Ryan Schwartz
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Late-night comedians had a field day with Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon’s cable news ousters on Monday, including Jimmy Kimmel, who took the opportunity to joke that he’d also been abruptly let go from his hosting job.
Just as Kimmel was recapping Carlson and Lemon’s respective exits from Fox News and CNN, Kimmel’s sidekick Guillermo cut in with a mock announcement that “ABC TV has decided to part ways with host Jimmy Kimmel. This was a mutual decision… And, on a personal note, I would like to say to Jimmy: Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. Loser!”
Elsewhere in his monologue, Kimmel joked that “this is more like an episode of Succession than last night’s episode of Succession,” as Carlson’s departure was reportedly Fox Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch’s decision.
“What a shock,” Kimmel added. “What an absolutely delightful shock this is.” (You can watch his full monologue above.)
Elsewhere on late-night TV…
Late Night host Seth Meyers gleefully recounted the news in an extensive “A Closer Look” segment, who asked: “Does this mean that Fox News has gone… woke?” (That word was accompanied by a scary thunderclap and the laugh of an evil witch.) He then compared his reaction to a series of Tucker Carlson faces and suggested that perhaps “the new green M&M” might take over his old time slot. (The Tonight Show‘s Jimmy Fallon got in on the M&M jokes, too, quipping, “It’s easy to make jokes about Tucker being gone, but now who’s going to tell me which M&M is most woke, y’know?”)
Over on The Daily Show, guest host Desi Lydic couldn’t help but find a little irony in Carlson’s ouster: “I can’t believe a network that’s so opposed to gender-affirming surgery just cut off their own d—k,” she said.
And Late Late Show host James Corden, who will be stepping down from his late-night post at the end of this week, had a different theory for why Carlson and Lemon left their networks so suddenly. “They’re getting out while the going’s good,” he suggested. “Because soon, the only reputable news source in America will be gone on Thursday. It’s us. We break the news, they just take the news.”
Fox News parted ways with Carlson on Monday morning. Interestingly, there was zero indication of Carlson’s exit the previous Friday, when at the close of what would be his final episode he said to viewers a typical, “We’ll be back on Monday.”
Word that CNN terminated Lemon came less than an hour later. At the time, Lemon said he’d been told he was let go by his agent, not by anyone at CNN. Shortly thereafter, the cable news network issued a terse response challenging its ex-employee’s interpretation of events.
“Don Lemon’s statement about this morning’s events is inaccurate,” CNN Communications tweeted. “He was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.”
Carlson’s termination comes in the wake of Fox News Channel reaching a settlement in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, just as their much-publicized trial was about to get underway. Dominion claimed it was owed damages resulting from Fox News’ airing of false claims about its role in the 2020 election. In the past few months, emails and texts gathered for the trial from Fox executives and anchors — Carlson and Sean Hannity included — hinted that people working at the company knowingly put forth false information about the election and Dominion’s involvement in it.
Lemon’s firing, meanwhile, comes three weeks after our sister site Variety published an exposé in which more than a dozen of his former and current colleagues outlined a pattern of allegedly misogynistic, inappropriate and “diva-like” behavior at the cable news network, and more than two months after he received backlash for a sexist statement he made on CNN This Morning in February.