Tucker Carlson has been shown
the door at Fox News.
We've been learning more
about the kind of workplace
he allegedly fostered.
Some of it comes from his former
head, booker, Abby Grossberg.
She's filed a pair of lawsuits
against Fox in Delaware
and in federal court here in New York.
We should also mention
she worked for this program
in 2007 as an associate producer.
She and I spoke just before airtime
when you heard
that Tucker Carlson got fired.
Did you feel vindicated? In a way?
In a way, I did. First, it was a shock.
So there's obviously a lot to process
You didn't expect that
they would do that?
I didn't believe people when they told me
because I
because he had so much power
at the network.
I thought he was invincible.
I thought his team was invincible.
And they believe they were, too,
by the way that they behaved.
You say in in two of your lawsuits,
you say that
you endured a work
environment quote, work environment
that subjugates women
based on vile, sexist
stereotypes, typecast,
religious minorities,
belittles their traditions
and demonstrates
little to no regard
for those suffering from mental illness.
In the lawsuit, you say Mr.
Carlson's derogatory comments
toward women
and his disdain
for those who dare to object
to such misogyny is well known.
On the set of Tucker Carlson tonight.
His attitude,
what you see
are his attitudes
that permeated the culture at his show.
Of course.
And I think the best example of
that was when I ultimately
and I'm jumping ahead,
did stand up and complain
to one of my supervisors.
His answer to me
was Tucker
sets the tone for the show,
and we follow Tucker's tone.
And that summarizes everything.
So people got a message from Tucker
Carlson that it was okay to
use the C word
or whatever it was,
and they felt emboldened to do that, too.
I think that they took pride
and joy in doing it.
They thought it was fun.
It was just really kind of a bro fest
there.
It's also incredible,
your descriptions of the.
I don't know
if it's he was always like this
or his ratings and power
went to his head. But from what you say,
he talks as if he was in
the position to
destroy campaigns
and would actually threaten politicians.
Like if you don't
come on the show,
we're going to have some congressmen.
If you don't come on
the show,
we're going to destroy your campaign.
Shocking to me.
His lieutenant, Justin Wells,
who was fired along with him
I have messages
I was just looking at today saying
we are the most powerful
political platform
in the Republican Party.
And they acted that way,
especially leading up to the 20,
22 midterms.
They would say
there was like Ron Johnson, for example,
the office called me and said,
he'll come on the show,
but are you going to destroy him?
Because this will ruin his chances.
It will be over for him.
So the politicians were terrified of it.
Yeah, they were.
And that was a power that
I was terrified of, too.
I don't think journalists should have
that kind of power
to threaten and bully people.
And Tucker did and reveled in it.
He enjoyed that.
That was part of his persona.
Yeah.
I mean, they believed that
he could broker who was speaker.
House speaker.
He wanted to do that live on air.
But Kevin McCarthy said no,
What do you mean
he wanted to do that live on air?
His plan was to have Kevin McCarthy
come on the show.
According to
Justin Wells, reveal
this grand plan to us.
Tucker, a few days
earlier had sort of set some terms
for McCarthy, which included this church
kind of committee that he said about
I think this was about January 5th.
So about January 2nd,
he said, you should have this church committee.
So fast forward to January 5th.
They started asking me to book McCarthy
on the show that night.
I had worked with him
a lot
when I was a Sunday morning futures
and had a relationship with his team.
That afternoon, Justin came in
and he said, Here's the plan.
Tucker is going to first have Kevin on.
Hear him beg and grovel.
Then we'll bring in Matt Gates.
And Matt Gates will
then kind of set his terms
Then Tucker will set his terms
that McCarthy has to agree to
for Carlson had terms to the.
Yeah, terms.
And we're going to make this whole thing
happen on air
and save the Republican Party.
Now, fortunately, for McCarthy's sake,
he said no.
But he did call Tucker
the next day
from his office
with Representative Thomas Massie,
and had agreed to some of Tucker's terms,
according to a text
that Tucker had sent me.
And he said that was a win.
Prior to working for Carlson,
you worked on Maria Bartiromo show.
She repeatedly had Sidney Powell
on Rudy Giuliani on spreading lies.
When you were a senior producer,
there Was that okay with you? Did you.
Did you buy into that?
It's an interesting thing to look back on
from kind of a perch of perspective now.
But being there in the moment,
I was definitely seduced for about a week
by those ideas
as tens of millions of Americans
were and wondering
if there could be evidence.
