It's not the cartoon demons you've got to worry about.
It's weak men in positions of power.
They're the most dangerous.
Men with no principles but the desire for self preservation.
Hollow men who live in terror of being revealed for who they really are.
Men who will do anything to save themselves.
That's who you should be afraid of.
>> Yeah, that's Tucker Carlson's lead into a tale about
Attorney General Merrick Garland somehow seeking the FBI on innocent
Christian families across the country.
Now, although that monologue led to a Fox News style fiction, while Tucker's
sensational lead up really would have been accurate if he were talking about himself.
Him and his colleagues, of course.
That fact became evident as we've recently learned of
damning correspondence that Fox News anchors and
hosts sent in the wake of the 2020 presidential election results.
Now, these communications were unsealed by the court that's overseeing Dominion
voting's defamation lawsuit against the right wing network.
And they're also telling when it comes to the dangers of weak men at Fox News.
This is for the intercept.
On November 12, 2020, nine days after the election, Carlson flagged a tweet for
Hannity and Ingraham by Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich.
in it, Heinrich had accurately pointed out that there was no evidence for
then-President Donald Trump's preposterous claims about the election
being stolen by Dominion voting machines.
Also, Carlson texted his fellow host, please get her fired.
Seriously, what the f, I'm actually shocked.
It needs to stop immediately tonight.
It's measurably hurting the company.
The stock price is down.
Not a joke.
Heinrich didn't lose her job, but her tweet soon seemed to disappear.
Now at about the same time, Carlson text his producer that we're playing with fire,
for real, an alternative like Newsmax could be devastating for us.
Those texts also revealed that Carlson called Donald Trump a demonic force and
worried that the former president would destroy Fox if they didn't play it right.
And I really don't know how people watch Tucker Carlson on Fox News,
really knowing that they're peddling absolute lies.
The lack of integrity here seems to be alarming to me as a viewer.
Cenk, do you feel the same?
>> Yes, I wanna read the next quote from Rupert Murdoch that came out on
the Dominion lawsuit cuz I think it's very applicable here too.
He had written to others, wake up call for Hannity,
who's been privately disgusted by Trump for
weeks, but was scared to lose viewers.
So, Tucker Carlson scared that his beloved stock price for
Fox News is dropping and he's scared that they're losing viewers, and
they're all scared of the big tough guy, Donald Trump.
You could see it and all their correspondence,
they're wedding themselves.
They go, what's Donald Trump gonna do?
We're so scared.
Now, I'm gonna reread for you guys, what you saw from Tucker Carlson.
He said, they're the most dangerous, men with no principles with the desire for
self preservation.
Hollow men who live in terror of being revealed for who they really are.
Men who will do anything to save themselves.
It is the picture perfect description of Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
So, now you might think he knows that this is all in the press right now.
Why would he do this segment where he tells on himself?
Because this is an old trick by the right wing and they do this really well and
I give him credit for it, right?
Whatever they do, they project onto others, so that when you say,
hey, wait, that's what you do there.
Yeah, I said it first, I said it first.
It's actually a trick that corrupt politicians use all across the world.
They'll get in office, they'll steal a lot of money.
And then as soon as somebody points out that they're stealing money,
they'll say he's corrupt, okay?
And oftentimes they'll do it even before the person, the minute they said another
politician is honest, they'll charge them with corruption, okay?
[LAUGH] So that's what Tucker Carlson is doing here.
An old rhetorical trick where he tells you who he is,
while pretending that it's the other people on the other side.
But I wanna read one more thing.
Right after that, Tucker said that's who you should be afraid of.
Ironic by the way.
This is the weak men that are scared, that's the problem.
But remember, you should be afraid of them [LAUGH].
Okay, also hilarious.
But hold, it gets better.
And you can see that in our current moment, the weakest or
the most destructive, how much of this childhood do you think Adam Kinzinger
spent hanging from the wedgie nail?
How many swirlies did Eric Swalwell endure in high school?
Do you see what he's doing there?
He's saying they're nerds, and nerds are weak and
they should get wedgies and swirlies, and were the bullies.
He's talking to his audience like, hey,
remember when you were the bully in high school, how much fun was that?
You bullies should be in charge.
Those are the nerds we used to give wedgies to,
they're the weak men who are the real problem.
When you see someone that you think might be a little weak, you should hit him.
[LAUGH] Okay.
[LAUGH] Meanwhile, by the way, tough guy bully on air,
off air is like, Donald Trump, he's a demonic force.
I don't know what to do.
The stock price is going down.
[SOUND] [LAUGH] Okay, that's freaking.
>> [LAUGH] I'm sorry, I got a whole laughter than the whole time.
This is the entire Republican Party.
He just described literally the foundational roots of the entire
Republican Party.
