He's Back ... But Not For Long
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Summary
Tucker Carlson is back, and he's back with a new show on a new platform. He's also threatening a lawsuit against Fox News for what he says are false and defamatory accusations made against him by the network.
Transcript
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Hello again. This is Richard, and this is another entry in my journal. I'm going to
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talk once again about Tucker Carlson. So Tucker has made news once again. He's back. We're
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back was in fact the tweet that he released this afternoon, and he included a video in
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which he recited yet more platitudes on about how the media just isn't fair, and you're
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not getting the truth, and things like that. He did say some true things, to be fair, about
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the media selecting facts to report on, and so on. And the fact that Twitter as a platform
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is reactionary. It's simply commenting on the news that is relayed to people via cable
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news in many cases. All true. And he also announced that he will be continuing his show. That seems
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to be what he implied, is that he will have a show much like he did for the last four or
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so years on Fox News. But he will be doing it on a new platform. Twitter. I thought that
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Twitter had hired him as talent, much like Rumble hired Steven Crowder and Substack paid Matt
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Taibbi or something like that. But apparently that isn't quite the case. So Elon Musk tweeted
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a few minutes or so afterwards saying that there is no contract with Tucker. So he is using
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the Twitter platform just like anyone else will. And he could get subscribers and monetization
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and so on. So that's interesting. So Twitter isn't quite becoming a content producer, as I thought
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they might, a publisher. They are remaining a platform, but there's no doubt that there were
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some, I don't know, text exchanged or some behind the scenes dealings between Elon and Tucker.
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But regardless, he will be on the platform and act like any other creator. And I think that's
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really his ultimate problem. And I don't think Tucker will go very far with this. And I think he will
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increasingly fade into irrelevancy, at least with regard to where he was previously. Now,
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of course, I'm sure he can produce a lot of shows. I'm sure these can be successful. But I don't
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think he will ever be the figure that he once was. And I'll explain that a little bit later.
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Now, Tucker also did some things today. He made some news in some other ways. And he is threatening
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a lawsuit against Fox News. He is claiming a couple of things, some of which I think are accurate,
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some of which I think are a bit dubious. What is accurate is that Fox is, in effect, in breach of
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its contract by posting videos that are meant to demean him. And it does seem likely, I don't know for
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sure. But it seems likely that Fox News was the one who leaked some text messages that might have gone to
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trial. I think they were actually suppressed from the trial. But anyway, some text messages, and this
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is, these include the that's not how white men fight line, in which Tucker expressed those sentiments,
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but then also expressed how the fact that, you know, rooting on white people vis-a-vis Antifa is
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actually soul destroying on some level. Fox News is likely behind the leaks of some of these behind
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the scenes videos of Tucker just being very casual, maybe being a bit blunt or crass on occasion, but not
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really doing anything all too terrible in my mind. In fact, those other videos he leaked
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made him seem, I don't know, relatable or cool or something. Perhaps you should thank Fox News.
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The other thing that he claimed that I find, I find pretty dubious, to be honest, is that firing Tucker
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was part of the Dominion lawsuit. So there was some agreement, I don't know if it was on paper or not,
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that for Fox News to pay Dominion three quarters of a billion dollars, but then not fully admit
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wrongdoing, which they didn't. They didn't come out and flatly say, it was all a lie, we knew it was a
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lie, and we recklessly and maliciously spread a lie. Fox News did not say that, even though that was
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implied, I guess, by their massive settlement with Dominion. Tucker claims that someone on the board
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told him that he was fired as part of the settlement. Now, I'm not sure I believe this.
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I'm wondering if this were, I don't know. I just don't fully believe that something like that took
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place. Now, it does raise the question of why exactly was Tucker fired. I think there are many
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different reasons, some of which might have been the, you know, that's not how white men fight
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text, some of which might, might be, might be related to Rupert Murdoch's calling off his marriage
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with, I don't know, which is his third, fourth, fifth wife, one of those, because she was a little
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bit too Christian-y for his taste, a little bit too wacky, and she was making claims like Tucker Carlson
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is a sent from God or a messiah of some kind. It was probably a combination of different factors.
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I'm just not sure I believe that Dominion forced him out, and that was part of the settlement. I find
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that dubious, but we'll find out. There's also the issue of, is Tucker also breaking the contract?
