Seth Meyers on Tucker Carlson’s firing: ‘Fox really knows how to disappear someone’
After news that Fox News abruptly terminated Tucker Carlson’s contract sent shockwaves through US politics and media on Monday morning, Seth Meyers looked ahead to a cable news landscape without his frequent target. “What are we going to do without Tucker?” the Late Night host wondered on Monday evening. “Who else is going to tell us when M&Ms aren’t fuckable any more?”
The decision to oust Carlson was reportedly so sudden that the network’s biggest star was given no heads up; the network’s anchors delivered the news in a way Meyers described as “like a decree from state television in some sort of weird, cult-like dictatorship”. According to the network’s own anchors, Fox and Carlson “mutually parted ways”.
“I’ve seen more convincing reads on North Korean state TV,” said Meyers. “Tucker didn’t even get a farewell show. Fox really knows how to disappear someone.”
“This is all such a fitting end for Tucker, because he was always terrified that he’d lose his show after getting canned at two other cable networks, CNN and MSNBC, and he was specifically afraid that Donald Trump would be the one to destroy him,” Meyers added. “Which is why Tucker spent so much time spoon-feeding Trump’s bullshit to his viewers despite knowing it was all bullshit.
“Ultimately, Tucker’s shtick caught up to him,” he explained. “His whole game was framing racist, conspiratorial bullshit in a ‘just asking questions’ style, not taking responsibility for anything but rather posing a bunch of ludicrous hypotheticals to scare his au
dience.”
Carlson’s firing comes a week after Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5m. Discovery for the trial, which concerned false election denialism propagated by Carlson and other Fox News anchors, revealed that in private, Carlson detested Trump. “I hate him passionately,” he wrote in one text, and in another said he “truly can’t wait” to ignore him on-air.
Carlson’s ouster was “a stunning development in the world of politics and media, but it was yet again another illustration of the core problem at the heart of GOP politics”, Meyers concluded. “They all try to suck up to Trump and harness Trumpism for profit or political gain, and in the end they all get burned.”
Jimmy Kimmel
In Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel opened with Donald Trump’s virtual appearance at a Faith & Freedom Coalition in Iowa, during which he promised to defend against “late-term abortionists” in the “Democrat Party” who “execute babies after birth”.
“What kind of nonsense is coming out of this lunatic’s mouth?” Kimmel wondered. “And the crowd goes along with it, I guess. I feel like these people would be OK with abortion if they let the doctors use AR-15s.”
Kimmel also touched on Carlson’s firing from Fox, reportedly as he was in the middle of renegotiating his contract. “Tucker couldn’t be reached for comment. He’s already on a plane to Moscow to meet with his manager,” Kimmel joked. “But what a shock! I mean, what an absolutely delightful shock this is.”
The decision reportedly came from the Fox News CEO, Rupert Murdoch. “This is more like an episode of Succession than last night’s episode of Succession,” said Kimmel.
Also on Monday, CNN fired its star anchor Don Lemon after 17 years at the network. “For those of you who don’t follow cable news, this is like if Ronald McDonald and the Burger King got fired on the same day,” said Kimmel. “The good news is now Tucker can spend more time at home tanning his testicles and touching himself to that sexy green M&M.”
The Daily Show
“I can’t believe that a network that’s so opposed to gender-affirming surgery just cut off their own dick,” said the Daily Show’s guest host Desi Lydic of Carlson’s departure.
Carlson was reportedly ousted directly by Rupert Murdoch, “which is pretty ironic”, said Lydic. “Tucker spent so many years saying that Mexican people were coming to take our jobs away. Turns out he should’ve been worried about Australians.”
Subsequent reports attributed Carlson’s firing to concerns about his record of propagating conspiracy theories related to January 6. “So let this be a lesson to everybody – if you try to topple America’s democracy, you can stay on TV for two more years and that’s it,” Lydic joked.
“Whatever the reason was, Tucker’s firing is going to leave a huge white power vacuum at Fox,” she quipped.
“And I’m glad he’s gone,” she added, though she joked she was nervous about what he would do next. “It’s like after Papa John got fired. You just knew he was out there somewhere working on a pizza that gives you even worse diarrhea.”