ELON MUSK TO CLEAN HOUSE AT CNN?! Anchors Fear Firings Amid Report He's Tapped As Investor

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Make a look at this CNN, in total panic mode, because you see they really don't like the idea of one Elon Musk being involved in any way, shape, or form. Like I said, it was bad enough. The whole idea that you're going to have the likes of the Ellison's in there. I mean, those horrible Ellison's, for goodness sakes, they actually talked to Donald Trump. And now this guy, I mean, he's like enemy number one, right? They cannot stand Elon Musk. How many times do we hear them go on and on and on when he bought Twitter? I mean, remember what happened after he bought Twitter? It was like the media cabal just freaked out. I remember Bob Eiger saying, you know, that's why he wasn't buying ads, right? On on on X. They didn't want to patronize X. And Elon was pretty angry at all of that, but I'll tell you, they can't resist change. The change is happening. It's going fast. You had California coming out last week and finally saying, all right, we got a deal here because, you know, this is an antitrust case and our issues seem to have been solved. And thus, we can't hold up this deal any longer. I want to go to Rob Bonta. He's the A.G. out in California. He's like, the Latisha James of California and he's, he's like, great a cry. Let me show you this press conference, right? Just a little snippet from it. And I think the guy's about ready to break out in tears because he can't believe that he is allowing for this deal between Paramount and Warner Bros. to go through after all. I don't think these two companies should merge, but that's not something that we are focused on with our resolution here. I still don't. And settling this case doesn't change who we are. Corporate consolidation, market concentration that we're seeing in more industries, I don't think is good, broadly speaking, for consumers, for workers, for a free and fair economy instead of a rigged economy, for choice quality competition. A solution that addressed our antitrust concerns in the three markets that we mentioned in our complaint, walked into the boardroom, and we secured it. We locked it in. It is in this consent decree. And so our antitrust concerns are addressed. Boom. So they couldn't hold it up anymore. So here you go. Here's the headline. Guess what? Paramount is by Warner Bros. discovery and it's going to create a massive, massive juggernaut, like the biggest entertainment company ever. It's a $110 billion merger. Robbonda wanted to stop it. He couldn't. He got some kind of little board in as far as CNN goes and CBS, they've got to have this five-person board and you can't have more than two people from any given party on the board. But look at this. I mean, the thing is going to be absolutely massive. You get two major movie franchises. Take a look, you know, Top Gun, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. You are merging all of these entertainment divisions together. It's just unbelievable. One source told me that it is somewhat close to this, that when David Ellison first had this idea, they thought he was a little crazy, they're like, you're nuts, this is never going to go through. Like, how's this ever going to happen? You're talking about just a massive entertainment company and he had a vision. And my source said, you know, the guy is brilliant and he thinks about technology in different ways and he wanted to get this done. And he had this vision and sure enough, here we are, like, what, a year or so later and he got it done. People are not too happy at CNN. I want to go to Brian Stelter, who's like their media reporter and he was a little concerned. And this was before he found out about Elon being tapped as a potential investor. Here we go. I will tell you, just between us friends here, I'm a little bit skeptical. And the reason I'm skeptical is because we've seen this before, for example, at the Washerie Journal and Rupert Murdoch, both the journal. There was a board set up, but people say it was mostly toothless. There are also similar boards at a couple of other institutions with media companies around the world. So maybe this one will be effective, but the devil will be in the details and we don't know the details yet. No, we know some of them. And then there's this, right? Elon Musk being eyed for Paramount equity partnerships. So what would that mean? But basically, they have to put a whole group of these investors together, if you would. And the investors will come up with the money because it's a lot of money. We're talking about $110 billion, it's just a massive, massive sum. Now Larry Ellison, his dad, kind of helps to have a dad like that, right? It's like, I'll guarantee $40 billion of it. So that's pretty good. But they still have to come up with the rest, right? So $110 billion is a lot of money. So who would you go to? I mean, Elon is the most natural fit in the world, right? Because Elon's got very deep pockets, I think Elon cares passionately about the direction of media. And I would also say that Elon is thinking about media, perhaps a lot like David is thinking about media. And the media can be put in the hands of the people. You look at what's being done in AI right now, and I see things all the time, whether it's on X or on Facebook, on Instagram, and you'll see these little AI skits. I mean, watch out Hollywood, right? This is why Bonta and Company, they're so scared, they're so