by WorldTribune Staff, April 25, 2023
As leftists applauded and took credit for the highest profile “deplatforming” ever, and amid all of the rumors and speculation following Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News, the Babylon Bee once again nailed it.
“Fox News Fires The Only Reason People Watch Fox News”, the satire site posted on Monday as news broke of Fox’s firing the host of the top rated show in cable news.
Trump White House chief adviser Steve Bannon said that the higher ups at Fox wanted Carlson, a leading prime time populist voice, off the airwaves for the 2024 election.
“They pay him out under the terms (of his contract) because they don’t want to set up their competitors,” Bannon said. “They pay him out the $20 million. He doesn’t have the option of going somewhere else. This is to take the voice of Populism and the voice of MAGA off of prime time. As I said … if DeSantis is not the guy to do it, they’ll find Glenn Youngkin or Tim Scott or Brian Kemp. They’ll find anybody to chop-block Trump in the primary. If that doesn’t work, they’ll get in back of Joe Biden. Right? And it’s all about stopping Trump and stopping MAGA.”
Bannon added: “If you look at the punch list of what he (Carlson) covers, it’s amazing. They want that off primetime. They don’t want to give any support to Trump.”
The Washington Post reported that Carlson’s comments about management, revealed in the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems “played a role in his departure.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that “Carlson’s exit is related to the discrimination lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg,” a producer fired last month, and that the decision to fire Carlson came from Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch.
“This lady had one purpose and one purpose only when she applied for a job at Fox News,” a post to Telegram noted.
Here’s how Grossberg responded on Twitter:
@TuckerCarlson and apparently Justin Wells’s departure from @FoxNews is a step towards accountability for the election lies and baseless conspiracy theories spread by the network, something I witnessed firsthand there…
— Abby Grossberg (@abby_grossberg) April 24, 2023
New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shined up her socialists credentials by proclaiming: “Deplatforming works and is important.”
A populist Republicans, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, responded: “It’s pretty funny that AOC celebrates Tucker being de-platformed while also bowing down to her party that won’t host a single presidential primary debate to allow anyone or any minority a chance against the old white man she supports. I laugh at her hypocrisy.”
Gabriel Sherman, a special correspondent at Vanity Fair, reported: “On Monday morning, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott called Carlson and informed him he was being taken off the air, and his Fox News email account was shut off. According to a source briefed on the conversation, Carlson was stunned by his sudden ouster from his 8 p.m. show, the most watched program in cable news last month. Carlson was in the midst of negotiating the renewal of his Fox News contract through 2029, the source said. As of last week, Carlson had told people he expected the contract to be renewed.”
The Babylon Bee’s take was better, and, some observers say, likely more accurate than Vanity Fair’s: “Yes, we realize he delivered the most successful cable news program of all time, but we felt embarrassed by him at our Manhattan cocktail parties,” said Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott. “When we tried to get invited to fancy, sophisticated gatherings, people said: ‘Ewwww, aren’t you the Tucker Carlson people?’ and that made us feel sad. Curse you, Tucker, for making us feel sad!”
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