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Mehdi Hassan: Tucker Carlson Text ‘Still Doesn’t Add Up For Me’

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Mehdi Hassan: Tucker Carlson Text ‘Still Doesn’t Add Up For Me’

Reaction to the text from Tucker Carlson that many have called racist continues to come in, with MSNBC host Mehdi Hassan questioning the narrative that this is what ultimately led to the firing.

Speculation that the message sent by Carlson to a producer on January 7th, 2021 about his joy of watching Trump supporters beat an Antifa member, before self-reflecting on why the video gave him happiness, is the latest in a long line of possibilities for Carlson’s ouster, but Hassan says he wasn’t surprised by the message.

“So, on the one hand, you can’t not be shocked by this stuff,” Hassan said. “On the other end, it is kind of, well, not that surprising. It’s Tucker Carlson.”

However, he said the message from Carlson wasn’t worse than things he said during his primetime show and therefore doesn’t believe that’s the reason for his firing.

“Even after reading the text, it still doesn’t add up for me,” Hassan said after mentioning that he doesn’t believe the text that supposedly “set off a panic” inside Fox News was the reason for Carlson’s firing.

“He pushed the great replacement theory, which is a neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, which two years ago, the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) wrote to Fox and said, ‘This is anti-Semitism. You really should get rid of Tucker Carlson’. And Lachlan Murdoch said ‘No, no, no, no. Don’t believe your lying eyes or lying ears. This is all fine’.”

Hassan concluded that we’re still waiting on the entire saga to play out.

“I don’t think this is the full story yet. I think this is part of the story.”

Suns Owner: ‘Nobody is Surprised by’ Diamond Sports Lawsuit

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Suns Owner: ‘Nobody is Surprised by’ Diamond Sports Lawsuit

The regional sports network model is on shaky ground. That is why Mat Ishbia is planning on taking the local media rights for the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury and leaving Bally Sports Arizona. Bally Sports’ parent company, Diamond Sports Group, doesn’t think it should be that easy though.

Less than a week after the teams announced their plan to partner on a new media rights strategy with Gray Television’s Arizona stations, Diamond Sports Group has filed a lawsuit to stop it from moving forward.

“The Suns’ failure to comply with their contractual duties, and Diamond Arizona’s potential loss of approximately 70 games of NBA content provided by the Suns each season, puts Diamond Arizona’s business at significant peril, thereby directly threatening its ability to reorganize,” An emergency motion filed by Diamond for a stay reads. “The Suns’ deliberate disregard of its contractual duties to Diamond Arizona is specifically the type of action the automatic stay is meant to protect against.”

Eben Novy-Williams of Sportico shared a statement from Ishbia via Twitter.

“Nobody is surprised by this lawsuit and it will not stop the Phoenix Suns and Mercury from making our games available to as many people as we possibly can,” it reads. “The fans, players, and everyone in our organization knows this is how we win together, on and off the court. I firmly believe the future success of the NBA and WNBA is about getting our product to everyone who wants it versus just the people who pay for it.”

Ishbia’s plan is to work with Gray Television and Kiswe Mobile to create a new distribution channel for games beginning next season.

Diamond Sports Group says that if the plan were to go into effect, it would be a breach of bankruptcy law. It also alleges tortious interference against Gray and Kiswe. It is seeking to void the deal between the teams, Gray and Kiswe as well as damages.

Charlie Kirk: Fox News is Behind Tucker Carlson Leaks

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Videos and text messages from Tucker Carlson painting the former Fox News host in a negative light continue to leak, and conservative radio host Charlie Kirk believes the network is behind the release.

“Fox News has leaked to The New York Times private text messages that Tucker Carlson has sent and allegedly this is the smoking gun,” Kirk said during The Charlie Kirk Show Wednesday. “So, Fox News leaked these messages to try to say, ‘Hey, see, we were dealing with something here. That Tucker Carlson is a bad guy, he’s a racist’.

“It’s bad enough that we have to deal with accusations, false and baseless accusations, from the people that want Black-only dormitories,” continued Kirk. “It’s bad enough that we have to deal with the wokies calling us racist, but now, Tucker Carlson’s own employer, well, former employer — it’s complicated — is releasing these messages.”

A text message reported on by The Times purports that Carlson was excited by a video he saw of Trump supporters beating an Antifa member, before saying it’s “not how white men fight”. Kirk argues that Carlson “did nothing wrong” and that the message wasn’t “a smoking gun” that the host is racist.

“First of all, the text message was compassionate. It was clearly about how our media machine is actually dehumanizing our entire country, our civilization. How he was talking about how he was watching a video and how he felt less human…They’re trying to take him out for good. This war is about to get nasty. It’s about to get brutal.”

Kirk continued by arguing that the media “is losing their mind” around the comment from Carlson, when, in his view, the former Fox News host has a point.

