Just one week after Tucker Carlson was fired or sidelined by Fox News, a leaked video has been released in which the now-former host trashes his then-employer's Fox Nation streaming platform, the Conservative Brief reported.
The leaked video raises a plethora of questions above and beyond what Carlson actually said, particularly with regard to the source that publicized the clip, far-left-leaning Media Matters for America, an organization that is solely dedicated to harassing and ultimately destroying Fox News and any other right-leaning media outlet.
Mediaite reported Monday on the video clip that was undated but appears to coincide with right before Carlson's August 2022 interview with Andrew Tate, an outspoken advocate for masculinity who has been accused of misogyny and is facing criminal charges in Romania related to alleged human trafficking and rape.
"I don’t want to be a slave to Fox Nation, which I don’t think that people watch anyway," Carlson said on the set of his Fox Nation show, "Tucker Carlson Today," while discussing preparations for the interview. He sarcastically continued, "We’re gonna -- because, you know, I’m like a representative of the American media now, speaking to an exile in Romania and welcoming him back into the brotherhood of journalists."
Carlson's conversation on speaker phone with an unidentified individual then dealt with a dispute over what Carlson would wear for the interview, as he wanted to appear professional in a suit for when the segment aired on his normal weekday primetime show while Tate had been previously told to dress casually.
"I mean, this is airing on the nighttime show, and I want it to look official. I don’t want it to be like bro talk. You know what I mean?" Carlson said, to which the other individual replied that the entire interview would be posted to Fox Nation if it went longer than around 45 minutes.
"But nobody’s gonna watch it on Fox Nation. Nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks. So I’d really like to just put the -- dump the whole thing on YouTube," the host lamented. "But anyway, that’s just my view."
"I’m just frustrated with -- it’s hard to use that site. I don’t know why they’re not fixing it. It’s driving me insane," he continued. "And they’re like, making like, 'Lifetime' movies, but they don’t work on the infrastructure of the site."
"Like, what? It’s crazy. And it drives me crazy cause it’s like we’re doing all this extra work and no one can find it," he added. "It’s unbelievable, actually. I don’t know who runs that site."
The other person on the call assured Carlson that a "sizeable" portion of the interview would air on his regular show in the hope that it would help drive traffic to the streaming platform, but the exasperated host remained displeased with the situation.
"I know, but we’re doing our part. We’re like working like animals to produce all this content and the people in charge of it, whoever that guy’s -- whatever his name is, like, they’re ignoring the fact that the site doesn’t work and I think it’s like a betrayal of our efforts," he added. "That’s how I feel. So of course I resent it."
You can watch the entire video clip along with pertinent commentary from the Conservative Brief's Carmine Sabia:
It will be interesting to see if it is ever revealed who filmed that particular clip and then decided to leak it to an organization that is a sworn enemy of Fox News and other right-leaning media outlets, as well as if this particular incident was a factor in the network's decision to "part ways" with its top-rated host.
