--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for this show comes from ServiceNow. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into, don't you know? That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 use the ServiceNow AI platform. Didn't know that. While other platforms duct tape tools together, ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data, workflows, and AI, connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters most. I've never met an AI agent. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at servicenow.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All right, Eric Wemple, as the media critic at The Washington Post, can you describe Tucker Carlson for me in one word?
--:-- Eric Wemple: I would describe Tucker Carlson with one word as mendacious.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And if you had another word?
--:-- Eric Wemple: Intelligent.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Rule of three, one last word.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And ruthless. Mendacious, intelligent, ruthless.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What if I gave you a few words? What space does Tucker Carlson occupy in the American imagination right now?
--:-- Eric Wemple: I believe he is viewed among Trump supporters as a truth teller. Really tells it like it is. This is America. We're allowed to disagree with what our leaders do however we like. And we're allowed to express that disagreement in public. That's our birthright.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Has no allies in Washington. He's a guy who grew up with the ruling class, you know, in San Diego, in Georgetown, but has grown to despise them and is one of the few people who's willing to call them out for their hypocrisy and for their hollowness and for their fecklessness. We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule. They're day traders, substitute teachers. They're just passing through. They can't solve our problems. They don't even bother to understand our problems.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he has succeeded, at least with enough people, to make his show in the second quarter of 2020 the highest-rated cable news show ever. Ever. Not just right now, but ever. That is a record. It is 4.331 million viewers on average per night over the course of the second quarter of 2020. And of course, that covered coronavirus, and that covered the George Floyd killing in police custody that drew an enormous and righteous backlash, a protest movement.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson Tonight. Here's a funny thing that we noticed the other day. So how exactly does the highest-rated cable news show ever and its host land in hot water a week or so ago?
--:-- Eric Wemple: It's important to note that Tucker Carlson lives in hot water as a Fox News host, okay? And what happened here essentially was that CNN disclosed that the person who claimed to write every first draft of Tucker Carlson's segments had been writing racist, sexist, homophobic remarks of the most vile sort on a website called Auto Admit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the comments from this person were so vile as to, you know, not really be even repeatable on my platform, which is the Washington Post.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Here's an example. He responded to a thread in which someone asked, quote, and this is really offensive, so just prepare yourself, Would you let a jet black Congo N-word do LASIK eye surgery on you for 50% off? To which Tucker Carlson's top writer responded, I would not get LASIK from an Asian for free, so no.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There was also just the most sexist and misogynistic thread where this fellow posted information from a woman who follows him on Facebook, mocking her and exposing her to ridicule.
--:-- Eric Wemple: You know, the thing that makes me wonder about this fellow, He's a Dartmouth graduate, relatively young. And obviously he had a platform on Tucker Carlson tonight in the sense that he wrote the first draft for all of these segments. Those segments go out to millions of viewers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And you know what? We don't know for sure if this writer had actually written the monologues that the president has shared. But Trump does share a lot of Tucker Carlson's monologues.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Yet he felt the compulsion to post all these comments sort of in their unvarnished form on this hate site. And, you know, you got to wonder why. What gives a person that sort of motivation?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't have the answer to that. But it's clear that, you know, many people on Twitter basically said, and this is kind of a cliche, he was saying the quiet part out loud.
--:-- Eric Wemple: One of the comments that you uncovered, black dudes staying inside playing Call of Duty is probably one of the biggest factors keeping crime down.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: From my analysis of Tucker Carlson's show, this fellow was merely taking what he said on this hate site and sanding off the edges for presentation on Tucker Carlson tonight.
--:-- Eric Wemple: So what does Fox News do once the out loud part is revealed?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Fox News media strongly condemns this horrific racist, misogynistic, and homophobic behavior. Neff's abhorrent conduct on this forum was never divulged to the show or the network until Friday, at which point we swiftly accepted his resignation.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Make no mistake, actions such as his cannot and will not be tolerated at any time in any part of our workforce.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But then they let Tucker address this matter on Monday night and they slinked away.
--:-- Eric Wemple: We want to say a couple of things about this. First, what Blake wrote anonymously was wrong. We don't endorse those words. They have no connection to the show. It is wrong to attack people for qualities they cannot control.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, he never even said what Fox News said, which is that they are racist, sexist, and homophobic.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And then he lashed out at the people who had brought it to light and who had been discussing it on social media.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But we should also point out to the ghouls now beating their chests in triumph at the destruction of a young man, that self-righteousness also has its costs.