freaking out because everything's changing so fast. So from the entertainment perspective, I think David and people like Elon that are looking at technology and embracing technology are recognizing that everyday folks at home can become filmmakers in their own right. Because all of a sudden you have all these tools at your disposal, and you can make these stories. I mean, heck, we might even be able to make our own movies. You might be able to sit down and say, you know, I'd really, this would be me. I really want to watch a romantic comedy tonight. And then boom, Presto, up comes my romantic comedy, and maybe I could even select different endings. I mean, this is the future, guys, okay? This is changing, and this is why you need this innovation, and you need new blood in the system. That's not afraid of everything. And so Elon would make all the sense in the world, of course, the semaphore article coming out saying Paramount's Wang tapping Elon must for an equity investment. So they're saying that sources are saying, hey, you know, they're looking for fresh sources of cash. They need a lot of it. And David Ellison has considered tapping Elon Musk for what they call a syndicate, right? So you get a syndicate. You get like this group of investors. And so you need people with really, really deep pockets that would care about this and see some opportunity in this, and don't forget. It was the Ellison's that actually put money. I think it was a billion dollars into X, into Elon's financing of Twitter back when he did that. So, you know, you could say, he kind of owes them. I mean, the talent, like I said, they're freaking out whether it's Delta, whether it's Kara Swisher, who you probably have never heard of. She used to be a tech journalist. I remember out in San Francisco years ago when I worked there. And somehow she has segwayed into a CNN commentator. I don't know. Apparently she has a shower or something on CNN. I've never seen it. Elon tweeting this out a year ago, something needs to be done about CNN, and don't forget the president of the United States had a thing or two to say about a year ago on this. Well, I'm not involved in that. I will be probably involved, maybe involved in the decision, it depends. You have some good companies bidding on it. I think the people that have run CNN for the last long period of time or disgrace, I think it's imperative that CNN be sold, because you certainly wouldn't want to put people just leave those people with some money, good money, and CNN so that they can spend even more money spreading poison, because it's lies, it's a disgrace. So I wouldn't want to see the same company end up with CNN, the same company with money. Because right now they don't have too much money. But they have value, I guess, based on the bits, they've got value. But I think CNN should be sold, because I think the people that are running CNN right now, are either corrupt or incompetent. Wow. Well, I think he would stand by that statement today, given that he put a ban on CNN. They had to come back in, the judge actually decided that while this was being litigated and discussed, they would get the past to go back in the White House. So we'll get to that story as well. But I would just say the president really doesn't have a whole lot of love for CNN. And he wanted some change there, and boy, boy, it's coming through, and the place is coming apart. This seems you get Christian Amampore, who's like, I've worked my whole life at CNN, like four decades plus. And she's looking around the corner at what's going on at CBS News. And you know all about that. We've talked all about it. And the changes that are coming to 60 minutes and have come to 60 minutes and the changes to the newsroom and all of a sudden you got Barry Weiss in there who's like right of center. God forbid you have anybody right of center. God forbid you have anybody in the center for goodness sake. Here's Christian. We have also seen this movie. We have seen the Paramount, Skydance, Ellison takeover of CBS News first. And we've seen what their view of editorial independence has meant. Essentially a whole sale reorientation of the personnel and as far as we can gather the editor-in-chief's views on what editorial independence looks like. And there's been a huge amount of criticism about what it has transpired to be. I was actually surprised to see that this deal also adds the editorial board function for CBS. I mean I thought the CBS thing was kind of done and dusted. That's a very interesting point. This is a partly as a result of these state attorneys general negotiating over the weekend. For example, in Connecticut the attorney general William Tongue. He says in a statement he was fighting to protect both CBS News and CNN. He says he wanted them both to be sold off by Paramount, but he couldn't get that done. No, you know why? David wanted it. David Ellison, he saw the opportunity in CNN. He saw the opportunity in CBS and I'm going to tell you right now what the opportunity is certainly in CNN. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. I knew grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. It has enormous capacity, right? All those bureaus around the world, but for goodness sakes, I mean, they're working off a 1980s business model. They got all these bureaus, which is cool in and of itself, right? They have distribution all over the world, but do you really need all those bureaus? Do you need all that heavy expense and all those studios everywhere? No. All right? I'm sure this really is going to be Citizen Journalists, Citizen Journalists, like what you see on X and what you see on YouTube, and independent media coming to maybe something like a CNN, which might want to turn into something. I'm just going on on a limb here and making it up on the fly, but YouTube is a pretty successful venture. Is it not? As is my show on Spotify, so go check it out on Spotify too. But there's a lot of different avenues right now, and if you're thinking about this in a new way, and you're thinking about the technology, and you're thinking about, you know, me, I love those VR glasses that I've tried on at the Apple Store. If you're thinking about virtual reality, I mean, how awesome would that be to be able to bring individuals, and this is the future, right to the front lines of any story that you're covering? So then you're in the hurricane, right? You're there in the protest. You're seeing it all not too dimensionally through a television, but through your VR goggles. This is the future, and this is what CNN is going to have a hard time with, because it means the business model that they have adopted and they have spent decades following is kaput. There's so many questions to ask about the CNN thing, but we'll see how it plays out. We've also -- I don't have any other answers, so -- Yeah, I know. But there's a thing, Kristian, like we've been going for 45 years, right? CNN just keeps going. No matter who, no matter what, no matter where, this network just keeps going. I strongly believe that's what's going to happen, even though we're about to get another new owner. Okay, interesting. I've been here 43 years, so I've seen it all. Every merger, every buyout, and so far, yep, we just keep going. That's kind of part of the problem, okay, like you guys keep on going and you're going straight into the ground. I mean, this is what Trump was saying earlier, like it would be irresponsible to allow for that country, country company, company, to go straight into the ground. It would be irresponsible to let our country go straight into the ground. But CNN is a great, you know, opportunity. I mean, that's how I look at it. So this is exactly why Bonta was trying to -- and the Connecticut AG, they were trying to see if they could spin off CNN and spin off CBS, and Ellison's like, "No way." Like, that's part of why he wants it. Nobody else sees value in it right now, and I get it, right? Because it's just a legacy business with a lot of legacy junk, because it's going to have to get rid of, and dare I say, a lot of legacy people. But if you can harness that opportunity there, I think it could be enormous, and news is changing, and it's changing really fast. I mean, honestly, this is why they're so scared, because they know you're going to have really smart tech people. What did Elon do as soon as he got into Twitter? He like fired everyone, right? Like, all this stuff. He's like, "We don't need this many people." Guess what? We can do it better, and we can do it on our own, and we've gone way too top heavy. We've turned into legacy media for goodness sakes. Let's stay nimble. Let's stay quick. Let's actually make this thing work. Let's make it sing, and that's what he's doing, and they hate it. They just despise it. I know I played this on yesterday, but I have to play it again for you, because it is so good. This is a CNN panel, freaking out, back when he actually went through with that deal for X, and they're like, "Oh, they're holding their noses like X. It's so terrible. This, that, and the other." And this really encompasses the sentiment that mainstream media feels towards all the upstarts right now, all the independence, all the conservative channels. They just think, you know, we're not them, right? They have such a superiority complex, and this is what is driving them straight into the ground. But, you know, that's the only thing they have to hold on to. This is what has kept them afloat, this idea that somehow they're better than everyone else. Watch this, because Jennings calls them out. Platforms are not regulated right now, which gives them carbon launch to whatever they want right now. Elon is not someone who likes to be regulated, and so to buy MSN, he would go under some federal regulations. Who is regulating CNN right now? The FCC? No. We're not, we're not broadcast. It's cable. I mean, I don't, I don't really think, I don't really think cable stations are under the same regulatory structure. Does anyone have a publicare with it that broadcasts? It's definitely regulated more than the, the, the, the Facebook and there's still, what she saying is that there's still a litmus test of journalism that you have to pass. You can't just make up things and say things. That happens on X. Don't give me the eyebrow furrow as if you don't know what I'm talking about. It happens often on X. I can go and say the color is blue, and I will be met with so many disrespectful remarks. No one's regulating the inward, no one's regulating the criticism. No one is regulating how people are treated, how much go the regulation of the first amendment are you for? Let me tell you something. If I came on here and I just started calling you all kind of names, do you think the bosses would let me continue to do that? I mean, it happens to me, occasionally, I don't know if it's true, but it doesn't happen for me. And I know that I wouldn't be able to do that. There's a level of professionalism in, and, and what