And I was waiting for it
and waiting for it
because the president
of the United States
had made
very serious claims of fraud
and that evidence never came.
So for me, it took a few days to kind of
just realize
that the whole thing was a ruse and
a kind of you know,
I think the American public
was also waiting
and coming to that realization
around the same time.
And Fox
certainly fueled
that false hope for them.
But but I mean, plenty of people
were saying there is no there there.
Did you feel an obligation?
I mean, Maria Bartiromo did not
push back on Sidney Powell
or Rudy Giuliani.
Did you feel an obligation to like
get in her ear and say,
you got to push back?
Yeah.
And I had statements
and I had statements.
And you would put up a deposition,
a Dominion statement
at one point on the screen,
and she didn't read it.
Ultimately, it was up to her to read it
and she didn't.
And those were pre tapes as well.
And all the executives at Fox
were watching
them come in and saw no problem with it.
Their only concern was that
perhaps Rudy would come on
and bash Fox for calling Arizona first.
You've said it in
some of your interviews
that you you were in the bubble.
I want to hear.
You said you were in the bubble.
You were talking with the Trump
White House during COVID.
You were get, quote,
getting my information
from people that were close to Trump
and also running a show by myself.
I mean, did you not feel
you had a journalistic obligation?
I mean, you could have
there were plenty of other people
to talk to other than Trump
people to get facts.
No,
there were
those were the people
that Maria ultimately wanted on the show
and the Fox executives
okayed to be on the show.
So but there was never a feeling of like,
were there discussions
with Maria Bartiromo
about, should I push back on this person?
Should I?
You know, there's there's I mean,
there's plenty of evidence
there is no election fraud.
Why not have Maria Bartiromo
say that
to Sidney Powell or like,
where's your actual proof?
Or She was supposed to.
It was in the notes.
It was her responsibility
ultimately to do that. And she didn't.
And it was the
role of the executives at Fox
who were watching that
come in live,
David Clarke and Jay Wallace, to say,
we're not going to re-air
this or we're going to cut this out.
And ultimately, they didn't.
And when I was deposed
in the Dominion case,
I was told to downplay the fact
that I didn't have help.
And I was asking for help.
Never to say that,
never to pin the blame
on those executives who were mouths
that they ultimately had
responsibility over the content
that ended up on the air.
And to just sort of say,
I didn't remember what had happened.
Do you believe that
you had a responsibility
to point out something that was not true,
that it was said on your air?
Absolutely.
And Maria
had a responsibility
to push back,
which she ultimately didn't do
and should have said,
why do you think she didn't?
Did she just believe in this
or did
she just know where the ratings were
and what her audience wanted?
I've thought a lot about this and
having known her
and it worked with her very closely,
I do think she believed it
And I think it was also
a result of the misogyny at the network
and them just pushing her further
and further
into the corner
where she had to had
bigger and bigger news,
which was very much contingent
on Trump winning.
And she had a lot of hope
that he could pull that
through till the very end.
But isn't it
her job to have some
sense of responsibility?
And like in the end,
if you're being pushed to say stuff
that's just not true,
you quit or you resign.
Maria Bartiromo
I understand
in your position
you've worked your way up in this company
and it's a really tough
you know, you've reached
a pinnacle in your career
as a senior producer
and want to get it
to be an exact producer. That I get.
But Maria Bartiromo has a
assuming she would think long term.
And no,
she has a reputation
and a name that she wants to protect
I'm just stunned, Ed.
It just seems, again,
malpractise on her part.
I think she believed it.
I think she still might tell you
I don't want to speak for her
that the election was stolen to this day.
But there's no I mean, she can't
honestly believe that
because there's just no evidence of it
and she's not a stupid person.
That's what Trump told her.
And he still thinks it was stolen
and she believes what Trump says.
Still,
I yeah.
I don't understand how that's possible.
Do you think Maria Bartiromo
should be fired
I don't think that's my place
to say that.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to say that.
I hope she's
doing okay and I hope she's maybe
had some of the same moral growth
that I have
in the time since the 20, 20 election.
But that's ultimately not
my decision to make
Fox News has responded to
your claims, saying
they're riddled
with false allegations
against the network and
and our employees.
You stand by all the claims you've made.
I have evidence to as as you've seen,
I've had the receipts
and I have the receipts
for the claims that I'm making.
And I will point out
that that statement's
also very similar
to what they told Dominion
a few weeks before they settled.
Abby Grossberg,
thank you so much for being with us.
Thank you.