--:-- Eric Wemple: We are all human. When we pretend we are holy, we are lying. When we pose as blameless in order to hurt other people, we are committing the gravest sin of all, and we will be punished for it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's no question.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And in my view, what he showed more than anything was, one, he didn't really view this as a scandal. Two, he has no respect for his audience because he cared not to inform them of what had happened.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And three, he was utterly unapologetic about the situation.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And it affirmed every single attack on Tucker's show that has ever been made about his racism, about the way that his show divides people and the hatred that runs from it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He called the detractors of Blake Neff ghouls. He attacked the people who were calling out a blatant bigot.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Yes, but the point is that none of these people were in any way complicit with what this guy did. In fact, I would venture that 99% of them had never heard of auto-admit before this story broke.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Auto-advent? What the hell is that? It sounds like a portal for, I don't know, confessions.
--:-- Eric Wemple: So Tucker calls out the detractors of his bigot writer. He says, I'm going to take a long-planned vacation this week, which sounds fishy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Going to spend the next four days trout fishing. If something dramatic happens, of course, We'll be back.
--:-- Eric Wemple: What's the fallout? Does his show suffer at all? Do advertisers pull out? Does anything happen?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, I think this question about, you know, sort of the consequences of all this for Tucker Carlson tonight is a really interesting and good question.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And it breaks down in a few different baskets. I mean, advertisers, including, you know, like Disney and Papa John's, a lot of these name-brand companies have said no more Tucker Carlson for us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: To the extent that it rests uncomfortably on my pillow.
--:-- Eric Wemple: But it's not that big a problem for Fox News because advertising represents not the majority of its revenue.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That comes from subscriber fees, and Fox is ruthless about subscriber fees.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Fox negotiates a very high price with cable providers, with cable distributors, for its content.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that's the reason why it scores more than a billion per year in profits.
--:-- Eric Wemple: So Fox News is a money machine, and it's able to stay in business despite the hate on Tucker Carlson in large part because controversies, especially ones around race, especially ones around immigration, assist him in building his audience.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Because what happens is he says something like, We have a moral obligation to admit the world's poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Which he said, I believe it was December 2018. Or he says, white supremacy, that's the problem. This is a hoax. This may be a lot of things, this moment we're living through, but it is definitely not about black lives.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And remember that when they come for you, and at this rate, they will.
--:-- Eric Wemple: So, you know, there is a backlash, and Tucker thrives off of those backlashes, and he produces them very frequently.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I believe they are in some degree calculated.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And that is a dynamic that I believe that Roger Ailes, Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity want to ignite.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They want that explosive reaction among liberals that triggers their people and that motivates them to turn on the TV.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And so I definitely believe that what happened last week with Tucker Carlson's show, with respect to Blake Neff, is another episode that is going to fortify and amplify his audience.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Who are the millions of people who eat it up? Who's watching?
--:-- Eric Wemple: I've gone to a lot of these Fox News confabs. Like, they have Fox Nation, which is their streaming service, and they love Tucker.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My assumption is they are middle-aged to elderly white people.
--:-- Eric Wemple: That's exactly what they are. They are very nice, and they love Tucker.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, it's not just like Tucker's okay, it's like Tucker is it.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And a lot of the women find him attractive. They think he's cute.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Especially since he dropped the bow tie.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Yeah, especially since he dropped the bow tie.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so you can see why Fox News, when faced with a crisis like this, if they think that there's a PR problem with Tucker's hatred on air, they would have another PR problem with their own base if they dumped Tucker.
--:-- Eric Wemple: People would go nuts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: More with Eric Wemple after the break.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Chime. Nobody likes fees and complicated banking, says Chime. And Chime gets that, says Chime. Chime is a financial technology company that says they understand that every dollar counts.
--:-- Eric Wemple: So when you set up direct deposit through Chime, they say you get access to fee-free features, such as free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit, so much more.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Chime says with qualifying direct deposits, you can be eligible for free overdraft up to on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Plus they say you don't need to worry about monthly fees or maintenance fees.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can work on your financial goals through Chime today.
--:-- Eric Wemple: You can open an account in two minutes at chime.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's chime.com slash explained.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Chime feels like progress. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Members FDIC. Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply.
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--:-- Eric Wemple: Fees apply at out-of-network ATMs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Bank ranking and number of ATMs according to U.S. News and World Report 2023.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Chime checking account required.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Not all journalism is the same.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Take The Guardian.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our coverage has something unique.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Fierce independence.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say.
--:-- Eric Wemple: So we're free to report the whole picture.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Expose corruption wherever we find it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And give first perspective on everything from wellness and soccer to culture, the climate, and more.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Read, watch, and listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Eric, you spoke a little bit of Tucker Carlson's origin story.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He grew up in San Diego, D.C., a member of the ruling class.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How does he get to be the host of the highest-rated show in the history of cable news?
