanna talk a little bit about why the question that we all have, what happened behind the scenes? Because this wasn’t a matter of Tucker Carlson giving his notice and then going on air and explaining why he’s leaving and saying goodbye to his audience and telling people what’s coming next. This was virtually unheard of in, in at least cable news where they didn’t specifically say he was fired the way that cnn, by the way, said that Don Lemon was fired. We’re gonna talk about that too. That one is clearly much funnier than Tucker Carlson being out at Fox News. But I wanna talk about all the possible scenarios, all the rumors that are going around, some insider information that, you know, I dig around in the industry. I’ve got friends in the industry, a little insider information, see if we can piece together what exactly happened behind the scenes at Fox News that caused Tucker Carlson to be fired.  

Before we get to that, please subscribe to the show. You guys know I’m under strike on YouTube, so this show won’t be on YouTube, but right away either, but you can find it on Rumble.com/LizWheeler. Don’t just watch it over there. Hit that subscribe button so you know, the next time I get a strike on YouTube, you can find the show on Rumble because you’re already subscribed over there. Also, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts. That’s the audio version of the show. That’s the safest place. They don’t have any censorship over there, fingers crossed, at least as of now. So you can just search Liz Wheeler Show on Apple Podcasts. Greatly appreciate if you subscribe over there as well. Also, don’t forget tomorrow I’m speaking at James Madison University. Very excited for this event. The title of my speech is The Ideology of Transgenderism.  

It’s an open event. It’s open to the public, it is free. You can get your free tickets. Just go to liz wheeler.com or you can go to my Twitter account at twitter.com/liz_wheeler. I have the link. I mean, you might as well just go directly to the website because on my Twitter account, it’s just a link to the website where you can get free tickets. The radical trans activists have been agitating before the event, but that’s not going to stop us from speaking truth. I think a lot of people, actually, a lot of the opposition, the people that are calling me hateful, am bigoted and sending threats to me are gonna be surprised about what I’m gonna say. It’s not going to be what they expect that I’m going to say. It’s not the same speech that you often hear on college campuses. It’s not sensationalist.  

It’s not bombastic, it’s not deliberately trying to trigger these radical trans activists. Not at all. I hope that these trans activists at least, at least give me an ear for an hour while while I talk to them. Cause I have a message just for them. But if you’re in the area, please join us, LizWheeler.com, or you can watch it live streaming on Youtube, at Youtube.com/YAFtv. I know I’ve thrown like six URLs at you, but you can sort through the ones that that you want. You can, you can decide the most important ones to go to. Okay, but Tucker Carlson out at Fox News, what exactly happened? Why was he fired? Let’s compare and contrast some of the rumors that have been flying around about what exactly went down, why is he gone? Who fired him and why. Let’s get to it.  

So this was the statement that Fox News released yesterday when they announced that they had parted ways with Tucker Carlson. This is what they said. 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, Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday, April 21st. Fox News tonight will air live at 8:00 PM Eastern, starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating Fox News personalities. Until a new host is named, you can practically feel the icicles coming off of that statement. It is so cold, it’s so icy, not a shred of warmth. We thank him for his service to the network. Like, no, you really don’t. You really don’t feel thankful. Brian kill me, actually hosted the 8:00 PM hour last night, and I felt bad for the guy because it’s not his fault he didn’t do anything wrong, but man, viewers were mad that he was, that he was in Tucker Carlson’s spot, but it’s not his fault.  

Okay, so what exactly happened here? First of all, let’s just, let’s just state the obvious here. Fox News is making a very, or made, I guess it’s too late now. Fox News made a very, very bad decision to get rid of Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson is Fox News at this point. Tucker Carlson is the reason that the majority of conservatives watch Fox News at this point. It’s the reason the majority of conservatives, I’m gonna take this a step further. It’s the reason the majority of conservatives even have cable at all. So what we’re seeing here is not just a shake up at Fox News. It’s not just, oh my gosh, the most prominent conservative media personality, most influential conservative in our country, lost his job. It’s not just that that’s big enough, but what we’re seeing is going to be the beginning of the end for Cable news in general.  

