Tucker Carlson Tried To Make McCarthy ‘Beg And Grovel’ For His Speakership
Abby Grossberg, Carlson’s former producer who is now suing Fox News over, among other things, the toxic workplace she endured there, spoke to Anderson Cooper Tuesday night about the outsized power Carlson wielded over Republicans and the inappropriate ways he used it.
Grossberg cited as an example Carlson's interference in the protracted Republican fight that eventually resulted in McCarthy’s election. But that was only after days of numerous failed votes. Sometime in the middle of it all, Carlson and his staff tried to broker the outcome.
The plan was to have McCarthy on Carlson's show and “hear him beg and grovel,” Grossberg said she was told by Senior Executive Producer Justin Wells (who was fired when Carlson was). Freedom Caucus member and McCarthy opponent Matt Gaetz would appear next, “kind of set his terms, then Tucker will set his terms that McCarthy has to agree to,” she said.
According to Grossberg, Carlson and his staff thought this was the way to “make this whole thing happen on air and save the Republican Party.”
McCarthy did not agree to the plan. “But he did call Tucker the next day from his office, with Representative Thomas Massie, and had agreed to some of Tucker's terms according to a text that Tucker had sent me and he said that was a win.”