we do here, because we are journalists and we add here to something, at least morally, and there is no moral compass on this thing called it. You're also having a call. Wow. Okay. So we are superior. We are the best. We embrace morality. We embrace the truth. We stand for the truth. I mean, aside from the fact that he fed us a bunch of lies over and over again, I can think of Jake Tapper going on about how terrific, just terrific Biden was and how dare Lara Trump actually suggests he had a speech impediment or something, or, you know, I mean, for good, oh no, no, that was, forgive me. Jake was saying he had a speech impediment, not that it was just old age, for goodness' sakes. I mean, they sat there and they tried to tell us the emperor had clothes for how long, and they're still doing it. They're still doing it. This is what's so unbelievable. Yeah. Kara Swisher. She's at the tech reporter. She's like, I'm out of here. I'm ditching them. F these guys. She says, okay. Fine. Kara, good. You know what? Good. We need a few more yet to do exactly that, but they're scared. This is where they've spent their entire life, like their, their entire careers, and I get it. Like, look, I worked in mainstream media too for a long time. I mean, since the year 2000, all right, so I've seen it all. And gosh, it's 26 years, yikes. So the point being that, I mean, I'm amazed at what we can do over here, and I'm amazed at the capacity that just keeps growing and growing and getting stronger every single day. And I'm amazed that, you know, when I go through an airport and people come up to me and they say, hey, Trish, I love the show, or I'm traveling somewhere, and I'm on some, and people say, I love the show, and I'm like, so weirdy, and so many say, I just discovered you on YouTube, or on Spotify, and I'm like, wow, so you never watched me on CNBC, or Bloomberg, or Fox, and they're like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Because this is the future, and this is what the mainstream media is terrified of. It is losing its monopoly. Guess what? The pool cameras are still down for goodness' sakes, and yet I do believe I saw she and Trump today. Didn't you? Oh, yeah. Look at them. Where they are? There they are. So somehow, all of this still made air despite CNN, and MSNBC, and Fox, and do I have the internet? I have five of them. I had a graphic movie that I'll show him because they all said we're not going to we're not going to cover him. He likes. He likes granted. He's an expert on stone aside from many other things. And he loves good granted. Thank you very much. Of course, they talked about construction materials. Anyway, Donald Trump putting this one out onto social CNN and as he calls it, MSDNC's ratings have dropped considerably. Oh, he's not wrong on that. Not wrong at all. I mean, it's why CNN needs this injection of life, right? And entrepreneurship and vision. The primary reason is no credibility. They only write badly about a man who won the election in a giant landslide, winning all seven swing states, the popular vote in 86% of the counties, et cetera. And whose popularity is growing only because the unprecedented success in our country is having on both the world stage and at home CNN and MSDNC to show you how fake they are today refused to cover one of the biggest and most beautiful events to take place in many years. The arrival at the White House of the highly respected president of China Xi Jinping and his beautiful wife, the event was magnificent actually made for television, but because they're fake news and because they knew how good it would be, they didn't want any credit to be given to Trump. You see what's going on here and having worked at networks that had pools, they tend to band together in these situations and it's like they feel that they're stronger together and that's their sort of ammunition against the White House. And so they have this monopoly, right? Like, how is it right that there's only five networks that get to video and photograph the president like that? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You've got how many pool cameras? Let's see, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC/MSNBC. So they think that they are the be all end all and when they don't get their way, they band together and they say, hey, we're going to stand up to this. Well, guess what? He's just banned CNN, MSNBC and Politico. So MSNBC, CNN, they are part of that pool camera. And so the pools are coming together and they're saying, well, no, there's going to be no video. There's going to be no video and yet somehow amazingly, there is video because guess what? It is a new day. We are living in a different time and you don't need to have a stupid little badge in order to cover the news. Anyone can cover the news and they don't want that. They don't like that. They are fearful of that. They are losing their monopoly. They are losing their grip. And when they lose their grip, they're losing their business and they're losing their leverage with the White House. But I look at it and I'm like, guys, I don't know what kind of leverage you really have anymore because anybody with a little cell phone camera can get up and do their thing. And how is it fair? How is it fair that you have to pay into this pool coverage and then the pool designates this video for you? I mean, if you think about it, really shouldn't we have? And, you know, I'm not in favor of somebody will misquote me saying this. So I want to be