It’s been a long time coming. This is actually, we don’t talk about this often on my show, but this is one of, this is not one of my pet topics, but this is a topic that interests me a lot because I used to work in cable news and I saw what happens behind the scenes at Cable News. We’re gonna get into that a little bit more. I’ll tell you a little bit about my experience and what my views are on cable news in general and what’s gonna happen to this industry, given the fact that the average age of a cable news viewer, and this is true for Fox News, this is true for CNN, this is true for MSNBC. The average age of their viewers are over 70 years old, which means young people don’t watch cable news anymore, or if they ever did.  

But young people are not watching these cable news channels. And not only are young people not watching it, but, and I mean this with all due respects to all of the wonderful boomers who watch my show. But, you know, if you’re scared of your mor, this is what I said to my father-in-law earlier when I was telling him about it. I said, are you scared of your mortality? You think you’re gonna be here for the next 30, 40 years? I know that, I know it sounds harsh, I know it does sounds harsher when I’m telling the story. But the fact of the matter is, the viewer demographic that watches cable news isn’t going to be around forever, just the same as any industry, right? And that demographic is not being replaced by a younger demographic. The younger demographic. And cable news, by the way, recognized this about 10 years ago, and they started trying to, trying to retool their business strategies.  

Like CNN lost launched CNN plus Fox launched Fox, Fox Nation. But they didn’t do it right. They didn’t, they didn’t, they didn’t analyze what the younger generations or how the younger generations wanna consume news. All they did was make their cable news programming accessible online or on a, on an on demand television app. But that’s not how the younger generations want to consume their news. That’s not how younger generations do consume news. So cable news is at this really critical point where they’re only investing in an audience that’s increasingly aging. So, like I said, we’ll talk about the behind the scenes stuff about cable news a little bit later in the show. But I did want to note that Fox has lost 1 billion in stock value since they announced that they parted ways with Tucker Carlson. I personally think he was fired, and I’ll tell you why here in just a moment.  

But parted ways is their official phraseology here. Ironically, this comes after the nearly 800 million settlements, Fox News between Fox News and Dominion. You know, the lawsuit that Fox News was facing, the lawsuit from Dominion, they’re the voting machines. They were suing Fox News for defamation because Fox News, or some guests on Fox News and some hosts on Fox News had entertained had entertained the idea that Dominion voting machines were somehow rigged. Dominion sued them over that claim. And by the way, when we do upload this episode on YouTube, we’re probably gonna have to bleep that sentence out, even though I’m just reporting what’s happening here. And instead of allowing this to go to trial, Fox News settled with Dominion. Now, that was kind of a head scratcher to me. When I saw Fox News settle with Dominion. I think it would’ve been very hard for Dominion to prove their case.  

I think it would’ve been very hard for them to win. Even though Fox News is a ostensibly conservative apparatus, I think Dominion would not have won this. But Fox News probably settled. This is just speculation. Fox News probably settled because they didn’t want the discovery. They didn’t want all of their top talent including actually not just talent, but their executives like Rupert Murdoch to be deposed. They didn’t want them to testify and have that testimony be made public, because it probably would’ve been embarrassing as it would for any person. If you’re testifying publicly or have your emails or text messages read publicly, we all say stuff on text message and emails that we don’t mean for the public, we mean just privately. That’s why it’s on a text or an email. But regardless, Fox News did settle with Dominion, and the amount of value that their stock lost after they settled with Dominion is less than the amount of the amount of money their stock lost after they fired Tucker Carlson.  

Actually, they paid more. They paid more for firing Tucker Carlson in stock value than they, than they did in money to settle with Dominion. So, just a little irony there. Okay, so what happened here? What happened? I think Tucker Carlson was probably fired. I think that all the signs are pointing in that direction. And this is funny because a couple weeks ago, I don’t wanna say that I called that, I called it that, I called that this was gonna happen. But I did say to Dan a couple weeks ago I had just watched an episode of Tucker Carlson on the Full Send podcast. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with that. It’s the Milk Boys podcast. And it was like an hour long, at least an hour-long podcast they did with Tucker Carlson. It was really entertaining. If you haven’t seen it, highly recommend that you go watch it.  

It’s on YouTube. And I said, oh, that’s weird, because Fox News is notorious for not allowing their talent to go on any other network and any other podcast. They’re actually particularly afraid of allowing their talent to go on podcasts, especially podcasts that have really high viewership. Because like the Fullen podcast sometimes gets as many viewers on an episode or an interview that they do as even Tucker Carlson did on his primetime show. So usually Fox Personalities and talent, you never see them making the rounds on podcasts, never see them on any other show. It’s just they, it’s just on Fox News. Or sometimes if they write a book, they have like a two-week period that they’re allowed to go on other other shows and promote their book. But when I saw Tucker Carlson on the Full Sound podcast, I said to Dan, I was like, oh, that’s weird.  