“If you actually want to get to the truth that Tucker was saying here is that — this is a fact, no one wants to say this — there is a disturbing pattern of Blacks jumping people of all races in the urban corridors in America. That is a fact. I don’t like it, you shouldn’t like it. It’s horrifying, but it’s a pattern that we are seeing. Tucker Carlson was sending a private text message basically piggybacking on that fact.”

CBS Evening News Celebrates 75th Anniversary

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CBS Evening News celebrated its 75th anniversary Wednesday by looking back at its debut broadcast.

On May 3rd, 1948, anchor Douglas Edwards broadcasted a 15-minute news program to three East Coast affiliates. The program didn’t evolve into a half-hour newscast until 1963, with Walter Cronkite anchoring the program.

During its 75-year run, the program has been anchored by the aforementioned Edwards and Cronkite, and also by Dan Rather, Connie Chung, Bob Schieffer, Katie Couric, Scott Pelley, Jeff Glor, and current anchor Norah O’Donnell.

“Tonight, as we celebrate this diamond anniversary, all of us at CBS Evening News are extremely proud to carry on the tradition. So thank you for watching,” O’Donnell told viewers.

ESPN Reportedly Out On Pac-12 Television Rights

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ESPN Reportedly Out On Pac-12 Television Rights

The Pac-12 is still searching for a media partner and, according to Dennis Dodd, things just got a little bit dicier. The CBS Sports writer reports that ESPN appears to be out as a potential bidder for the conference’s primary television rights.

ESPN’s current deal with the Pac-12 expires in July of 2024. The conference’s deal with FOX expires at the same time.

Dodd cites multiple sources that say ESPN executives told Big 12 officials that their league was one of only three college conferences the network would be in business with. The other two are the ACC and the SEC, both of which have conference networks operated by ESPN. The comments were reportedly made at the Fiesta Summit last month. 

“[This is the] first time publicly [ESPN] said, ‘We’re not doing anything with the Pac-12,'” a Big 12 administrator told Dennis Dodd on the condition of anonymity. 

Without ESPN in the bidding for its Tier 1 rights, the Pac-12 really does appear to be in a bind. With most other networks in the college sports business expressing no interest in those games, there is no obvious place for the Pac-12 to go. 

Media money is so important to college conferences and schools’ athletic departments that there is a very real possibility that this could lead to Pac-12 members looking for a new league to call home.

From ESPN’s point of view, this may have nothing at all to do with the Pac-12 specifically. Disney is in the midst of laying off 7000 employees across multiple divisions as it focuses on controlling costs. With rights for the UFC and NBA up for renegotiation, spending money to retain any sports not seen as “must haves” for the network is likely a tough sell.

Jeffrey Toobin: Infamous Zoom Call ‘Something I’ll Regret For The Rest of My Life’

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Jeffrey Toobin had one of the more high-profile gaffes in media history. He was fired after he inadvertently exposed himself to WNYC and The New Yorker colleagues on a 2020 Zoom call. He was subsequently suspended by CNN, before exiting in 2022.

Toobin has since written a book about the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and appeared on NewsNation’s Dan Abrams Live Wednesday to promote the book when he was asked about the scandalous incident.

“It was a disaster in my life, self-inflicted, self-destructive, and something I will regret for the rest of my life,” Toobin said. “I have no excuses. I have only apologies, which I have tried to offer to everyone involved.”

He then said that he feels like his life is in a good place after the embarrassment of the incident. However, his hope is that he isn’t remembered forever for the event.

“The whole thing is lousy. If I could rewrite history or go back in time, of course, I would not want to have brought this on myself and more importantly, on my family. But, as we used to say in school, this is on my permanent record. I know that, but I hope it’s not the entirety of my permanent record.”

Fred Toucher Expects To Be Cleared to Return to 98.5 The Sports Hub

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Fred Toucher is thinking about getting back on the air. He posted a video on social media on Wednesday night saying that he is expecting good news during his next doctor’s appointment.

“I think that if I go to the doctor on Monday, he is going to give me permission to go back on the air,” he said. “So what turned out as a big, big cancer scare, where I was given assurances that it was cancer in my throat, might turn out to be that I needed not to talk for a very long time.”

Toucher has been dealing with voice issues that went unidentified until last month. That is when he announced a leave of absence from the show to recover.

In the video, Toucher also addressed his tweets from this past weekend about not receiving support from other members of the Toucher & Rich cast during his absence. He noted that he still has not heard from co-host Rich Shertenlieb.

Toucher & Rich turned in another monster performance in the winter ratings book. While 98.5 The Sports Hub finished first in all prime day parts in the book, the morning show lead the way with a mind-blowing 25.6 share.

