Listen to Andrew Lawrence explain why Fox News' new prime-time lineup does not mitigate the danger of the network
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Listen to Andrew Lawrence explain why Fox News' new prime-time lineup does not mitigate the danger of the network
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From the July 31, 2023, edition of Sirius XM's The Dean Obeidallah Show
JOE SUDBAY (HOST): I want to talk about that because, certainly, like, you -- you said the name Tucker Carlson, and I thought, "God, I hadn't even heard his name for a while." He has really -- and but he was not too long ago, the leading voice of the right on, you know, almost anywhere. Besides Trump, he had the largest platform -- he was the biggest guy out there and spewing all kinds of horrible, horrible, horrible things great replacement theory and everything else. And, man, he's gone. Just, like, vanished.
ANDREW LAWRENCE (GUEST): Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, his power and his influence came because he was being pumped into your grandma and grandpa's living rooms every single night, you know? And he has this real online following that is probably still there, I guess. But that's not where his power came from. His power came from, you know, it's that Republican base that is older, whiter, and still some subscribes to cable, you know? And a lot of people are cutting their cords, but not that particular demographic.
And, you know, so when you had this stuff like great replacement, which had been on sort of fringe of the right-wing. You know? Very popular in white supremacist groups. The worst of the online right, that type of area. Like, that's where it was. That's where it's popular. It had been quarantined there, but that's what Tucker Carlson did is he really broke the quarantine. But without Fox News there, he just doesn't have the influence. He doesn't have the power. He doesn't have the viewers.
And, you know, it was never really about Tucker Carlson. It's always been about that 8 o'clock hour on Fox News is where the real power lies. And now you've got some idiot like Jesse Waters in there who doesn't really care about that type of stuff, Greg Gutfeld. They moved Laura Ingraham to 7 o'clock, and I really hope your listeners have never seen a second of her show, but it -- it's really bad, Joe.
And I'm not talking about, like, the racist, sexist, like, Islamophobic, transphobic, like, all that. That's a constant in any Fox News show. But as far as, like, Laura Ingraham, that hour of TV, like, she doesn't know how to put on a TV show. So, you know and the whole shake up there is just really fascinating to me as well.