I wonder if he’s like pushing the boundaries. I wonder if he’s testing out the market, I wonder if he’s shopping around. I wonder if he’s about to leave Fox. And I don’t wanna say that I called it because it was like this fleeting thought. I just made this comment to my husband, and that was, that was basically it. But then, you know, get the news today that Tucker Carlson’s fired, and I’m like, oh, I wonder if there was something to that. I wonder if he was, maybe he’s allowed, I don’t know. He’d never really done anything like that before. But I wonder if he was anticipating that this would happen and he wanted to do that show, and so he just did it. Maybe, I don’t wanna say reckless, but maybe he was just willing to take that risk. Maybe he was willing to incur that risk.  

It’s also, by the way, a very intense job, right? Especially, it’s a very, very intense job to be in politics. It’s a very intense job to be in the media. It’s an intense job to work for a cable a cable news corporation, because especially when you stick to your principles like Tucker Carlson, because he was always facing pylons and not just pylons from the Left, which is emotionally draining sometimes, but not having his network always in his corner, not having the executives and the board perhaps at his network in his corner. So it’s a very intense job. There are three options, I think for what Tucker Carlson is going to do next. Tucker Carlson moving forward, he’s gonna be successful no matter what he does. Obviously, he has basically three options. Number one is he can sign a massive streaming deal. He can go independent or partner with a production company.  

He can own his own business and he can probably make way more than he’s making at Fox News. And I’m saying that as someone who knows both cable news and knows the independent side of broadcasting, I know how much people make at both things. I know the business aspect. My show remember is a business. This is, this is the business that I own, the business that I run, the company that I own, the company that I run. I fully understand how much money Tucker Carlson was making, and I know what kind of earning potential Tucker Carlson has in the independent space. I’m talking like at least Joe Rogan’s size streaming deals, especially if he goes somewhere like Rumble, just speculation. Don’t know any insider information about that. But he’s either going to sign a massive streaming deal or he is gonna run for president. There’s a lot of people that are saying, oh, Tucker Carlson 2024.  

Or option number three is he just retires. He’s, he’s served the country, he’s been successful, he’s got enough money for about 20 lifetimes and he just retires and goes fishing. I personally think it’s gonna be option number one. I don’t think he retires to fish. I don’t think that’s his personality. I think he likes to do that as something for fun. But I think he enjoys the intensity. I think he has a lot of fight in him. He’s super young. He’s not like, he’s not like retirement age. I don’t think he runs for president. I think anybody who is as prominent as Tucker Carlson has considered it, but I don’t think he runs for president. I think that we are going to see Tucker Carlson go independent, and I think that he’s gonna be wildly successful. Like I said, I think that this is gonna be the death, not, not, not a Fox News.  

I think this is the death of cable news that we’re about to see of cable news. And we’ll get into that. I wanna talk about what possibly happened here. So some of the speculation was that, okay, well this Dominion lawsuit, this settlement between Fox News and Dominion, this 800 million settlement, this is the reason why. This is the reason why maybe there was a clause in this con or this settlement that required Fox News to get rid of Tucker Carlson. That was a condition of the settlement. I don’t think so. I don’t think that that’s realistic at all. I don’t think that Fox News would have settled, had that been a condition. They would never have caved to that kind of bullying, because first of all, they don’t typically cave to that stuff anyway. But also, Tucker Carlson was not one of the personalities on Fox News who was giving credibility to the Dominion allegations.  

In fact, Tucker Carlson had Sidney Powell on his show then said that she was bullish, if you know what I mean. Tucker Carlson actually, actually made a very strong point, which I agree with that the distinction between the allegations that were coming from Sidney Powell or Rudy Giuliani were not accurate. And actually the credibility of the very real electioneering, the unfair electioneering that we saw in the lead up to the 2020 elections and in the immediate aftermath. So that wouldn’t make any sense if Tucker Carlson being fired was a condition of the settlement because Tucker Carlson was not one of the people that was propagating this. It would only have been requested as a condition of the settlement if Dominion was so radically left that they just wanted to destroy Tucker Carlson. And on that point, Robert Murdoch would never have agreed to do that, never have agreed to be pushed around like that.  

