A scorched earth campaign against Tucker Carlson has been anticipated, and the first leak of behind-the-scenes video has dropped, fed to Soros-funded Media Matters, which long has been trying to get both Carlson and Fox News silenced.

Someone with access to the video feed from Tucker Carlson's home studios has leaked a video that he must have expected to be damaging to the former top-rated host, but which really damages the streaming video service, Fox Nation.  If Carlson is to be blamed, it would be for being frank and honest in a private conversation.

Matt Gertz of Media Matters writes:

Tucker Carlson headlined Fox News' Fox Nation streaming service in the years leading up to his sudden firing from the network. But a behind-the-scenes video obtained by Media Matters shows him lashing out at Fox for the service's "unbelievable" failings — apparently while doing some image rehab for misogynistic social media influencer Andrew Tate.

According to Carlson, "nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks" and doesn't "work." He called the site's failings "a betrayal of our efforts," adding that rather than posting his interviews there he would prefer to "dump the whole thing on YouTube."

The video shows Carlson speaking on the phone on the set of his Tucker Carlson Today streaming interview show. He is discussing preparations for an interview in which he says he will act as "a representative of the American media now, speaking to an exile in Romania and welcoming him back into the brotherhood of journalists." The person on the other end of the call asks if Carlson can wear a sweater for the interview because the subject was "panicking" about needing to wear a suit. Carlson becomes apoplectic, saying, "This is airing on the nighttime show, and I want it to look official" rather than "like bro talk."

Wanting an interviewee to wear a suit doesn't sound too scandalous to me, though hearing Tucker Carlson's private critique of the I.T. on the Fox Nation streaming service is sort of titillating.  But is it scandalous?  Does it make Carlson sound dishonest?  Quite the contrary, I think.

I have no way to know who leaked the video, but others have speculated that Fox News itself might resort to leaks that it thinks would damage Carlson — especially now that we have learned he is still under contract and could be unable to appear elsewhere unless released, and he can be expected to seek an end to that status.

The New York Times has indicated that it, too, has received leaked videos:

In video obtained by The Times, for instance, Mr. Carlson is shown off camera discussing his "postmenopausal fans" and whether they will approve of how he looks on the air. In another video, he is overheard describing a woman he finds "yummy."

We'll see if we get to look at those.  But I suspect that they will be unable to shake his fans from their enjoyment of Tucker Carlson's wit and will outrage only those already outraged that opinions different from their own are allowed to be heard.

Here is the leaked video and transcript via Grabien:

Carlson: "I don't want to be a slave to Fox Nation, which I don't think that people watch anyway. We're gonna — because I, you know, I'm like a representative of the American media now, speaking to an exile in Romania and welcoming him back into the brotherhood of journalists."
UNKNOWN: "Yeah. It would help us out if you wore a sweater, though, because we asked him not to wear a suit. Like, he was kind of [inaudible] about it. So, you don't have to. Tucker's gonna be looking casual, that's just how our show looks. Is that okay?"
Carlson: "I mean, this is airing on the nighttime show, and I want it to look official. I want it to be like bro talk. And I — and I — you know what I mean?"
UNKNOWN: "Yeah, but the majority of it, if we go like 45 minutes, is going to be for Fox Nation."
Carlson: "But nobody is going to watch it on Fox Nation. Nobody watches Fox Nation, because the site sucks. So I'd really like to just put the thing on YouTube. But anyway, that's just my view. I'm just frustrated with — it's hard to use that site. I don't know why they're not fixing it. It's driving me insane. And they're like making, like, Lifetime movies, but they don't — they don't work on the infrastructure of the site? Like, what? It's crazy and it drives me crazy, because it's like we're doing all this extra work and no one can find it. It's unbelievable, actually. I don't know who runs that site."
UNKNOWN: "We will play a sizable chunk on the show tomorrow night. That's the plan. And then what it will do is drive a lot of people to watch this on Fox Nation. It'll be a great help to what we're doing over there on [inaudible]."
Carlson: "I know, but we're doing our part, we're like working like animals to produce all this content, and the people in charge of it, whoever that guy is, whatever his name, is — like, they're ignoring the fact that the site doesn't work and it's — I think it's like a betrayal of our efforts. That's how I feel. So, I — of course, I resent it."