careful. This is not, you know, me advocating for state TV, but I am advocating for somebody having a camera on the president always when he's speaking period and everything getting fed out. Why not? And why should you have to pay for that? Like, let's just make that a service to the White House. That's like, you know, easy, easy, easy, easy. And I shouldn't, Trish Regan on my show, have to pay to get that speech. It should just be available. So this is a total challenge to their entire business to their entire foundation, which is why what happened today was that they still refuse to film. And so think about that. The White House actually gave them access. They gave them a little passes back because I guess it was last night or this morning, the judge actually ruled, hey, you know, while we look at this whole thing, we wanted to give them their passes back because you didn't give them enough notice about it, etc. So the White House eventually took a couple hours to clear their passes, but they got their passes back and they got to get back into the building so they have their credentials. But the judge did not rule on the pool. I don't know why. I mean, the judge maybe wasn't thinking about the pool. Maybe the judge didn't know enough about media. So the judge didn't have an order on the pool. And so because of that, the pool is still saying, we're not going to film Trump. We're not going to film. So this is their leverage, right? They're like, you either reinstate MSNBC political everybody and you give them full access or we're not going to do it. And if we don't do it, you're going to be stuck with the dregs of society, those little weird conservative networks that you seem to like. Without the pool without CNN with CNN being barred to cover it. On behalf of all the networks, the one hand selected outlet is called real America's voice, which is the mega prop propagating outlet that is host to Steve Bannon's show and Jack Pasobeck, John Solomon before you entered the government to find the election fraud claims. Oh, yeah. So they, they hate those, those networks, right? So they hate those networks. They're losing their monopoly. I mean, when you get Mike Lindell TV doing its thing, well, they figure you've reached some kind of new low. I mean, the snobbery, the pompousness of them is really kind of extraordinary. This White House has actually allows very friendly media outlet inside of the door. And those are the ones they like, the Pentagon press pool, in fact, is for Lindell TV, you've started by my pillow CEO Mike Lindell, the gateway pun and human events. Today in New York City, real America's voice, a small pro Trump real America's real America's voice and Lindell TV are actually pretty good. I mean, I've shown you a whole bunch of sound bites. I love that Allison who reports for them. She gets stuff that, frankly, these network folks can't even come close to doing. So the monopoly is breaking and they don't know what to do. And you got these tech people like the Ellison's and possibly Elon Musk get involved. And what does that mean? So now, yeah, the ban as far as the pool is now concerned is still on. It's really kind of remarkable. And they're going to they're going to make such a stink about this guys and they're going to continue to make a stink about it. And if the judge rules, as I think the judge should, that they don't have some kind of constitutional right to getting a pass to sit in the front row of the White House press briefing room. Then, ooh, all the H.E. double else going to break loose, but Marco said it well. The White House feels very strongly and the president feels very strongly that the coverage he gets and I can't blame him. Look, I got to be honest with you. Maybe you're not going to like to hear this, but I watch a lot of American news coverage. And it sounds in some cases, for example, like they're rooting for a run. It sounds like they highlight anything Iran says in all their public statements as true and they downplay everything American officials say is wrong. So there's some discussion about whether this is a national security risk. I'll tell you, they're going to dig in because they know that their business model has just been threatened badly. Their freedom of speech is not being threatened. Their business model is being threatened. And that's why they're all sticking together. One thing to notice Fox News is sticking with the legacy media. Did you notice that? I'll tell you, Laura Lumer did. Here you go. You get the five networks, right? ABC CBS CNN Fox News and NBC slash MS NBC. And they are all sticking with this boycott, right? They're not going to film the president. So Laura Lumer put this one out and she said Fox News betrayed the president by joining the boycott. But they still get unrestricted access. She said all the exclusive interviews and we all know the host will come groveling back to President Trump begging him to promote their happy books unto social. I think Fox actually has a whole publishing unit now. There's never any consequences for these people. The worst people are always rewarded. We should have learned our lesson with Fox News on election night 2020. Ouch. Laura getting a response from people with people saying, hey, you know what Fox insiders tell us they're afraid of midterms and 28 like scotus gets sometimes afraid of leftist retribution. So Fox case and there's a little cartoon of freedom of the press matters until only when it benefits you listen, there may be some