Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers discussed the “abrupt and mysterious dismissal” of Tucker Carlson from his popular show on Fox News.
This week saw him release what Meyers referred to as a “proof of life video” taken from his home but looking more like a “fake doctor’s office from a low-budget porno”.
Meyers criticised the “utterly meaningless” speech that Carlson gave and noted that he ended on “a somewhat unnerving note” when he threatened to be back soon.
“I’m impressed by the confidence of a man who went from filming a top-rated TV show in a flashy high-budget studio to posting Twitter videos from what I can only assume is an episode of Tiny House Nation,” he joked.
The exact reason behind Carlson’s firing remains unknown but rumours include his being pushed out by Rupert Murdoch, a discrimination lawsuit, vulgar messages about colleagues and “prayer talk” that became distracting.
Meyers believes it’s more than one reason. “When they finally nabbed Jeffrey Dahmer, they weren’t like this is just for the last one,” he said.
Focus has been on an apparent text message that was so offensive it might have been enough by itself to oust him. Meyers speculated over its contents and joked that it might just say: “I’ll tell you what, that Joe Biden makes some good points.”
He believes that it’s the latest sign that the Republican slide into extreme Maga thinking has been an “abject failure”, something the party is aware of as it is “trying to turn the page and pivot to guys like Ron DeSantis”.
But Meyers said that DeSantis is “so weird and off-putting that he’s falling behind in the polls” and criticised him for being “awkward and uncharismatic”.
Jimmy Kimmel
On Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host also spoke about “a lot of new details” emerging over the reason behind Carlson’s firing.
He mentioned that more covert texts, peppered with highly offensive remarks aimed at execs, have been teased at but would have thought that would “give him another hour on prime time” rather than the boot.
Kimmel listed that Carlson has now been fired by Fox, CNN, MSNBC and PBS. “That’s like the Egot of cable news,” he joked. He then speculated on why Carlson was fired by PBS, suggesting that “he called Big Bird a gay chicken”.
He moved on to the strange Twitter video and said it “looks like he made it while waiting for a table at Cracker Barrel”.
This week also saw former vice-president Mike Pence testifying in front of the special counsel about his January 6 conversations with Trump. “I’m sure that was humiliating having to tell a jury about all the times you were threatened with a bottle of ketchup by your boss,” he said.
Apparently it went on for seven hours which is “definitely the longest anyone’s been able to listen to Mike Pence”.