Greg Gutfeld Blasts Geraldo Rivera Over Tucker Carlson Criticism

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Greg Gutfeld, a host at Fox News, took to Twitter to defend his former colleague, Tucker Carlson, against criticism from what he called “hall monitor failures”, who aim to destroy the ex-host of Fox News. Gutfeld’s response came after leaked videos surfaced, which were disseminated primarily by Media Matters for America, a frequent target of Carlson’s.

The videos purported to show Carlson speaking when he thought the cameras were not recording. However, Gutfeld did not buy Media Matters’ interpretation of the leaked material.

He tweeted that “apparently everyone understands nonsense banter between segments except for hall monitor failures bitterly chronicling the lives of the far more successful.”

Geraldo Rivera, who sometimes co-hosts The Five with Gutfeld, offered an unfavorable critique of Carlson, stating, “While I don’t want anyone to suffer, it’s clear that Tucker Carlson’s distorted conspiracy theory about January 6th was complete nonsense, as I previously mentioned. After losing the election, President Trump instigated a rebellion that aimed to subvert our constitutional process.”

“You’re a class act, Geraldo. A real man of the people,” Gutfeld tweeted in response.

Lara Logan, a former FOX Nation alum, also weighed in, saying that Gutfeld was not harsh enough on Media Matters. This was not the first time Gutfeld came to Carlson’s defense, having joked on The Five just hours after Carlson’s abrupt exit from Fox News that Carlson would run for president.

Sunny Hostin: Donald Trump Isn’t Worthy of CNN’s Platform

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Sunny Hostin, co-host of The View, expressed her strong disapproval of CNN giving Donald Trump a platform in his first televised town hall of the 2024 election cycle.

According to Fox News Digital, Hostin labeled Trump as an “insurrectionist”, “liar”, “bigot”, “racist”, “sexist”, and “criminal defendant”, stating that the network should not give “that type of person” a platform. 

“That’s what I’m so disgusted by because, again, when someone shows you who they are, you believe them. When you show that you are an insurrectionist, that you’re a liar, that you’re a bigot, that you’re a racist, that you’re sexist, that you’re twice impeached, that you’re currently a criminal defendant, and likely to be a criminal defendant in two other jurisdictions. You grab women by their genitals; I know everything I need to know about you,” Hostin said.

However, her co-hosts held different opinions. Joy Behar argued that Trump is the Republican front-runner, and the town hall could reveal his lack of empathy.

In contrast, Alyssa Farah Griffin argued that there is a vital public interest in hearing Trump answer direct questions. Sara Haines disagreed with Hostin, stating that the media’s job is to provide information and push back, not silence candidates. Trump officially launched his 2024 campaign in November.

“So what is the point of this new town hall that he’s doing? And did we learn nothing from [former CBS executive] Les Moonves saying, ‘Bad for the country but great for the network’?” co-host Whoopi Goldberg asked.

“I can’t stand him, as you know, but he is the front-runner for the Republican Party,” she said. “Let them do it. This is a free country, and this is America. Let him go out there and show the American people again that he’s a sociopath. First of all, this forum requires a person who has empathy.”

According to co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, a town hall featuring Donald Trump has a significant public interest. She noted that 74 million people voted for him, and this event could allow them to hear him answer direct questions about his beliefs. Griffin also highlighted that this would be Trump’s first major interview with an unfriendly outlet since the insurrection. It’s worth noting that Trump launched his 2024 election campaign in November.

Chris Plante Reveals One of Most Unforgettable Moments of CNN Career

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Chris Plante Reveals One of Most Unforgettable Moments of CNN Career

Chris Plante had an eventful career at CNN spanning almost two decades, during which he was given numerous intriguing assignments.

On Wednesday, Plante, a WMAL Radio host, reminisced about one of the most unforgettable assignments he received from the network, which involved attempting to interview John Hinckley, the man convicted of trying to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.

“There was a story in The Washington Post that John Hinckley was being allowed to roam free on the grounds of St. Elizabeth’s Mental Institution where he was being held,” Plante said. “It was a very large walled complex which the Department of Homeland Security has since taken over.”

According to Plante, he and his camera crew were sent to the hospital, and surprisingly, security allowed them to enter the grounds without any explanation.

“Then we went to the building where I knew John Hinckley was being held,” he said. “I went with the camera crew to the front door of the building, and I told the crew, ‘Let’s see how far we can go’. I walk up to the front, and security sees us on the camera; they buzz the door, and we walk in. Then we walked to the inner part, and the door opened, and they waive us in, and we’re walking in.”

Plante informed security that he wanted to see John Hinckley, even though he didn’t have an appointment. After a short wait, a staff member approached Plante and his crew and inquired if they were the HBO crew.

“I said, ‘No, we are with CNN’, and they said ‘Security!’ They said we weren’t authorized to be in there. We were just waived in, the doors kept opening, and we kept walking. We were chased out of the place and sent packing back to the van, and then security came in and escorted us off the grounds.”

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