truth to that. You know, I do think that these media organizations are enormously sensitive to which way the wind is blowing. And if they think the wind is blowing the other way and look, we've all seen the polls on midterms. I'm hoping there's a rabbit that's pulled out of the hat and I still think there's an opportunity to do that. But I think they're looking at it and saying to themselves, gee, we're going to need friends in high places. We're going to need friends on the other side of the aisle. So that may be part of the method to the madness. You know, you also saw some responses to Laura's tweet saying, I have been watching Fox News since they came on air and I have to say it is literally gone downhill. As of yesterday, I downloaded the Trump TV. Yeah, the White House TV app. And I started watching Newsmax and OAN. Great. I'm going to be on Newsmax later. So I'll see you there. Of course, X for the in-between news and breaking by Fox. And then Greg writes firing Maria Bordeuromo was boneheaded, a boneheaded move by Fox Fox is increasingly losing the trust of its longstanding viewers who continue to switch alternatives, including Newsmax, OAN, Real America's Voice, RSPN, Blaze TV, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Lindell TV, etc. Wow. I mean, it's happening, right? Like, this is all changing in real time. And there's a way to reach viewers that never existed before speaking of Fox. Gosh, Fox got a little bit of bad news today. Fox got a lot of bad news today. Some very bad news for Fox just out of Delaware. Judges just ordered Fox to turn over hundreds of down. documents in what's called a derivative lawsuit. Like a derivative shareholder lawsuit. And I guess I would just sort of ask, does any of this have to do with what just went down with Maria? Because she was just kind of unceremoniously let go after 12 and a half years. And now we learn that they're going to have to turn over a whole bunch of documents because shareholders in this lawsuit are demanding it. And they want board minutes. And they want the emails. And they want the records going all the way back to the phone hacking. You remember that scandal from years ago? I mean, this is not good for them, right? And I guarantee you every executive at Fox is like Yikes. And they're paying a lot of attention to this because basically the judge is making Rupert Murdoch turn over material on how he was apparently auto-deleting text messages, including during the window after Dominion. You remember, Dominion thing? I mean, they cost the company $800 million, nearly $800 million. That was a biggie. Smartmatic is still suing. Still suing for $2.7 billion. So this is a big deal. The shareholders came out and sued because they're like, what the heck are you doing paying? Nearly $800 million out to settle this thing. Like, what was going on? Either you had no clue what was going on on your news or you're settled and you shouldn't have settled. And so either way, the shareholders are like, we want information, we want to know what the backstory is. I warned of this. I actually warned of this way back when it happened. And I saw that nearly $800 million suit. I was like, wow, that's a huge settlement. You guys are going to face a whopper of a shareholder lawsuit because, hey, if you're a shareholder, you're sitting there going, what? You're like, are you kidding me? Why did you just shell out that much money? It's going to affect the stock price. Why didn't you run the place a little better? And if you thought you're on air personalities were over the top and some of the evidence that's come out suggests that not everybody bought into stuff, the way some people did, then gosh darn it, why didn't you control what the heck was going on the air? So yeah, you get your shareholder suing, surprise, surprise. And they're going after the people that run Fox. So Rupert's one of them, right, the Murdoch family. And they're alleging that this business model they got in their view that shareholders' attorney's view is irresponsible and getting the company into lots of trouble. I mean, $787 million worth of trouble as far as dominion goes and then smartmatic. I mean, that's still out there at 2.7 billion. So shareholders are saying, hey, we want to know how you're actually running this joint, and are you? So the shareholder lawsuits out there, you get shareholders on the company, not the Murdoch's obviously, who do on the company as well, but we're talking about public shareholders, things like pension funds, whatever. And they do this a lot. You actually see the shareholder derivative lawsuits and just kind of explain it, basically, you get the shareholders who are looking at the directors and the officers that run Fox and they're saying, hey, you guys have a fiduciary duty to look out for the company. And if they can prove somehow that management and the team that's running things allegedly wrecked value, either because of these huge $787 million settlements or because they didn't want to go to court, then, you know what, they're going to be able to press forward on this case. They're going to argue that the board management was ignoring all the red flags and they're saying, it's got to be better run because otherwise, you run the risk of destroying value in the company and having to pay $787 million fines. Now, I would add that, you know, these are necessary. Shareholder lawsuits, I don't love them. I don't love them because sometimes I think these lawyers get too carried