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Now, Tucker could say Fox broke it first, but is Tucker also breaking the contract?
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By starting a new program. Well, you know, is being a content creator on social media, is,
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is that, is that something that was in the contract? I don't know, it might have been.
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Tucker would go on other people's podcasts, but he wasn't actively making content. He didn't have
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his own podcasts say, so we'll see. Regardless, I, you know, I think non-compete clauses are, I guess,
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understandable from a corporation's perspective, but not, not something I'm too fond of. I hope Tucker,
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you know, he's a citizen. He can go out there and speak his truth. But I ultimately don't think he will
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be terribly successful at this. And I, I think people who claim that he is going to be, you know,
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bigger than ever, and this will free him and all that kind of stuff. I, I think those people are
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a bit delusional and they misunderstand the dynamic at place. And in a way they misunderstand why they
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themselves liked Tucker. So let me explain. I am fond of using the phrase, a feature, not a bug.
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And I, I invented that phrase. That's probably what Trump would say. No, I didn't invent it,
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but I'm fond of using it. And, you know, I, I use it in particular with Trump where, you know,
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a lot of liberal types will look at something like say the Alvin Bragg, um, lawsuit in New York
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over hush money payments and say like, Oh, well, no one could vote for him knowing that he's indicted
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on, uh, both misdemeanors and criminal charges. Well, they, that, that kind of a, a, a, a criminal
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charge like that Trump being arraigned, it's kind of a feature and not a bug of the whole Trump
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movement in the sense that he can flip that around and say, no, this is part of the, this is part of
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the great witch hunt against me. They all hate me. They want to destroy your favorite president,
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all that kind of stuff. So in a way, the bug is the feature and you can go, I think this phrase
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fits Trump to a T, uh, for almost everything about him. He was popular because he was vulgar,
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not despite it. He was popular because he wasn't a politician with an agenda, but because he was
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actually a reality show star who would go on worldwide wrestling events and make a jackass of
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himself. All of those bugs were in fact features. So that's what I mean by a phrase like this. And
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so why am I using that phrase vis-a-vis Tucker and Fox? So Fox news has a lot of problems. And in fact,
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you can look at it and say that it is a dying business that is going to be sunset within say my
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lifetime. It's probably going to be around another 25 years, but it's ultimate business model is not
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sustainable. People are moving away from cable in general. They are cutting the cord. They're not
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necessarily even saving money, but they are moving to Netflix, to HBO Max, to YouTube, uh, et cetera. They're
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getting on-demand content or subscription based content from the web. Surely you've heard about this trend
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as it is massive. Fox is live television. Now Fox has made little forays into Fox nation and things like
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that. According to Tucker, those weren't particularly successful. And so you have this ancient audience that
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that is still watching Fox news. And it's a very real thing. I mean, I, I remember going
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to a man's house. It was his ranch out in Texas. And, uh, he was one of these right winger types and
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someone connected me with him. This was many years ago, I think 10 or 12 years ago. And it's like,
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Oh, this guy will fund what you're doing. And, uh, needless to say, he didn't, um,
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we're just going off in completely different directions. I was not doing what he wanted,
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but anyway, I visited with him and he was very wealthy guy. And you know, Fox news, I can just
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remember was, was playing in the background throughout this large house. So it was like Fox
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news was murmuring in every room of this large house, almost like sending subliminal messages.
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You, you didn't even quite hear what segment was playing, but it was kind of going on. You'd hear
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little bits and pieces or see flashing images there. Boomers love TV. Boomers grew up on TV.
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Uh, I think there's a certain authority that boomers give TV due to their childhoods and upbringings.
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Zoomers are not like that. Zoomers are much more likely to check out Twitter or Snapchat,
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probably not Twitter as much Snapchat, watch a live stream, uh, post their own, you know,
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nonsense somewhere comment on a website. I mean that, that is what they are about. And they are
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certainly much more likely to subscribe to Netflix than Fox news, subscribe to Netflix, of course,
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using their parents, uh, password. So things are dramatically changing and Fox has this ancient
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audience. So I remember seeing reports of the demographic background, uh, breakdown of Fox news
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watchers, uh, probably like five years ago. And it was actually shocking. It was even, uh, older than I
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would have imagined. All of these shows basically have 70 and 70 plus audiences.