That would never have happened whatsoever. So I don’t think this has anything to do with the Dominion lawsuit. Nothing. I know that’s a little bit of a contrarian viewpoint. A lot of people think it had everything to do with it. I don’t think so at all. So yesterday, pretty early on, Justin Hart, who on Twitter, Justin Hart on Twitter, said that he had insider information. That Tucker Carlson was planning a show on Monday, yesterday when this happened. That he was actually planning to quit on air, that he had a cast of guests booked that somehow made it obvious that he was going to quit on air. And when the executives got a peep at that show, rundown the list of potential guests that they caught on, that they realized he was gonna quit on air. And so they put a stop to it and fired him.  

This was the prevailing narrative or the prevailing insider information, so-called insider information for part of the day yesterday. And I don’t buy this either. I don’t buy this either for a couple of reasons. First of all, you don’t often have a show rundown of what guests you wanna have on your show that early oftentimes that’s still being negotiated pretty late into the day. And I don’t know Fox’s insider process I don’t know. I don’t know their insider process. I do know how generally cable news insider processes work. And I don’t think the executives would’ve just looked at this list of guests and been like, oh, we’re guessing based on these names that he’s going to quit on air. Like, no, that wouldn’t have happened. They might have seen the guest and been like, we don’t want this guest on, or we don’t like the topic that he’s talking about.  

But I don’t know how they would’ve gone from seeing a list of guests to, oh, he’s going to quit on air. We have to fire him. So that one doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. That one doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. There was yet another rumor that Tucker Carlson was fired 10 minutes before. He was only notified that he was fired 10 minutes before Fox announced it publicly. This doesn’t, this rumor, if you will, it’s all rumors, right? It’s all, it’s all either industry gossip or insiders telling insiders or people sources close to other people. I mean, it’s a little bit hard to sort between what is a rumor and what is bits of truth. This one could be true, this one could be true, but it doesn’t have anything to do with why Tucker was fired. Maybe this did happen.  

Maybe this was, maybe this was how it went down. If so, that’s pretty brutal. That’s pretty savage. That’s, that’s pretty nasty. I will say this is the one, this is the explanation that I think is probably the most likely, and this came from a source very close to Tucker uh, source close to Tucker. Talked to our team and said that Tucker Carlson was planning on Monday to center his episode around the 60 Minutes piece on Ray Epps. He was planning to refute 60 minutes and refute their defense of Ray a You know, we talked about this on, on, on our show yesterday and how Ray Epps said that Tucker Carlson had it out for him. Tucker Carlson ruined his life that he might even sue Tucker Carlson. Apparently Tucker was, or according to this source, close to Tucker, Tucker was planning to respond to both Ray Epps and what Ray Ups said in that special and also to how 60 Minutes portrayed him. And when the executives at Fox found out that Tucker was going to do this, they said no and Tucker walked.  

Is this true? I don’t know. Is it the most likely scenario? It seems like it’s the most likely scenario. And if this scenario is the one that’s true, then the previous little bit of information that perhaps he was fired 10 minutes before they announced it, that could simultaneously be true, because different things can be true at once. Rupert Murdoch apparently was, and this is widely being publicly reported. Rupert Murdoch was heavily involved in this decision. He perhaps gave the go ahead for Tucker Carlson to be fired. And this makes sense because Tucker Carlson’s the biggest talent. I know that, you know, there’s an executive team at Fox. There’s also a board that governs Fox. Rupert Murdoch is not necessarily intimately involved with the day-to-day operations at Fox, but something as large as this, the Murdochs would be involved in. So I wanna bring up this Daily Mail article and read you the headline here.  

So this was published last night at C nine 20, at 9:04 PM Eastern Time. And this is what it says. It says, blindsided Tucker Carlson still has been given no reason why he was fired. And speculation is rife that Rupert Murdoch wants to sell Fox News, but would find it harder with firebrand host as the network’s main star. Interesting, right? This is yet another scenario. The Daily Mail rights. Tucker Carlson was shocked by the decision to fire him and has still not been told why, according to reports, but his departure could be part of a plan to sell. Fox News sources told the Daily Mail, the 53-year-old was negotiating the renewal of his Fox News contract through 2029, earning upwards of 20 million a year and expected it to be renewed. This, according to Vanity Fair Carlson was not told why he was being fired when C E O Suzanne Scott called him on Monday morning, Scott told him the decision was made.  