away, but they're kind of necessary because you do want to prevent your responsible corporate behavior. Again, my first instinct when I saw the Dominion settlement was, are they crazy? They're going to get sued up the wasoo for that one, right? But I don't love them. I put this on the graphic, you know, plaintiffs' lawyers make out the best. They really do. The ones that make all the money and these things. Do you remember Elon and the lawsuit that they brought because of his giant pay package that was a shareholder lawsuit and the lawyers? The lawyers wanted $6 billion in compensation. That was crazy. They thought they deserved $6. It was like 300K an hour. That's what it worked out to be for their fees. They didn't actually get that much. But my point is being that sometimes these shareholder lawsuits get carried away. In this case, I think that, you know, the shareholders deserve to know how that public company is being run. I mean, that's basic capitalism, right? You put money in and you want to get more back. And so you have these people on the board that you think are actually independent. And if they were just along for the ride and they were the rubber stamp, then you might have a problem. And that's what they're trying to get at. And it could be very expensive. It could get really, really, really expensive. This is not a parking ticket, OK? This could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Fox knows that. And so I just think about what happened with Maria. And again, whether these things are connected, whether they were trying to divert attention away, or whether they wanted to make it look like they really did have control over the place. I mean, it may have just been a very opportunistic thing to do. But we're talking about 700 documents, like nearly roughly 700 documents, that the judge is ordering them to turn over. You get years of board minutes. And they want some emails that are tied to this guy NASA, who's the former Ford CEO, who's a longtime Murdoch world director. And the shareholders are alleging that he was not truly independent. And so they're going to want to see all the emails that NASA ever used. And what emails he had back and forth to Murdoch and the sealed files from the smartmatic fight allegedly, were they destroyed, were they failing to keep evidence. All of these things are coming up. And apparently, Fox's lawyer told the court that Rupert had been auto-deleting texts until about April 22, which would be after the time that Dominion sued. So that might be kind of an issue, right? Because you're supposed to preserve all the evidence. And now I guess the lawyers also said it wasn't like a wholesale deletion that he mainly communicated on email. But I don't know if everybody's going to buy that, right? If you can't get the original texts. So they're going to try. The shareholders are going to say, hey, I don't delete whatever. We want to go back and find out who was he texting. And then they're going to go and get the original phone, if they can, for the person he was texting. This is going to be ugly. It's a giant paper trail. And I guarantee you, they don't want this. This is ugly. This is ugly for them. They're already fighting over smartmatic. So it's ugly if you're trying to tell a down record that the board was just such a fantastic check in balances. And they were doing everything above board. And now you've got to have this. So in light of this news and in light of this just coming out, I've got to say, guys, you know, the timing is kind of suspicious, just a little suspicious. Because they just took out Maria Bartolome, who's also named in this smartmatic case. They just took her off the air. Now, full disclosure, I like Maria Bartolome a lot. By the way, I like Fox a lot. I mean, it worked there a few years. I don't have anything against him. Heck, if I hadn't left there, I wouldn't be doing this, right? But I'm going to tell you, it strikes me as somewhat suspicious. I mean, again, I like Maria. We grew very close, having worked together there, and we hosted a couple of debates together. She did the big kids. I had the little kids' table for the undercarg, because we had so many people, right? So many applicants for the job of the presidency back in 2016. But I really do consider her friend. And she's just a tremendous person who is accomplished so much and has such a storied and legendary career. And so for them to kind of really try and ruin it, like it's like taking the knife and really like twisting it on her way out, it seems a little unnecessary, right? Just a little unnecessary. Was there not a better way to have done this? Unless this is the method to the madness, OK? So here we are. Why take her off the air after you just resigned her? Unless maybe when you resigned her, you had some idea that you could take her off the air and just keep her on the shelf, right? And then you get to put out your PR release and back-channel it to reporters, whatever your version of the story is. Maybe? I mean, after all, her lawyer is telling us she's not fired. And she still remains an employee. And I kind of think that's what's going on. So they resigned her. And they are still paying her most likely. And she most likely still is an employee. But they made it look like she was fired. So why do that? Why do something like that? Maybe. Because it helps them in this particular moment, right? I mean, I get to say, like, the communication with the White House-- I don't know. Peter Navarro has