--:-- Eric Wemple: Yeah, it's a really good question about how sort of Tucker got to where he is because it wasn't the straightest of lines.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, Tucker got himself into journalism pretty quickly and wrote for the Weekly Standard.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He was regarded in the 90s covering the Clinton impeachment and the Clinton presidency.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Always, always a very silver-tongued commentator.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Tucker Carlson is a voracious reader, which is one of the reasons why I pointed out that he was intelligent to begin with.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It doesn't mean that he uses that intelligence towards good ends.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I don't believe that he does, but he's very well read.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've listened to him in tons of podcasts, tons of speeches, and he uses that polemically.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He has always been motivated by the prospect of pummeling someone in rhetorical combat.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that is obviously one of the things that he does on Tucker Carlson Tonight.
--:-- Eric Wemple: But anyway, he went from magazine journalism to punditry on cable news, MSNBC.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He had a CNN show, Crossfire, which was, you know, of course, the locus of that famous tête-à-tête with Jon Stewart.
--:-- Eric Wemple: How old are you? 35.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And you wear a bow tie.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Yeah, I do. I do.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So this is...
--:-- Eric Wemple: No, no, I know, I know.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Let me just go.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And listen, I'm not suggesting that you're not a smart guy because those are not easy to talk.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But the thing is that you're doing theater when you should be doing debate, which would be great.
--:-- Eric Wemple: It's not honest.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What you do is partisan hackery.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And I'll tell you why I know it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Doesn't that tête-à-tête with Jon Stewart result in basically the end of Crossfire?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this is the next sort of phase of Tucker Carlson, which is sort of the mid-aughts to like 29, 2010, where he was sort of just casting about.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He was on CNN, then he was on MSNBC, and he really wasn't nailing it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, he sort of lost his mojo.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And he finally gets hired at Fox News, I believe it was 2009 or 2010.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But he gets hired at Fox News to not such a great gig, you know.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He's like this commentator. He eventually does weekends, Fox and Friends weekends.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's the sort of, come on, he's the weekend Fox and Friends guy.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He's not even a second banana at Fox News.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's like a fifth banana.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Yeah, he's like a fifth banana at Fox News.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And there's even a great clip of Tucker Carlson falling asleep on the set of Fox and Friends weekend.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I got to look it up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I got to look it up.
--:-- Eric Wemple: You go.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's amazing.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He's really asleep.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Oh, no, I'm watching it.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He's literally just slumped asleep on the chair, and his co-hosts are just laughing at him.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Oh, it's so unfortunate.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Oh, my gosh, and then he wakes up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Fox and Friends.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I know we're not on television, so it's bothering me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No need to be embarrassed.
--:-- Eric Wemple: This is a commercial break.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is this honestly live?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Why on the air?
--:-- Eric Wemple: Whoa, that is rough.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, right?
--:-- Eric Wemple: He is just bouncing around. He's not really going anywhere.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But all the while, he is doubling up.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He's also editing The Daily Caller, which, by the way, is a training ground for white nationalists, or at least a holding pen for them, and just sort of bumping along.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then Tucker Carlson breaks into the Fox News primetime just after Trump's election.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And this is his big opportunity.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, I have sources telling me he was just pacing the streets at night, thinking of a way to conceptualize this show that would work.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And what he did from the start was he'd get liberals on the show and he would just pound them and pound them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Anybody would do.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And I should know because I was one of them that he pounded.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Eric Wemple. He's a media reporter for The Washington Post.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And he joins us tonight.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Eric, thanks a lot for coming on.
--:-- Eric Wemple: A pleasure.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So how'd it go?
--:-- Eric Wemple: I mean, he just lied. And he, you know, for his audience, it was great.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They still trolled me about it.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I mean, he just clobbered me with falsehoods.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How can you attack others when you don't know that your own paper makes money from taking propaganda from the Russian government?
--:-- Eric Wemple: I wish you had told me you wanted to talk about this.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But no, those inserts are interesting.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I mean, they are part of... Why didn't you write about them?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, I got a lot to write about, but I, you know, I am interested in that topic.
--:-- Eric Wemple: But it's your own paper.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hold on, hold on.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I mean, you covered the media. I should have been better prepared for what he was doing, but I had no idea what he was going to do, so...
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You thought you were going to get an honest interview?
--:-- Eric Wemple: No, I didn't. No, I knew I wouldn't get an honest interview.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I wasn't that naive, but I didn't know exactly what falsehood he would foist upon the audience, so I couldn't particularly counter it too well.
--:-- Eric Wemple: But you know, that's my bad.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, this was his thing though.
