Tony Katz on Kara Swisher Refusing to Work for Paramount

0:00It's more than probable, more than possible. It's probable that you're not familiar with the name Cara Swisher, which is okay because you're not somebody reading the New York Times or watching CNN because mostly you love yourself. Tony Katz, Tony Katz today, good to be here, good to be with you, find everything I do over at Tony Katz.com. She is a tech reporter. That's how she made her bones. And then she created a recode with Walt Mossberg, who's a famous name in that world. And then she did opinion for the New York Times and she was back over it at Vox. And she now has a show on CNN. I don't know how she got a show on CNN. But I'm not in charge of CNN's programming. If I was in charge of CNN's programming, I would have a show on CNN and they would have ratings. I had said when when Jim Acosta in the most stunning and pseudo intellectual move ever,

1:06he couldn't come to some deal with with CNN because they didn't want him to have the show that he had. They wanted to move him to midnight, midnight to 2 a.m. And he was making like 750 grand. Now you could argue, hey, in the TV world, that's not much. But in the Jim Acosta world, that's more than he deserved. And he was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go about starting my own podcast. Okay, man, go start your own podcast. I'm not here to stop you. But for anybody thinking of starting their own podcast, you start the podcast if you're on traditional media. You do not start the podcast afterwards. You start it before. You start it while you have the other thing. So if you lose the thing, you still have somewhere to go. Now Jim Acosta has more subscribers than I do. He has 248,000 subscribers on YouTube.

2:10That to me is an unbelievable number. These videos get 6,000 views, 5,000 views, there's one that got 115,000 views. So he can get some numbers. I cannot tell you if he's making any money. I'm willing to bet that it's not the $750,000. I'm willing to bet that while indeed, I mean, he's doing award-winning interviews with Steve Schmidt, my point proven. This is all just leftist insanity. And if you want to hear about leftist insanity, did you hear this from Jennifer Welch, again, who does a podcast talking about JD Vance and his wife Una and their kids, listen to this. He is married to a woman of Indian descent. He has mixed race children. So to all of the mega voters out there, if this man will not defend his wife and will

3:10not defend his kids, do you think he gives a crap about you or anything to do with you? Defend his kids from what? What are you possibly referring to? Her name is Jennifer Welch. She's like this new face, the Democratic Party. She is beyond vile. She is the poster child of being a Karen. Whatever affluent suburb is in near where you live, that's where she lives. And guaranteed she's on the HOA board. Why are you bringing up his kids? What do you mean he doesn't care about his kids? What possibly you're talking about? You don't think he knows his wife is Indian? He married the woman, and I'm pretty sure he may have seen her in various stages of undress, what with having the children and all. You don't think he noticed? What argument is this? What insanity is this? Like this on the political left, as Chris Hayes is in interviewing her, I guess this passes it some kind of rational thought.

4:11Jim Acosta was never a journalist, Jim Acosta was a leftist who was on CNN, and his job was to attack a president Trump, not because Jim Acosta was right, but because attacking the president would keep you on the air. And he got offered midnight to two, he's like, I'm not going to do that. And I said at the time, I'll take that show right now. I will take midnight to two, I do a morning show in Indianapolis. I've got this show right here. I've got eat, drink, smoke. I will take that show right now midnight to 2 a.m. pay me half of the 750, or a little more than half. We'll just round it up to 400 and I will have better ratings than Jim Acosta ever had in six months at midnight to two. Nah, it's Eastern, of course, that's nine to 11 on the West Coast. I will have better ratings. It'll be a more entertaining show. You will love it. And then you'll pay me what you paid him. You know what? You'll pay me a little bit more because I exceeded the expectation. He wasn't willing to take that deal, crazy, use the platform, then build your other platform.

5:17That's the business, Boo Boo, that's how it works. By the way, follow me on YouTube, Tony Katz, be sure to subscribe. Jim Acosta, 248,000 subscribers. That is a lot of people living in their mom's basement and angry liberal white women. Cara Swisher, she's got a show coming to CNN. Cara Swisher wants to live forever. Well, sorry, I guess it's about tech and it's about longevity and how people will survive and are trying to survive and that's what the show is about, except now she's come out to say that with the new purchase of CNN by Paramount Skydance, because Paramount Skydance, which is owned by Ellison, is purchasing Warner, Warner own CNN. Ellison, Larry Ellison, of course, Oracle, David Ellison is the son.

