yeah, just to be clear, i knew tucker. i have known tucker for 25 years. long before he went to fox news. yeah, yeah. regardless, i think oliver is right. i think it s still kind of po make and murky about what, you know, there is a reason we call the last straw the last straw, because normally straws don t break camel s backs, right. it s the stuff prior to the straw that makes it the decisive factor. i think that there is, you know, the l.a. times where i read a column, there is a apparently it s the abbey grossberg tapes or lawsuit, something about that is a big part of the decision. and also something about the ray epps episode on 60 minutes which debunked tucker s false flag operation stuff. tucker s shtick where he called january 6th this false flag thing where he leans into all these conspiracy theories, that s actually related to the dominion suit in a sort of weird
announced but that fox corp ceo, lachlan murdoch and suzanne scott actually made the decision last friday. the l.a. times adds that the order came straight from fox owner rupert murdoch along with yip input from board members nbc news has not confirmed any of those reports and neither carlson or his lawyer have issued a statement on his firing but all of that still does not answer the biggest question, why now? joining me is npr media correspondent david folkenflick. thanks for being here. can you help us understand why now? well, this comes only six days after this huge three-quarters of a billion dollar settlement, dominion voting systems epic, legendary suit against fox news. tucker carlson figured in it he was an element in it by
problematic earlier, that that has continued to resonate and that was making it difficult for the channel. the l.a. times has one quote saying they re hearing from unnamed sources that there was a backlash building amongst advertisers and people who might support their broadcast. certainly their ratings, they were struggling for ratings. they needed a big change to signal that things might be different in trying to get viewers to watch the show again. it s one of those situations where you might have seen a bunch of different influences coming together in one big move. it s surprising that it happened so quickly and that it s happening in kind of a messy public way. i wonder, also, look, we all know and we all covered it, his comments on women and aging, that broad some comments from his female co-hosts when he was over on the morning show and
or undue influence, but it s the problem that we have in ou democracy with campaig finance. we need to pass laws tha prevent that type of influence that type of money to intercep in our democracy and our rul of law david, as i mentioned earlier, thomas, he didn t disclose up until some point you know, almost 20 years ago, that he was receiving, o received several gifts fro crow, and then it was reported on by the l.a. times and wha do you know, lo and behold suddenly he stops reportin those gifts that he is receiving, and he s reported only just two gifts in tha 20-year period the next disclosure is set t be released in june. i m not a betting man, but i light of this recent report, d you expect that number to grow i think it has to, ayman. because here s the thing, if you re when you talk about one as wealthy conservative friends, we re only talking about a discreet set of vacations. but here is a bigger problem that we need to keep in mind as we see this reporting and we forget,
publicize themselves i m actually sharp that he would even do that it is time right now for the supreme court to follow a cour of conduct i can tell you that when i was in congress, it was very clear to us that we could not accept gifts, and at that time, it wa up to $25. i also had an invitation from very good friend of mine to go to her house in the keys, an my staff recommended that don t go this is a long time friend we had done that before. but when i was in congress, did not do that. and i know justice summers knows better, but that deception and hypocrisy s just uncanny. i mean, we are seeing it fro the most extreme radical win of the republican party. we know that there may be some undue influence here and look at what happened, now that we are learning tha verizon and other companie were present as well, who else was there? what do we not know yet? and one other problem that w need to discuss, ayman, it s not just conflict of interes or undue influence, but it s the problem th