--:-- Eric Wemple: If I were to go to a rally and people said, I'm just pulling this out of thin air, pigs in a blanket fry like bacon about police officers advocating the killing of cops
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean you would say that unacceptable That should not be allowed
--:-- Eric Wemple: Is that what you saying I saying a student group wants to have a discussion about police brutality or racism If they were to use that phrase pigs in a blanket fly like bacon I'm not interested in a phrase
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm not going to debate you over this phrase should be allowed or not.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Because you have no principles.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's why.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And that really helped him, I believe, establish an identity with Fox News viewers as the guy who was going to own the libs, as the guy who was just going to take a mallet to them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's one of the biggest names in news, but now Bill O'Reilly is out of a job, fired after troubling allegations unearthed by investigative journalists.
--:-- Eric Wemple: So how do his fortunes continue to change when Bill O'Reilly gets MeToo'd out of Fox News?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: His ratings have increased and improved throughout that time.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And he does it simply by posing as this guy who is going to hold everybody accountable, who is this fearless, you know, sort of honest broker in the middle of it all, sorting through all the hypocrisy that comes at you from both sides of the political spectrum.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One of the reasons progressives say they hate Donald Trump is because he lies a lot.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Donald Trump is a salesman. He's a talker, a booster, a booster, a compulsive self-promoter.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: At times, he's a full-blown BS artist.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Most people know this. It's obvious.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So is lying really the reason the left despises Donald Trump?
--:-- Eric Wemple: Or could the problem be, as is so often the case, it's when he tells the truth.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Truth is the real threat to their power.
--:-- Eric Wemple: What is he? Is he a pundit? Is he a host? Is he a journalist? Is he a commentator? Is he a comedian?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I would say that he's just a liar.
--:-- Eric Wemple: But whenever you say Tucker Carlson did this, it's wrong, blah, blah, blah, you'll get all the supporters like he's an opinion host, you idiot, you loser.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And my response is that as long as the bug in the corner of the screen says Fox News, he must be held to a journalistic standard of accountability.
--:-- Eric Wemple: If they want to take Fox News off the screen and call it Tucker time, They can do that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But as long as news stays on the screen, my governing sort of standard is that they are working as journalists.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And yes, journalism encompasses opinion and straight news.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's the way it works at the Washington Post, the way it works at Vox.
--:-- Eric Wemple: That's the way it works everywhere.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I think that they should be constrained by the facts.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I think that opinion journalists must be constrained by facts and decency, too.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I think that in both of those cases, Tucker Carlson runs afoul of those particular standards.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I think the difference between what we do here at Vox and what The Post does in its opinion columns is that we maybe don't have so much of an agenda, a prevailing ideology that we're trying to advance.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Whereas when you watch Tucker Carlson or a lot of the quote unquote opinion programming on Fox News, there is clearly an agenda.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And that agenda as of late seems to be get Donald Trump reelected at all costs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yes.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I think there's a difference between a political orientation or worldview and agenda-driven work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the thing about it is, to bring it back to Tucker Carlson, he does this form of political agitprop, this form of political propaganda, more cannily, more savvily than anybody else in right-wing media.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He takes something that Donald Trump does. He doesn't examine the depravity of what Trump did.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He doesn't say, you know, this is absolutely insane, which it clearly is on its face.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And I can give you millions of examples. We're constantly writing about them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What he does is he takes the liberal reaction to it and he finds instances where liberals have overreacted.
--:-- Eric Wemple: And for every Trump action, there is someone on the left who overreacts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I happen to think that's pretty reasonable given the sort of things that have happened.
--:-- Eric Wemple: But, you know, fair enough.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he always says, I'm not defending Donald Trump here.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Or he says, I'm not defending Rudy Giuliani. I'm not defending Putin.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm just pointing out the obvious.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I'm just saying that the left is a bigger threat to America.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's this brilliant, brilliant way of taking scandals that Trump has spun up and moving the eyes and the attention of millions of people to a distractive element on the left and convincing them that that's the real threat to America.
--:-- Eric Wemple: It really is a brilliant way to construct propaganda.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Eric Wemple is The Washington Post's media critic and a former contestant on The Tucker Carlson Show.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Tucker found himself in even more hot water since I spoke with Eric on Monday.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A regular guest on Fox News filed a lawsuit alleging Tucker Carlson sexually harassed her, invited her to his hotel in New York while his family wasn't around.
--:-- Eric Wemple: Tucker returned from vacation last night.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He spoke about protests, COVID, Kanye, and then protests again, and then Kanye again.
--:-- Eric Wemple: He tried to pick a fight with the New York Times, but never addressed the sexual harassment allegations.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Nor did he address the departure of his head writer, Blake Neff, in any greater detail.
--:-- Eric Wemple: We reached out to Tucker Carlson and Fox News for comment on this episode.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They said we will pass on this interview, but thanks for reaching out.
--:-- Eric Wemple: I'm Sean Ramos for him.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's Today Explained.
