The widow of Roger Ailes, whose sure hand guided Fox to the top of the cable-news heap and kept it there for nigh on two decades, ladles it up—and it’s delish.
Roger Ailes’s wife publicly attacks the Murdochs amid Tucker Carlson fallout
Elizabeth Ailes refers to Rupert Murdoch’s sons as characters from English nursery rhymeThe wife of the late Roger Ailes has publicly attacked Rupert Murdoch after Tucker Carlson was abruptly sacked by Fox News last month on the heels of the conservative network settling its billion-dollar lawsuit with the Dominion Voting Systems.
Ailes was appointed by Rupert Murdoch to head Fox News when it launched in 1996 and had fallen from grace two decades later after being obliged to stand down in 2016 in the wake of several sexual harassment accusations.
“Happy Heavenly Birthday Roger Ailes,” tweeted Elizabeth Ailes, wishing her late husband, who died at the age of 77, a year after his exit from the network.
“It took you 20 years to build Fox News into the powerhouse that it was and only 6 years for the Murdochs to wreak havoc,” she wrote, weeks after Carlson and Fox News parted ways as the network agreed to pay $787.5m to Dominion to settle a defamation lawsuit over election lies amplified by the channel’s personalities.
“Rupert thought he could do your job. What a joke. He has the checkbook but could never come close to your genius. RIP.”
“Karma is a b****” said Ms Ailes in a conversation with the Daily Beast. She said none of the scandals, including the Dominion lawsuit and Carlson’s removal, would have happened if her husband was still with the network.
“Roger never had his hand off the wheel when it came to Fox,” she told the outlet, adding that the Murdochs “weren’t born here and don’t have the same pedigree”.
She said her husband referred to James Murdoch, Mr Murdoch’s younger son, and Lachlan as “Tweedle Dumb” and “Tweedle Dumber” respectively.
She also described Mr Murdoch as a “jealous man” who fired Ailes because he “eclipsed Rupert on the world stage”.
She said Fox parted ways with Carlson because he became too popular. “That’s what the Murdochs did to Roger, Bill O’Reilly, Eric Bolling, and they did it to Tucker,” she said. Fox News has not issued a statement on the comments.
Sounds believable enough to me, especially that bit proposing that the whole Tucker thing, along with Ailes and the others, might be more to do with personal ego than anything else. On that level of wealth, fame, and power, such dustups quite often are. Sexual assault allegations seem to go hand-in-glove with it, also.
Via Ace, who notes:
Megyn Kelly confirms that Ailes called Les Freres Murdoch “Tweedle Dumb” and “Tweedle Dumber,” stating that he said that to her all the time.
There’s a video embed of Kelly (who, somewhat to my surprise, is still quite hot-looking, and good for her) to back it up, too. It’s a pretty interesting segment, really; watch it if you have a cpl minutes, and care enough about this sort of thing to spend ‘em on it.
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“Via Ace, who notes:”
The link is bad, Mike.
Right you are, fixed it. Thanks, Barry!
Daddy, he keeps making fun of us!
Yeah, he calls us Dumb! We’re not dumb!! We’re smart. We should get some respect.
Shut up you two. He SHOULD call you FredoDumb and FredoDumber. Ok ok. I’ll get rid of him…