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And Tucker was a little bit different in the sense that he was popular, maybe just simply due to the
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fact that he isn't too old. He's in his fifties. He kind of, I don't know, seems maybe even a little
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bit younger than that, but he was attracting more of that coveted. I forgot what it is like 25 to 55
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audience, basically, um, people who are in the prime of their careers and who are more likely to buy
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expensive stuff. So advertisers like them now Fox didn't really need that demographic because the way
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Fox seceded was through carriage fees. So effectively, you know, I have not subscribed to cable news or
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cable in general for well over a decade. I mean, we, good Lord, we might be going on 20 years at this
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point. I think we are. Um, and you, whenever you subscribe to cable and you know, it's, it's like
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this now, it was like this 20 years ago, you would choose these packages. So do you want the basic
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package or do you want the package with HBO or do you want this other package with national geographic or
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what have you? And they would advertise kind of the top channels in that package. Well, in the,
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the basic passage package, or maybe the step up, there was Fox news. And so you were in effect paying
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for Fox news, even if you hated Fox news and these carriage fees were the basis of Fox news revenue.
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Well, I think in a way that business model almost makes it worse in the sense of the long-term trajectory
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of something like Fox. Now it makes it better in the sense that you can have a 70 plus audience and
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still get charged these carriage fees because that 70 plus audience, they want to subscribe to cable.
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They might not be in the market for a new car. They might not want to buy the latest fashion trend
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or whatever, but they definitely want to watch the tube and they want to have Fox news murmuring in the
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background of their house at all times. And of course they might very well buy pillows. Uh, so much of the
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advertisement on Fox was for, uh, adult diapers, reverse mortgages and pillows. So you could, you know,
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drift off to sleep and maybe not wake up anyway, that's the audience. Now, as I mentioned, these kinds of
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things can be features and they can be bugs. Now, let me ask a few rhetorical questions. You know, is Tucker a
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really brilliant journalist? Well, yes and no. He actually was pretty good at long form journalism back in the
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day. He did write that kind of thing for the weekly standard among other places when he was kind of a young neocon
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of sorts, uh, supporting the Iraq war, by the way. Um, he's also a good presenter. So if you look at some
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of these people who have replaced him, they really can't get a hit in the big leagues. You know, they,
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they just can't quite do what he can do. He is smart and better at all of this kind of stuff.
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So he doesn't have really any great competition from, uh, I don't know. I can't even name the names.
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I think, uh, Kaylee McInerney is, is hosting now. There was some other guy, a conservative black guy
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from Texas who I think was not doing very well at all. So Brian Killamide, no charisma, although
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competent. I mean, they just don't really have what Tucker has. So he's good. But as
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one content creator among many, he's really not that great. And I think so much of Tucker's success
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from the perspective of say right-wing Twitter, which love Tucker and Tucker loved them. I mean,
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he would pander to them. In fact, Tucker was powerful because he was on Fox news. He wasn't
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powerful, say in spite of the fact that he was on Fox and he was, you know, on this neocon boomer
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channel. He was popular because of that. And you have to understand that dynamic. So Tucker was a
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gen X figure. He was kind of a boomer whisperer, even maybe even a silent gen whisperer, knowing Fox's
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audience. And so much of the love for him wasn't really exactly what he said. You could get that
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elsewhere. It was the fact that Tucker was saying it and he was saying it to boomers. In this way,
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he was red-pilling the normies, which is this long-term fantasy of right-wingers in general and
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the dissident right in particular. We don't want to scare anyone with highfalutin theory.
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We don't want to scare anyone with crazy gas chamber memes being posted on 4chan. We don't want
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to scare anyone with anything a little bit too nuanced or complicated, but we want to kind of
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slowly red-pill them, slowly move the Overton window rightward. So yeah, Tucker kind of
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misrepresents or twists the Great Replacement theory because he's talking about election
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integrity and, you know, blacks being the main victim of the Great Replacement, all that kind
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of stuff. Yeah. But, you know, he's kind of shifting the Overton window forward. He's red-pilling
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the normies. That is what the dissident right wanted. That's why they love Tucker. And that's
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why, again, Tucker loved them, because he could play to them in that fashion as a boomer whisperer.
