Former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Bill O’Reilly teamed up for an interview Wednesday, during which they discussed what they called the downfall of cable news.
The former prime-time hosts both experienced widely reported exits from the conservative news channel – and the interview, aired on Carlson’s X profile, comes as the first time the prime time stars were ever filmed in the same place.
Aired the same time as the second Republican debate, the sitdown has already gone viral – garnering more than 4million views within a mere two hours.
Their 45-minute discussion touched on a variety of topics – from both of their firings at the then Rupert Murdoch-run network, to the current president’s apparent incompetence.
Also touched on was Biden’s recent indictments of ‘primary opponent’ Donald Trump, as Carlson put it, and the crisis at the Southern border. The pair even spoke about O’Reilly’s famed freakout on the set of Inside Edition that went viral in 2008.
:
Former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Bill O’Reilly teamed up for an interview Wednesday, during which the high-powered pair discussed the downfall of network news
Aired the same time as the second Republican debate, the sitdown has already gone viral – garnering more than 4million views within a mere two hours
The most sensational claims, though, came when the pair conversed about the current state of cable news – a medium that O’Reilly said is quickly being replaced by ventures like his and Carlson’s.
When asked if forums like Tucker on X or BillOReilly.com are ‘the future’, O’Reilly – whose was fired almost six years to the day before Carlson, in 2017 – said yes, before airing his belief that cable news, like network news, is set to go the way of the dodo.
The veteran broadcaster, now 74, also insisted that ‘there is an act of evil’ currently permeating both industries – one he claimed ‘runs’ TV today.
Speaking about the coming months and years, he told Carlson, 54, that ‘cable news will be there’, but quickly parlayed ‘but it’s like the network news.’
‘When was the last time you said, you heard somebody say, “Wow, did you see that on Norah O’Donnell?” When’s the last time you ever heard that?’
The assertion – and accompanying question – earned an audibly sarcastic reply from Carlson, who was the one Fox pegged to take over O’Reilly’s primetime slot after his ouster.
‘I don’t think I have,’ he said with a stone-face and deadpan delivery.
‘No,’ O’Reilly responded, before harking back to the 80s, 90s and even 2000s when network news was still a fixture in American households.
When asked if forums like Tucker on X or BillOReilly.com are ‘the future’, O’Reilly – whose was fired almost six years to the day before Carlson, in 2017 – said yes, before airing his belief that cable news, like network news, is set to go the way of the dodo.
‘But when [Walter] Cronkite was there,’ he recalled, growing increasingly animated as he remembered the way it was, ‘and [Dan] Rather and [Tom] Brokaw and [Peter] Jennings, there was juice.’
‘Yeah,’ Carlson nodded in agreement. ‘That was a real thing.’
O’Reilly went on to insist that cable will suffer a slightly different fate – one that will see it fall more and more behind freethinking undertakings like his and Carlson’s.
Conceding that ‘cable will stay where it is,’ he proceeded to talk up his former employer, claiming Fox will ‘win’ whatever market that remains.
His rationale behind the assertion, made days after longtime leader, 92-year-old Rupert Murdoch surprisingly stepped down, was simply that ‘Fox has better talent.’
‘Fox wins not because of this ideological… although they have an advantage because traditional Americans have nowhere else to go except Newsmax, but Fox has better talent.’
The talking head – who was fired from the network after 20 years after several female colleagues claimed they were subject to misogynistic behavior – then mentioned Carlson’s replacement Jesse Watters, who he also had kind words for.
‘The talent is better, and that’s it. So people gravitate toward talent. I trained [Jesse] Watters. So whether you like them or not, he’s talented.’
‘When was the last time you said, you heard somebody say, “Wow, did you see that on Norah O’Donnell?” When’s the last time you ever heard that?’
The assertion – and accompanying question – earned an audibly sarcastic reply from Carlson, who was the one Fox pegged to take over O’Reilly’s primetime slot after his ouster. ‘I don’t think I have,’ he said with a stone-face
He also hailed longtime Fox fixture Sean Hannity, before zeroing in on what he labeled the primary issue facing not only cable, but media in general.
The problem with ‘media today’, he said ‘is, they’re all afraid.’
‘At 8:00pm, on the Fox News Channel, nobody knew what we were going to say. So whether they liked us, or they hated us – didn’t matter,’ he continued, adding how viewers likely thought about him, ‘That son of a b*tch – I want to find out what he’s going to say tonight. That was it.
‘Now,’ he claimed, ‘talent’s scared across the board. They say the wrong thing, they did this, they did that – and the bad guys know that.’
He went on to allude that something much more nefarious is in play, mentioning left-leaning outlets like Media Matters and CNN – and how the latter, after Murdoch’s recent departure last week, aired a misleading montage that he said framed both men, as well as Fox, as racists.
Referencing a clip containing a 2016 clip from the O’Reilly Factor where he agreed with a statement from Michelle Obama that said slaves helped build the White House, he suggested such networks today run on an ‘evil’ objective.
The interview saw veteran O’Reilly make his replacement – who took over his Fox slot in 2017 – laugh multiple times, using his trademark wit and pointed, no frills observations
He recalled: ‘After Murdoch announced he was stepping down as chairman, CNN ran a montage, and the montage was designed to have their audience believe that Fox News is racist.
‘You were in the montage,’ he told Carlson, who feigned a scary expression and mockingly sneered, ‘Racist!’
O’Reilly, remaining much less animated than his counterpart, continued: ‘So, what they did was took a bunch of clips, maybe ten clips, and one of the clips was me saying that slaves were well-fed and had decent housing.
‘That’s all they used. This is primetime CNN. You know what that discussion was about?
‘Michelle Obama gave a lecture saying that slaves built the White House , and it got a lot of controversy. I went on the factor, and this was in 2016, and said, ‘She’s right – slaves were employed by the federal government.’
Insisting that such frame jobs are now widespread across the news sphere, he said: ‘I think there is an act of evil – I think it probably runs the television industry. We’ve just seen too much.’
In another surprise, O’Reilly – whose broadcasting career has spanned more than 50 years – said he holds no ill will towards Fox for his firing, saying, rather stoically, ‘I accepted it.’
In another surprise, O’Reilly – whose broadcasting career has spanned more than 50 years – said he holds no ill will towards Fox for his firing, saying, rather stoically, ‘I accepted it’
Carlson asked: ‘Why would they fire the guy, in your case, who dominated the space – that just seems acting against interest. How did you keep yourself from getting bitter?’
O’Reilly, offering an uncharacteristic joke replied: ‘I’m just bitter about everything anyway – so you know how much more bitter can I get?’
When asked about Trump’s array of indictments, O’Reilly also had an internet-breaking response, asserting: ‘American people know the fix is in.’
At a point, Carlson – in an assessment of the current world climate – said: ‘We run a risk of entering like, an actual period of chaos’ – earning another sensational assertion reply from his high-profile interview.
‘We are in the chaos now, Carlson!’ he said, waving his hands and almost leaving his seat. ‘We’re there!’
The interview, at just under 48 minutes long, is currently available for viewing on Carlson’s X profile. As of 1am Thursday – four hours after it was posted – it has nearly 6million views.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk