The Exchanges

Q When you left, My understanding of these deals, when Tucker left, Don Lemon, um, and you leave those broadcast ones, it's kind of like they're paying you to not compete. You can't go work for another network. So were you, was that the case with you, if you can say it, and, and then you were kind of forced to become an independent broadcaster?

A I wasn't forced. I was only forced to have my show end at NBC. And beyond that, I don't think I'm at liberty to speak of this specifics, but, um, I was free to get another job. I just wasn't sure I would. There was a couple of years there that were dark and depressing and my industry is incredibly disgusting and toxic and awful. Perhaps you've watched the news and you know, um, and I just sat on the couch thinking, why would I go back into that? That was Terrible. And it makes you a bad person and unhappy. And all they do is stimulate outrage all the time and then get rich off of it. And you have to push somebody else's agenda. And I don't want to do any of that. And it wasn't until the first, the pandemic hit. And then, you know, we started to lose our minds on all the mandates and then George Floyd, and then we really lost our minds and seeing those people in the streets, trying to make people put down their burgers and say black lives matter. Is when I got up off my couch and said, now it's on. Like, I, I can't stand when people make me do things. I really, I can't stand bullies, and it's in my DNA to stand up against them, and so I had to get back on the air, and I said to my therapist, who is really underpaid, um, what if nobody watches? You know, what if nobody listens? It was just a podcast at the time, no visual. And, uh, he's from South Africa, and he said, well, I'll …

AI assessment note: “I wasn't forced. I was only forced to have my show end at NBC.”

Q um, Do you think that there are individuals who have been historically repressed and have now felt the freedom to come out and say that they are a different gender? Or do you think that there's something else socially going on? What's, what's, what's going on? And, and, you know, why do you think that this has become such a prominent issue of late in the last couple of years?

A Yes, 100%. It has exploded as a social contagion. And that's been documented by many people from a very smart woman at Brown to Abigail Schreier and her must-read book Irreversible Damage and beyond. Uh, but this is a social contagion. This is not populating in the way that it is just because we're more accepting now. And if that were true, you would see it everywhere. Um, but what you're seeing it is more concentrated in more leftist states, cities, regions. And that's because the more of it kids are exposed to, the more they gravitate toward it. And in that way, it is like anorexia. I just had Kelly J. Keen in a pre-taped show today. She's airing tomorrow. She's an activist on this issue. And she was saying, if you go on YouTube and you Google anorexia or bulimia, they won't show you the videos. But if you Google top surgery, which is the super sweet way of saying a double mastectomy, usually for 15 or 14 year old girls, you can see all you want all day long. And what's happening more and more is Autistic children, or children someplace on the spectrum, stumble onto this, and in many cases have obsessive thinking to begin with, and go down a rabbit hole that takes them hours on end down Reddit or one of these other websites, and it does become an obsessive thought and then obsessive behavior, and then you have a medical community that has submitted to a firm. The standard is …

AI assessment note: “It has exploded as a social contagion.”

Q Six producers. Um, so that is, how many people at the peak, NBC, Fox, did you have working in your group?

A Well, I probably had about 15 producers, but Fox was always lean. CNN, Anderson Cooper Show, which was, you know, across from us for a while, minus one hour, had something like a hundred staffers. So think about it. So we did not, in July, we did not beat CNN, but we had two-thirds of CNN's YouTube audience. Two-thirds. Every single dollar in the multi-billion dollar CNN audience went into, obviously, their live broadcasts, which we crush. We crush their numbers, you know, dollar to dollar in terms of, like, the podcast and so on, but let's just look at YouTube. So all those resources go into their YouTube feed as well, and it's got every show on CNN, every single talent, and our one show with my six producers crushed, well, came close to crushing them all, and did crush CBS and NBC, which was a particularly nice.

AI assessment note: “Well, I probably had about 15 producers”

Q between? You, you actually, the buck stops, At your desk, at your microphone, you are the decider now. So how, what, what is your framework for deciding what to put on air? Because you do also now, um, suffer from, hey, you're in YouTube. If it bleeds, it leads, if it has rage associated with it, it's gonna get more clicks. So how, how do you mitigate that, you know?

A Well, I, I love my producers, and a few of them have been with me for over 10 years, 15 years plus. From Fox News, from the earliest show I ever did in 2007 to now. So they know me very well and they know what lights my fire. And if I feel that fire in the belly, it's usually not outrage. It's just fire in the belly over the news. Then it's a good story for me. And that differs host to host. You know, what, what drives you nuts? What, what do you need to have your say on? And so for me, speaking of therapists, it's like therapy to go out there on the set and say what I know is true. Right? Just say what's true about the news, and then we can argue about the meaning and our opinions on what's true, but what's true should not be so up for debate. Um, but yeah, I have a few through lines that my team always knows will get me excited, and since the beginning, free speech has been one of them. And the thing about the cops, it's not coincidental that that's what got me up, because I've been at Fox, you know, 14 years I was there, and I have a brother who's a police officer. He's a retired lieutenant. And one of the most honorable men you'll ever meet in your life. And I am just so sick and have been so sick of the lies that have been told about cops.

AI assessment note: “If I feel that fire in the belly, it's usually not outrage.”