Quote from above, the decision was made on Friday night by Locklin Murdoch. According to multiple reports, a Fox News source told the Daily Mail. Tucker still has not been given any indication of why he was taken off the air. His producer, Justin Wells was fired too. We believe Rupert wants to sell the company, and it’s harder to find an institutional buyer with Tucker, as the main star Tucker gone, makes it more of an appealing media company to buy Daily Mail. Said Fox did not give any reason for the departure of their most watched news anchor. They then quote the GRA or the Fox News announcement that we already read. One senior staffer who worked closely with his show told Daily Mail that they were all stunned by the news. No one I know was told about it beforehand. We were blindsided. The employees said and then they go on and on with the speculations that we already, that we already discussed.  

Here’s what I will say. The tie-in that I think exists between Fox firing Tucker Carlson and Fox settling with Dominion Lawsuit is just a way for the board. So the board at Fox, like the people on the board at Fox are very anti-Trump. They’re very establishment Republican. They’re very like, it’s Paul Ryan, right? They’re very, they’re very Liz Cheney style style Republicans. They don’t like the new right? They don’t like based conservatism. They don’t like, they don’t like anything that has to do with not just populism, but anything that is associated in any way, shape or form with Donald Trump or with the social con the resurgence of social conservatism that has come with people’s renewed understanding that the fundamental heritage of conservatism is not libertarianism, but is ordered liberty. This is not something re the Republican establishment likes. The Republican establishment just wants to, you know, be economic conservatives and build up the military industrial complex.  

They don’t actually want to fight the cultural Marxism that is threatening our nation. So the board perhaps wanted to get rid of Tucker Carlson for a long time because he’s fundamentally opposed to what they, what they, what they like, what they believe. And again, another report, another rumor, whatever you wanna call it. But reportedly, the board used Dominion as a possible excuse why they could make the argument to Rupert Murdoch that they could fire Tucker Carlson. That they used the Dominion settlement as a cost analysis saying, listen, Tucker Carlson and others, but prominently Tucker Carlson is costing us this amount of money they had. Fox is facing another lawsuit, by the way, from a different voting machine company, I think it’s called Smart Amatic. And that the board presented Rupert Murdoch with this cost saying, listen, it’s not worth it. He’s costing us this amount of money.  

Again, I don’t know if that element of it is true. I think the real issue behind this is Tucker Carlson’s coverage of January 6th, right? Rupert Murdoch, and this is, again, this part is publicly reported. Rupert Murdoch did not like Tucker Carlson’s continued coverage of January 6th. Carlson has been clearly the most prominent, loudest voice speaking truth about January 6th and the reality of what actually happened on January 6th and the aftermath. I mean, he aired those, those videos that refuted every single talking point that the Left has propagated since January 6th actually happened. Apparently Rupert Murdoch didn’t like that, didn’t like that at all. So it makes, it makes the, it makes the report from the source close to Tucker that he was gonna talk about Ray Apps in January 6th and 60 minutes. It makes that much more realistic If Murdoch already didn’t, like when Tucker Carlson was talking about January 6th, if he was gonna talk about Ray Epps again.  

Maybe that was that, right? This is, this is kind of Rupert Murdoch’s M.O. If you look over the, if you look at the history of Fox News and how Rupert Murdoch has handled talent, he seems to have a pretty high tolerance for like, issues with talent, a pretty high tolerance for them doing things that he doesn’t like. And then suddenly he’s just like, had enough, suddenly he has enough. And so it is sometimes he’ll, he’ll in the, this is the history his history with Fox News talent. Sometimes it seems that he’ll fire people at a time that you’re like, oh, what, what did I do today? What was the problem? What was the controversy? And it isn’t actually related to something that happened, right? Then he just reaches the level where he’s like, Nope, I’m done. I’m done with this.  

