Lou Dobbs has been cancelled.
Fox News has canceled him, canceled
culture over at Fox News sad.
Now why?
Why did Fox cancel him?
He happened to have one of
the highest rated shows on
Fox Business.
And according to CNN, although Fox
isn't saying the timing of Dobbs'
cancellation Friday appears to
be no coincidence.
It took place 24 hours after Dobbs
and Fox were named in a $2.7
billion defamation lawsuit filed by
voting technology company,
Smartmatic.
There's also the fact that with
Trump no longer in office,
Lou Dobbs' ratings aren't going to
do as well because his ratings
really relied on kowtowing to
Trump, licking his boots.
Sources at Fox indicated that
the Smartmatic lawsuit was just one
factor in the decision to cancel
Dobbs' show.
His show is weak performance with
advertisers was also a significant
factor one source said.
Dobbs was one of Trump's most vocal
on air supporters,
which kept his shows ratings high.
And we have some fun video to just
give you an example of the nonsense
and shenanigans he engaged in
during Trump's administration.
But Cenk, any thoughts before we go
to those videos?
>> Yes, so let me explain how the
behind the scenes stuff works here.
So number one,
did the lawsuit cause this?
100%, yes.
So this is a, first of all,
what a lot of corporations do just
throw one of the bigger names under
the bus, so it makes it seem like
you've done something significant,
when in reality,
you'd authorize it all along.
If they actually want to take
action they could have pulled
Lou Dobbs in the middle of his
lying, not at the end of his lying.
They could have made a difference
before January 20th,
when what Lou Dobbs was saying was
super dangerous and
was affecting the outcome.
But they chose not to do that.
They chose to keep him on air to
lie that entire time and then only
pull them after the lawsuit is
filed. So, and by the way, not only
is this a well known Rupert Murdoch
strategy, he did this in the UK as
well, but it's literally in
this HBO series Succession.
They talked about it because it's
based on the Murdochs'.
And they have lots of strategy
discussions about who
to throw under the bus and
whether it's a big enough fish for
the media to go away and
say it's good enough, that a scalp
was taken, and they could move on.
So that's how this game is played.
Now, the other important part is
what animation in the middle there.
Lou Dobbs actually lost a ton of
advertisers because the advertisers
now find him to be brand unsafe
because they don't want to have
their brands on a program where
a guy is apparently a lunatic,
raving lunatic, conspiracy theories
that are hurting the country.
So now you have to understand why
they kept him on the air that
long if he'd already lost his
advertisers.
So if you have high ratings,
it doesn't matter at all if you
don't have advertisers.
The whole point of high ratings is
to get you more
money from advertisers.
But the reason they kept them
on the air is because Fox News and
Fox Business make most of their
money not from advertising, but
from your cable subscriber fees.
So they need a lot of audience so
they could tell
the cable providers,
you need to carry Fox Business,
you need to carry Fox News.
So I'm going to charge you a ton of
money for that, and
that's how they make the lion's
share of their money.
That's why they play this game
nonstop where they say outrageous
things to get audience so
they can build up their revenue
through subscriptions basically.
And then cut a couple of prominent
people loose because they're
getting hurt by advertisers, and
now lawsuits.
So that's the needle that they're
threading from a business
perspective.
>> Now with Lou Dobbs gone,
I think it only makes sense to just
reflect on his legacy.
And I want to do that
chronologically.
So many people don't know this, but
back in 2007, my role at TYT was
not in any way similar to the role
that I have now,
I was the guest booker.
And I'm very proud to report that
one of the big names that I got on
the show was Lou Dobbs,
who got into a pretty feisty debate
with Cenk.
And so I have a snippet of it to
share with you guys.
This is from November 9, 2007,
let's take a look >> On Fox
there are many things that we can
certainly argue about.
For example, on your show, you said
that a third of the people that
are in jails are illegal aliens,
but it turns out it's only 6%.
Have you corrected that?
>> That's not true.
That is absolutely not true.
Nearly 30% of those people in
our federal prison,
okay are- >> Not according to
the Justice Department.
>> Yeah, according to the Justice
Department. >> No, I'm looking at
the numbers right now. >> How can
you reform immigration law
if you can't control immigration?