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Tucker, on his own, isn't really doing that. And he might very well get a ton of views. For instance,
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he got millions of views in these brief and platitudinous videos that he posted.
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But what is that, really? Lots of people are getting millions of views. And I'm going to use
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an example that just came to mind. But you know what I'm talking about. There are countless other
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examples. If you ever go to YouTube trending and things like that, or look at some of these massive
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videos that are getting millions upon millions of views, that is much larger audiences than those
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people who watch Anderson Cooper or Tucker Carlson on cable news. There are videos about, you know,
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Spider-Man or videos unboxing or some crazy videos of what's it like to go in a bubble bounce or
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whatever. It's just, you know, strange pimple popping videos. I mean, I could go on. It's just this
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And so, Tucker getting, you know, like, a million watches on a Twitter platform isn't that big of a
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deal, really. Because he no longer has that dynamic of, I'm whispering to the boomers. He's simply one
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among many other content creators. And we can look at some examples of big people who left Fox News,
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and became one among many journalists and basically faded from relevance. It's not that
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they're bad. It's just they're ultimately not that great. Bill O'Reilly comes to mind. So Bill O'Reilly
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was pushed out in 2017. He was actually replaced by Tucker. He was absolutely unquestionably the most
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dominant force in cable news for well over a decade. He was hugely powerful during the George W. Bush
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administration. He was a kingmaker of sorts in the GOP. And as Tucker himself said in some of these
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interviews, he could kind of present himself as, oh, just an average guy. You know, I'm just, I'm speaking
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for the peeps here. But everyone knew what he was really aligned with. Well, he had a very embarrassing
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situation on his hands of being accused of sexual harassment and unwanted messages and photos and
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just general grossness. Fox didn't want to deal with all these, you know, impending lawsuits and the
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embarrassment at all. They just cut loose. Well, Bill O'Reilly is still around. And I've no doubt
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that he gets a lot of views on his YouTube channel. But he is totally irrelevant. No one really talks
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about Bill O'Reilly. It's not that Bill O'Reilly is dumb or incompetent. It's just that he's one among
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many. And he doesn't really have a unique voice. Megan Kelly, similar to Bill O'Reilly, engaged in some
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race baiting activities. Again, similar to Tucker Carlson. She was infamous for claiming demand or
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asserting, demanding that everyone listen, that Santa Claus is in fact white. She was a big figure,
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not quite the figure that Bill O'Reilly and Tucker was. It's an interesting story just to go off on a
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little bit of a tangent here. So Megan Kelly in the Trump years was thought of as this kind of,
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you know, liberal bitch who hated Trump because she went after him during a Fox News debate,
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which she co-hosted or moderated. That was, I think people have short memories about this.
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After Trump won the Republican nomination, and certainly after he became president, Fox News did
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become Trump TV in effect. I mean, it was all Trump all the time and everything that Trump could ever do
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was good. It was his propaganda network. Before that, it was not. It was anti-Trump,
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if anything, and pro-Cruz. A lot of these people who became Trump sycophants started out as Trump
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haters. Michelle Malkin comes to mind. Many people who Trump appointed to his administration come to
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mind. John Bolton, et cetera, et cetera. So it was, Fox was never Trump. And then it was wildly
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pro-Trump. And then it's kind of was never Trump there again for a little bit. But anyway,
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Megan Kelly has a show on YouTube. It's one among many. It's really not that great. It's kind of like
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a nicer version, a pretty face and a female voice of Matt Walsh tier stuff. Again, she's not bad.
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She's not really relevant because you can get this stuff elsewhere. And she's not that insightful.
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She doesn't really have a niche. She's just a right of center conservative who's going to talk
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about the transgender issue a little bit and so on. I mean, you can find this anywhere. It's not
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really unique and differentiated. And I don't think Tucker will be either. Because again,
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the feature is a bug. What made Tucker fascinating and what made people want to talk about him
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on the distant right, but also the left is this notion that he's red pilling the normies,
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that he's reaching these boomers and silent gen people via the platform. Tucker on his own,
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not too interesting. So I ultimately predict he'll probably be pretty successful with the Twitter
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show. But I don't think he'll ever have the relevance that he once had. All right, I'll talk to you guys