I want someone new. This is not just his M.O. in business, by the way. This is also his M.O. in his personal life. He divorced his fourth wife with a text message. She was waiting for him at like their vacation house. And he divorced her just by saying like, my lawyers are lawyers will be reaching out. I’m sorry to do it this way, but I just have a very busy day. This is just like, whoa, with this guy. And so perhaps that’s what it was. Perhaps it was just like, okay, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, if you will, that he was already annoyed with Tucker for other reasons. And this was just like, okay, I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough. In my opinion, in my opinion, tugger Carlson’s January 6th coverage has been some of the most important coverage of any media coverage in modern history of any issue.  

Because January 6th is really the crux of what our government is doing to our people. It’s the crux of how the Left and the elites think of us and what they’re willing to do in order to force their agenda on us. That they’re willing to agitate and frame citizens, imprison them without trial, convict them on charges that are absolutely bogus to in order to paint them as terrorists in order to then deprive them of their protected constitutional rights just because they dared to oppose the politics of the radical left. Like the January 6th stuff is the crux. And if we are successful in exposing the operation behind January 6th, which Tugger Carlson has been successful in doing, then this is a massive threat to the deep state. This is a massive threat to the quote unquote regime, right? This, this ad admin, the administrative state, and the swamp creatures and the establishment Republicans and the Leftists who just hate us.  

They hate our constitution, they hate our country, and they’re looking for a way to subvert it. January 6th is that key point. So Tucker has been incredibly successful in exposing people in power for their abuse of power. More successful than anyone I can think of with Covid. With Electioneering that happened around 2020 with the border, the southern border with January 6th with, with the transgender issue, especially with Ukraine war. That’s the reason why, that’s the reason why he was, he’s so reviled by not just the Left, but so many on the right, because he’s actually a threat to those who right now are controlling us, who right now hold the power in our country. So I’m sure as the day moves on or as the, as time goes on, we’ll be able to sort what’s rumor and what’s, what’s truth, what’s reality about why Tucker Carlson was fired.  

I imagine that he will at some point speak out on this, although, of course, NDAs prohibit people from, from really dishing on the juicy stuff. But I don’t know who’s gonna replace Tucker Carlson at Fox News. You know, this is this, there were some people to, or yesterday who were saying, like, when Bill O’Reilly was fired and Megan Kelly chose to leave Fox News, a lot of people said, oh, this is the end for Fox News. And it wasn’t. But that was different. I think it was different because Fox News had, Fox News had a very deep bench of really solid conservatives at that point, and I’m not sure that they do anymore. With all due respect to the lovely people, some of whom are I’m friends with at Fox News, they don’t have a deep bench of based people. They have a few based people, but they don’t have a very deep bench.  

So I’m not sure who, I’m not sure who’s gonna replace Tucker Carlson. And what’s more, this gets back to the cable, the cable news conversation that I mentioned at the very beginning. I’m not sure that this is just a matter of, oh, will Tucker Carlson viewers stick around to watch whoever the replacement host is at 8:00 PM The cable news industry has faced their mortality for the last 10 years, and they haven’t faced it. Well, the reality of what cable news is facing is that their viewer demographic is in their late sixties and early seventies. They’re not gonna be around forever. And the cable news model has not adapted to new media. It hasn’t adapted to how millennials liked to get their news when millennials were like the young generation, which was on short clips and on their phones on YouTube.  

It certainly hasn’t adapted to how Gen Z gets their news, which is on TikTok and Snapchat and these other type of, these other types of apps that just give it in, give news in little bits and pieces. Cable news has never adapted to this. So as their viewer demographic has aged, they have not recruited new viewers to replace those who are aging out. This is, this is a fundamental threat to their business model. Of course, you can’t have a business if you don’t have consumers. What they did, what they did is they tried to put their content, their hour, their hour long cable news shows on apps so that you could view it on your show, but not the same, but still at the same time that it airs live not on demand like millennials, like not in small chunks like Gen Z, like they just didn’t adapt properly.  

Basically. That’s why we saw CNN plus like go up in flames because no one wanted it, no one was interested in it. A lot of conservatives have cut the cord on cable because they think cable news is trash, not just cable news. Cable in general. Cable programming is trash. Cable news isn’t what they wanna watch anymore. They’ve cut the cable and they just do on demand services. And I think what we’re about to see is an acceleration of the death of cable news, or at least an acceleration of the crisis moment for cable news. Because what’s about to happen is conservatives who only had cable news because of Tucker Carlson, not because of Fox News as a whole, but only because of Tucker Carlson are gonna cancel their subscriptions. They don’t watch anything else on cable. They are not loyal enough to Fox as a brand anymore.  

