OK, we have to take this report with a little grain of salt, because it’s from Brian Stelter, former host of CNN’s leftwing gabfest Reliable Sources. Even CNN thought he was too biased and summarily fired him, and now he’s writing columns for Vanity Fair and somehow teaching at Harvard. (I think that fact alone is a defining symbol of the decline of the nation’s “elite” institutions of higher education, but I digress.)
But Stelter in his undistinguished career has worked with ousted cable network stars Tucker Carlson of Fox News and Don Lemon of CNN, who in one of the most action-filled days in cable news history, both parted ways with their outlets within an hour of each other. That alone means they suddenly now have a lot in common, but did you ever think they’d be conversing? If you’ve ever watched either show, you’d know that Tucker routinely mocked Lemon—who he called LeMÓN—as not very bright (aka dumb as a post), while Lemon never tired of painting Carlson as a right-wing white supremacist.
But according to Stelter in a Friday Vanity Fair piece, they’re actually chatting:
No, this is not going to be one of those irresponsible false-equivalence pieces that claims Carlson and Lemon were equally polarizing. Fox and CNN are two different species producing two different types of products for two very different audiences. But the similarities between the two situations are stacking up. Carlson and Lemon know it: They have been texting back and forth in the past few days, according to two sources with knowledge of the relationship.
Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon have never met. They’re not friends. On TV, they were adversaries. But in the past few days, they have been texting with each other, since there’s a kinship that comes from being fired on the same day. Details in my new column: https://t.co/MSGcrMBzE6
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 28, 2023
Stelter wants to make clear that the two aren’t suddenly BFFs, noting the stark differences between the two men:
By “relationship,” I do not mean friendship. Far from it. The two men have never met, and they likely didn’t have much to discuss until recently. They live very different lives: Carlson, with his wife of nearly 32 years, Susan, spends time in rural Maine and on the Gulf Coast of Florida, eschewing the Manhattan and Hamptons social scene that Lemon and his fiancé, Tim Malone, inhabit. The first photos of Carlson after his sacking showed him riding through Boca Grande in a golf cart, while Lemon walked the red carpet at the Time100 Gala.
I wrote about Lemon’s appearance at the Time100 gala, where he appeared surprisingly buoyant considering he’d just been fired, while RedState managing editor Jennifer Van Laar reported that Carlson was similarly cheerful as he spoke to reporters when he was riding on a golf cart with his wife just the day after his departure from Fox News.
Stelter, not known for deep insight, actually provides some here:
Knowing both men, knowing how genuinely shocked they were to be terminated the way they were, knowing that they did not sign off on the air and say goodbye to their viewers, leads me to one final commonality between the two stars. Right now they both feel anger but also relief at being freed from the five-day-a-week grind. It’s grueling, no matter how fat the paycheck. I think that’s why you could see joy on their faces in gala and golf photos. Carlson told the Daily Mail that “retirement is going great.” At the gala, Lemon joked to Time that he’s “going to have the summer of a 12-year-old.” TV airtime is oxygen, and both men will miss it, but now they can breathe some actual oxygen for a while.
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Both pundits, regardless of the paths they choose, are set for rich payouts, and won’t have to spend much time worrying about money, Stelter explains. They’ll either get boatloads of cash from the networks that fired them or find new avenues of revenue—in Lemon’s case, possibly Hollywood. Carlson might join or build a conservative empire, who knows?
But there’s another unexpected similarity between the two: they’ve both retained the same attorney, LA-based entertainment litigator Bryan Freedman, who has previously represented high-profile news personalities like Megyn Kelly and Andrew Cuomo in their battles with their respective networks.
As a conservative, I think Carlson has a brilliant mind and dissects issues like no other pundit on the planet. Meanwhile, I think both Stelter and Lemon have done this country a grave disservice by parroting Leftist talking points and rarely delving into the deeper issues that are plaguing America. However, the similarities between Lemon’s and Carlson’s situations are remarkable, and I do think Stelter delivers some rare sober analysis in his piece.
I never in a million years imagined LeMÓN and Carlson texting each other, I can tell you that. That being said, Stelter and accuracy don’t often go hand in hand, and it’s a little hard for me to believe that Carlson is going to pay any serious attention to his old foil in the long term.
Just to be clear…
Don Lemon got fired because nobody watched him.
Tucker Carlson got fired because everybody watched him.
— NotKennyRogers (@NotKennyRogers) April 24, 2023
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