talked about that and said he ran it out the food chain. Who knows? I'm sure they didn't appreciate that if that's indeed true. But I'm also just going to say that I think there's a lot of communication with the White House that happens to go on back and forth. And didn't that come out with Dominion, right? The other anchors were communicating with the White House about the rundown and that kind of thing. So that might actually be a little bit unfair because she's being subject to do a different standard. Here's a question for you. Could Fox, taking her off the air, have actually helped Fox, or did they think it helped them save face in this kind of climate, given what they were facing on the shareholder lawsuit? All right? Possibly. this yearholder derivative case is effectively an argument that management did not control risks. Shareholders are alleging that on-air talent in the 2020 legal mess that ensued ran the company into a wall and the board just sat by and watched. And so then this summer, suddenly, they let her go amid this reporting that was all back-channel suggesting that the White House got a text and it was allegedly from Maria saying that management didn't want to show its reporting on Trump's prime time address about China and the elections. So if you think about it, right, if you're the Murdoch's and you're about to have a judge open board minutes and open deleted text files then maybe getting the host most idea 2020 smartmatic and dominion coverage and litigation off your set is what you would call very useful optics because it sends this public message that hey, you know, we have standards, we have lines, she crossed it, she's gone. I mean, I think it's very opportunistic and I think it's actually shortsighted, honestly, because don't forget Maria Bartoromo is a named defendant right in the smartmatic case. So she actually can have a lot to say about smartmatic. No, she's not going to lie or anything, but think about it. She was in the tent and suddenly she's not in the tent anymore. So firing her doesn't make your board see many less or more than it is. I mean, it doesn't change what happened in 2020 now, does it? You just distract from the news, I guess. I mean, nobody really has been reporting this. I guess something to me and maybe NPR. So there you go. So you distract a little, but I do think that fundamentally what's going to happen is that PR only gets you so far, right? There are legal realities. There are financial losses that have happened and may still happen and here's why Maria is still a witness and she is a named defendant in that smartmatic case with $2.7 billion. So talent at any big shop like Fox or anywhere else is typically contractually indemnified. Meaning you know what, the company has to defend you. They have to pay your legal bills and they're on the hook for anything that you said on the air that is perhaps damaging. So Fox isn't necessarily in a good place here, right? They still go to pay her lawyers. They get to defend themselves. And so now she's outside the tent. They moved her outside. They kicked her out onto the sidewalk, right? And they tried to really damage her on the way out. So if I were the lawyer, hey, I'm looking at it. I'd be saying I want to keep the temperature cool. I want to keep everything, you know, smooth. I'm not going to shove her out into the cold right about now because that's kind of the last thing you want, right? I mean, I'm just thinking like logically, but maybe they're not thinking logically. Maybe they're just thinking about PR. I mean, if I were the lawyer would not be happy because you never want to exile a witness that you're still going to need and hope that she maybe still feels loyal because I guarantee you she probably doesn't. I mean, if the goal was, let's look like we got control over the talent. And I guess the PR department scores a win and they're happy because maybe it sends a message that Fox management knows what it's doing. But if the goal was, hey, let's minimize our risk for shareholders and the smartmatic case, then, yeah, I don't know what to tell them bad idea because you're not going to win a $2.7 billion dollar defamation case by handing over your most exposed host to the tabloids and saying, hey, we're great leaders. You're not going to appease shareholders. It doesn't undo anything that happened back in 2020. All you've done is created a reason for her not to be on your side. And that could get very expensive, very expensive for Fox indeed. Oh my goodness. I got to go join Newsmax actually right now. We're out of time. Great to see you guys here. We have a lot more to discuss. I still want to get into this socialism stuff and everything that's happening with midterms. So I'll see you back here live on the show tomorrow. But just remember, Maria's no dummy. So I'm sure that she knows all of this. I have no, you know, I know her. Obviously I sent her a text hoping that she's okay, etc. But I have no, I've had no discussions with her, her lawyer, no discussions with Fox. This is just my instinct. I don't think it was the smartest move. Maybe from a PR standpoint, you know, but I don't know what it really buys you in the end. I think a lot of people that watched Fox are probably pretty angry that she's off the air right about now. Anyway, again, I'll see you tomorrow and make sure you subscribe and make sure you leave a comment. I read them all and until then have a terrific evening. 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