It is nothing but the most fragile, pathetic,
weak men who are terrified of anybody else in the world.
That's why their big fear is cancel culture.
They talk about cancel culture because they're like, my goodness gracious,
what if somebody calls out how terrible I am, and then I get embarrassed and
people won't talk to me or whatever.
Everything about the Republican Party is just this peak weakness and fragility.
And Tucker Carlson is right, in the sense that,
that is also the most dangerous people, right?
These people who are just so insecure about themselves and they're just so
pathetic, right?
But they're pathetically dangerous, and that really is the Republican Party.
That is why they're so busy going after trans-people because nothing makes them
more angry than a trans-woman just be confident and living her life, right?
That's why they're terrified of women and
why they want to literally just roll back the clock on women's rights because
they're just terrified of the idea of if women are allowed independence,
they aren't gonna wanna talk to me, they won't wanna talk to me.
And it's like, just change yourself, bro.
I don't know, just be a better person.
Stop being so horrible to be around.
I don't know, it's not that difficult.
[LAUGH] But that's everything about the Republican Party, and as a trans-woman,
I see these people all over the time, all over the place, but especially in my DM.
Okay, these people are always slided in, and
they're both the most pathetic people you'll ever see.
But also, these are the most dangerous people you'll ever see because they will
switch on a dime, right?
The very minute that they don't get everything that they want in the world.
And so, yeah.
No, this is the entire Republican Party.
This is almost every single person within the Republican Party,
with the maybe rare exception of somebody who's just so rich and
just genuinely hates poor people, I don't know.
>> Sorry, let me just agree with Ben on two things.
Number one, the funny thing is, Ben is right, the Tucker's right.
The essence of the speech about weak hollow men that do damage is correct.
It's just ironic because it's them, not us, right?
And if you're wondering, hey, guys, you're saying that they're bullies and
then they're weak.
How does that work?
No, that's exactly how it works.
So when I was younger, I love to fight, and that's why I became a middle
linebacker, just cuz you could hit people in a sanctioned way, right?
But I despise the idea of hitting someone that I perceived to be weaker than me.
That's so sad.
Who does that, right?
So what that wound up creating was, I wound up finding bullies a lot when
I was a kid, all from elementary school through high school, okay?
Because I was like, look, I like to fight, and this guy is gonna try to pick on
somebody who's weaker, I'll be your Huckleberry, right?
And what I know from that experience and now I fight bullies for a living.
The right wing is nothing but bullies, right?
Is that when you go to step up,
it's that thing that you've heard in the movies and it's totally true.
Some of the bullies will fight you, but most of them run because a bully
doesn't wanna fight someone who is equal or stronger.
A bully wants to fight someone who's weaker.
And the reason for that is because they're insecure, they hate themselves and
they're trying to take it out on someone else.
So the bully will never pick on someone who has equal or greater strength.
Whereas, I fought six guys at once.
I loved it.
I'm like, that's a challenge.
And that by the way, don't do that back in Jersey,
I would in a different era, probably ill advised, okay?
But these guys are weak, they're weak.
That's why they all look, go looking around for someone they could victimize.
But if there ever challenged in a real way, they cower.
And again, look, wer'e the fairest show in America.
That's the one upside of Donald Trump.
I think he's thin skinned.
I think we could fight that bully super easy if the corporate
Democrats would ever get out of the way, right?
But he's still stronger than all of the other Republicans.
Although what we've learned now is that, my God,
the other Republicans are so pathetic.
I mean, they see Donald Trump and
everybody rushes to the CBS to get depends,
they put on their adult diapers and they just wet themselves in the corner.
I want to be a.
Buy me a.
Why don't you man up and fight back?
Nope, because they're all, Fox News, every one of them is a coward, extreme coward.
And that's what Lisa bullies.
>> Absolutely correct.
And there were so many cowards who just lap it up.
Tucker Carlson tonight averaged 3.3 million viewers last year and
still remains the top attraction for viewers aged 25 to 54.
It's really gross.
And in addition to that, we saw other Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity.
Thanks to the January 6th commission,
we saw how he was nervously texting Donald Trump's Chief of Staff,
Mark Meadows in the lead up to the Capitol riots.
He said something of the nature of,
I do not see January 6 happening the way Trump is being told.
And then meanwhile, Laura Ingraham had a few things to say of Trump's attorneys,
namely Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani.
The host sent this text to her colleague, Tucker Carlson.
Sydney is a complete nut.
No one will work with her.
Ditto with Rudy.
And Ingraham wasn't alone in those thoughts.
What Hannity also called Giuliani, an insane person and an ethical lunatic.
It's clear that Fox News is peddling fiction that it can't get behind, and
of course, it doesn't want anyone to see who it really is.
But at the same time, I really do not know if people would give a damn.