They were just loyal to Tucker Carlson. They’re gonna start canceling their subscriptions. And so we’re gonna see this parallel economy emerge a parallel economy that where conservatives don’t have ca don’t have cable at all, and liberals do, but it’s not gonna, even the liberals who do have cable aren’t going to support cnn n and m msn BBC because CNN and MSNBC, half of their programming is just bashing Fox News, right? Half of their programming is refuting just Tucker Carlson, not Fox News in general, but just Tucker Carlson. And without a sparring partner, that business model also becomes obsolete. Plus it’s just the aging viewer demographic. So I don’t think this is just a crisis moment for Fox News itself and its brand and their brand. I think this is a crisis moment for cable news in general, for cable news as a whole.  

And I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but it’s one of the reasons that I left Cable news. I know a lot of people ask me at the time, like, why are you leaving cable news? Why are you going independent? That’s a huge risk. And it is, it was a huge risk. And guess it’s not a risk anymore because we’ve been very fortunate with your help to be successful. But it was a huge risk at the time to leave cable news, to leave the security of that paycheck, to start your business, your own company and like, and invest and see is this something that consumers want? Is this gonna be, is this gonna be financially feasible? Is this gonna be as successful, you know, as the paycheck that you get from cable news? But one of the reasons that I made that decision and that I was so confident in that decision is because I could see the writing on the wall with cable news.  

I could see that while it’s very valuable to talk to a loyal audience, I’m not trying to write off, you know, boomers who watch cable news in any way, shape or form. They’re very valuable voters. They’re, they have enormous contributions still to make to our country. I could see that if we want to impact not just those voters who usually are pretty set in the way that they vote, they’re loyal to one party or the other. If we wanna shape the minds of the next generation of voters who eventually are going to be the ones governing our country, then we have to go to the media platform where they exist already. We’re not gonna just convince them to watch cable news. In fact, even Tucker Carlson didn’t really convince young people to watch his show. His team just put his, just put his show on, usually on Twitter.  

And young people saw it on there. So it’s really a savvy social media team versus him recruiting young people to come to watch cable news in general. But I saw what, three years ago, and that was after years of observation, that if we really want to influence the course of our nation, then we’re gonna have to go to where young people are, which is this kind of platform. It’s a much more relatable type of platform. Or you’re having a conversation, you’re thinking, you’re sharing your thought process, you’re working through these issues side by side with, you know, viewers that actually become partners in your show versus just lecturing a television set, if you will, lecturing from a teleprompter to this sort of faceless void. It’s an entirely different, kind, more personal, more intimate platform. And it maybe that’s ironic given that millennials and Gen Z have such a hard time making personal connections, but they crave that.  

And this has been a very effective platform. Podcasting in general has been a very effective platform. So cable news hasn’t quite adapted to that. They haven’t adapted actually at all to that. They haven’t adapted well to this changing, this changing media landscape and the new generations and how millennials and Gen Z want to consume their media. So Tucker Carlson leaving is going to massively make that critical moment more urgent and more immediate. One thing, oh, I do wanna touch on this Don Lemon thing. The Don Lemon thing. Oh, this is so funny. When Don Lemon, when it was announced that Don Lemon was fired from CNN, I gotta tell you what my reaction was. I laughed, not because I’m happy when someone loses their job. I laughed because I just had this picture of inside CNN where someone at CNN was like, oh my gosh, Tucker Carlson is fired and someone else goes quick, find a unlimited fire him.  

Cuz this is the one day that no one will care at all about Don Lemon because everyone’s talking about Tucker Carlson. Don Lemon released a statement, which such an inadvisable statement. Like, it doesn’t matter how poorly things end at a network, or at any job really. It’s just inadvisable to trash your former employer. This is what Don Lemon said. I was informed this morning by my agent that I’ve been terminated by CNN I’m stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would’ve thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I’ve loved at the network. It’s clear that there are some larger issues at play. With that said, I wanna thank my colleagues and the many teams I’ve worked with for an incredible run. They’re the most talented journalists in the business and I wish them all the best. So that happened. But then this is the funny part. CNN communications, their PR team tweeted this, let me bring this up and read this to you. They said, 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.  