How can you control immigration if
you don't control your [INAUDIBLE].
>> You do a comprehensive piece of
legislation that recognizes
the people that are here, that
recognizes the future problem, that
recognizes controlling borders,
you take all that into account.
I have no problems with
that, absolutely.
>> You got 30 seconds.
>> All right,
the book is Independence Day.
One last question for you,
real quick, in 30 seconds or less.
>> No.
>> Christopher Columbus,
do you celebrate
Christopher Columbus because he was
an illegal alien, right?
He didn't ask for
permission to come.
>> Actually I don't like,
I frankly am no fan of St.
Patrick's Day, Columbus Day or
any other celebration of heritage.
>> What a liar, I mean,
that last part is hilarious.
But the woman that you heard in
the audio was his publicist who did
not appreciate the tone of
the interview.
Because Cenk was asking him some
pretty tough questions and he
did not like that, neither did she.
>> To be fair to Lou Dobbs,
he actually stayed on, right?
But the publicist coming on to
a live radio interview at the time,
now we were also online but we were
on Air America, we're going to
a lot of people at the time, right?
So now we go to more people, but
they don't know that.
Anyways, so back then for her to
jump on in the middle of live
radio and go, you have 30 seconds,
no, no, don't ask that question.
>> No.
[LAUGH] >> That's insane,
I've never seen that before.
But it's shocking that Lou Dobbs
publicists would be
as crazy as Lou Dobbs or
actually crazier in that case.
>> Yeah.
>> For the members, I want to save
another hilarious Lou Dobbs story.I
have from an interaction
that I had back in the 1990s ,okay?
So we'll do that in
the postgame today.
That's just for
members tyt.com/join.
Or if you're watching on YouTube,
you can just hit the join button
below at the essentials level,
you get all the post clips.
>> Now let's take a look at some of
Lou Dobbs' greatest hits
during the Trump administration
where he continued to not only suck
up to Trump, but push all sorts of
conspiracy theories.
>> Pastor Robert Jeffress always
talks about this president.
That God sent this president,
he is a person of providence.
And I'll tell you the evidence is
accumulating mightily to support
the pastor's view.
He's already set a standard
congressman for presidents that
most mortals won't be able to meet,
he outworks them, he out thinks,
he is remarkably resourceful.
He's bright,
his judgment is second to none.
>> See, not perfect,
nobody's perfect, but
he's done a really good job.
>> Well, he's pretty close to
perfect, Sean >> Pretty close.
He did on his own his doing.
>> At every level on every floor,
this White House is energized.
There's sunshine beaming
throughout the place,
and on almost every face.
It's winner and winning center.
And our White House, our president
is at the top of his game.
It is a shame that this country,
which is benefiting so much from
this president's leadership, and
does not understand their
obligations to the leader.
Have a great weekend.
The president makes such a thing
possible for us all.
>> Man, not only did his show get
canceled, they got cancelled after
four years of this man
showing that he has no dignity.
No dignity, no self respect.
Lou Dobbs,
man who lacks self respect, man,
that is an embarrassing montage,
I will say.
>> Yeah, so I first of all,
he said, we have an obligation to
the president to compliment him.
I'm pretty sure that's not true.
I think you think you have
an obligation because it's in
your DNA.
I mean, that dude's a natural born
bootlicker.
The only thing Lou Dobbs was doing
his whole life was searching for
the right boot.
So, [LAUGH], well,
he found a second boot now,
the one to the back of his ass from
Fox because he's gone.
But I'll tell you when he, I don't
know what was more over the top.
Him saying that Trump was close to
perfect, him saying that Trump
outworks anyone or- >> My God!
>> Out thinks anyone,
let alone everyone.
I mean, you really have to be.
That's why I
say Lou Dobbs is deranged.
I think he genuinely believes
things that no rational human being
could come close to believing, and
then he ended it with,
we're going to have a weekend
thanks to the president.
Wait, what?
Why do we have weekends because of
Trump?
He invented a hot tub time machine
that apparently he and Lou Dobbs
got into, which was apparently
the best moment of Lou Dobbs life.
They went back to invent weekends.
You want to know who actually
invented the weekend?
Unions.