Not just funny, extra funny that CNN n is calling out their employee of 17 years for being a liar, a propagator of misinformation and fake news. It only took them 17 years to figure it out. Gotta say CNN executives, let’s just say aren’t the brightest bulbs in the lamp. I don’t think the two things have anything to do with each other except, except in my scenario, in my little imaginary scenario in my head where I see these CNN people that are like, quick fired on Lemon, fired on Lemon today while everyone’s paying attention to Tucker s Carlson so that we are not dominating the news cycle. Here’s an idea, here’s an idea for Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon. They should do Tucker and Don, they remember a couple weeks ago, Tucker Carlson was talking about how he hoped Don Lemon wouldn’t be fired because he just loves Don Laman.  

He said he just, he just can’t stand how super silly Don Lemon is, but he just, he loves him. Anyway, that would be the funniest show. I would subscribe to that show. What the note I wanna leave you on tonight is Tucker Carlson’s gonna be totally fine. He’s just the most talented person in media today. He’s also incredibly insightful and outside of the newsroom or outside of the studio. He’s just a nice person. He is a nice person to fans and to the public. And I want to show you a video that resurfaced today in the wake of him being fired from Fox News. This was from a couple years ago when a YouTuber caught him, not caught him, but tr started videotaping him fishing in New York, started videotaping him without his permission. And instead of acting rude to the guy, Tucker Carlson completely charmed him and won him over just by being a nice guy. So I thought you might want to watch it take a look.  

How you doing?  

Great.  

I didn’t know you could fish here. What is that? Huh?  

What is that? What is that?  

It’s called the video camera. Oh, what? I didn’t know. You could fish here. You can, you can. Yeah. What are you fishing for?  

Are you videotaping  

Me? Yeah. Why? Because you’re in public. I can.  

Well, I know you can. I, okay. I’m not challenging you. Right. I just wanna  

Know why you are. I find it interesting that you’re fishing in Central Park.  

Oh yeah. It’s absolutely allowed. Okay. It’s allowed in three ponds. It’s allowed in the pond.  

I’ve never seen anybody fish here before. I videotaped that, which I find interesting and unique about the city of New York. Well,  

It’s a good thing. Yeah, you can, you can go right on the Central Park website. Okay. And also you can fish in the mirror.  

Yeah. No, I’m not challenging the fact that you can. I’m just curious. I’ve never seen anybody fishing. It’s  

Not very good fishing and there are too many  

People around. What kind of fish are there?  

There are largemouth bass  

In this thing here. Yep. And what do you use for bait?  

I’m wifi fish, so I use flies.  

Do you catch the flies yourself?  

No flies or I’ll show you.  

Oh, those other things you make you Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. The string. I’m stupid. I don’t, I don’t fly fish. It’s all  

Right. Most people don’t.  

I’ve been like deep, you know, seawater, you know, deep sea fishing on party boats and such friend boats. Oh, okay.  

See? And you tie them. Yeah. Yeah.  

You tie your own flies. I do. Yeah. You do. Where’d you grow up?  

Uh, I grew up in California.  

Yeah. You did a lot of fly fishing out there? Not really, no. But  

I learned in later life and it’s a great pleasure and a great sport.  

It’s like relaxing, right? Very.  

And you know, you  

Live in New York now?  

No. Well I do live here part-time  

Actually. Okay.  

I can tell by your manner that you’re from New York.  

Get the hell outta here because in my accent  

It’s everything about you. I would say so when you videotape people, and I don’t  

Mind, right.  

But I bet you some people do.  

Yeah. They assault me sometimes. Is that true? Yeah. It makes me a good video though.  

What do you do with the video?  

I put it up on my channel. I have a lot of people to follow me.  

I mean, you gotta give it to Tucker. He just like charmed the guy and made it deescalated and avoided that confrontation. That could have been something nasty because the guy was obviously like a jerk. That’s a jerk, rude thing to do, right? To videotape someone trying to annoy them. Trying to get a video. But saw that video thought you guys might wanna know. Listen, I support Tucker Carlson a hundred percent. I think he’s the most talented. I said this before. He is the most talented person in media today. He’s incredibly insightful and most importantly, he’s committed to his principles, which is not something that can be said for unfortunately, very many people in politics and media today. He’s gonna land on his feet. I wish him success and I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do next. Thank you for watching today. Thank you for listening. I’m Liz Wheeler. This is The Liz Wheeler Show.