6:21They purchased Paramount, which is of course CBS. They put in Barry Weiss as the editor in chief and layoff started to happen. They just ended the whole radio world of CBS, CBS radio was around for almost 100 years. It is kind of nutty that it took place. But it's also the way things go and people quit and then they were laid off and it's funny one of the guys who has laid off said, hey, I got a new job. It's the most liberal outfit possible. It's called Midas Touch and their whole job is to be anti-Trump. That's their whole purpose. That's where you got a job. So really no change for him because of this purchase and because of people hating Barry Weiss who is not a conservative, but she believes in free speech and she actually wants to build a newsroom. Kara Swisher is now saying that when this takeover takes place, she's going to leave. The moment Paramount Skydance completes the takeover of Warner Brothers, she's leaving.

7:30You have no idea what's going to happen. We're going to quit before they have a chance to fire you. That's clearly the way to take this, right? That's clearly what it is that Swisher's saying here. She knows she's going to be fired because she knows that everything that she discusses because somehow she's been allowed to be this opinion person is all progressive nonsense and nothing that is rational. Now when CNN hired Chris Lyft, I had high hopes for him. As the CEO, his job was to reset CNN into a worthy model and it didn't work. Lots of resistance, lots of leaks and then he was let go. It really stinks for him. Now maybe he wasn't the leader that was necessary. I don't know the man. I don't know all the internals, but I do know that CNN wants to be this a progressive

8:31outfit claiming to be decent. They don't apologize for pushing Russia, Russia, Russia. They don't apologize for pushing any COVID scams. They don't apologize for hiding Hunter Biden and they still have the audacity to claim that they're the decent ones. You watch Abby Philip on her show Abby Philip tonight, a show that could have been monumental for CNN in making this pivot and wouldn't have taken much and instead support every leftist on the show, attack Scott Jennings all day, all night, all the time and that guy handles himself like no one you've ever seen. It's super impressive, super duper impressive. CNN hasn't changed a bit. They are still the the the the Jim Acosta place, they're still the Jim Acosta station. If she is indeed telling the truth that she's going to be gone, the question being asked

9:33was actually asked by Garrett C. Wright in one of the radio trades called Barrett Media, Barrett Media.com. It's the right question is Cara Swisher on her own or other people going to follow suit? Will other people quit CNN because of the takeover? And my answer is, gosh, I hope so, good, let them leave, do you know how much talent is out there? Tony, you're just talking about yourself, oh, yeah, sure, oh, be a great opportunity, as long as I didn't have to do one of those kinds of shows, right? I know I could do it, like as a host, I'm fully aware that I could do the Hannity type show. I don't think that's what I want. Could I do the Brett Baer kind of show at yes, I could, I would be more interested in

10:35the Tim Russell ask kind of show and you could argue as in that what Brett Baer does. And I would say I would think that there's a little more rigidness to Brett Baer's time slide. And I would want a little more expansiveness. So that's where I make the difference, not disparaging Brett Baer in the slightest. But what I really want is late night, you know, it's like, you know, what I really want to do is direct. No, what I would really want is late night for sure, absolutely. I think there's more room in that space. And I think that if you mix comedy with kind of the, the interview, long form interview concepts, Larry King, oh, who's the guy who ended up taking off his pants in front of people? Charlie Rose. His name Charlie Rose, right? That kind of stuff, like I always wanted to do the longer form meets playboy after dark with the cigar with the bourbon, everything else and kind of get, kind of get into it with

11:37all sorts of people. That's where I'd like to be a little more comedy willing to be to laugh, kind of focus, I would say, that's where I'd want to be and I would show it absolutely want to, want to do and still want to do. Yeah, there's a lot of people out there and you could probably name 100 people. You know what? Maybe not 100. You can name five. You give it five minutes of thought. You'll come in with five people. You listen to, they'd be like, yep, they would do a great job. They're so much good talent out there that doesn't get the chance and you say to me, who would want to be on CNN? And what I would say to you is, we don't know what CNN is going to be yet. We don't know. And with a new ownership, if you're going to lose these people, there's a chance to remake it into something. Does it have to be a conservative? Something? No. But it could offer up perspectives and ideas and thoughts and simply not be hateful. Well, maybe more to the point. And yes, hateful is a huge part of it. Not be so full of crap.

12:37CNN is full of garbage. They lie to themselves and they lie to us every single day about them not having a slanted, not having a bias. At least say so. My name's Tony Katz. I'm a conservative. I don't apologize for a damn thing. And if you don't like it, tell your mother to kiss off. I don't care. This is it, kittens. This is who I am and this is what I'm doing. And if you want to give me Cotari money to change my mind, I'm going to say sorry. There are other guys out there that you might want to go to. This is it. This is the show I want to do. These are conversations I want to have. This is how I want to engage. And I think that there's room for a whole bunch of stuff. I don't think that you have to not listen to other people, not engage with other people, but I sure so don't want to engage with other people who are going to start with, well, you know, Trump's a pedophile. No, he's not.

13:37That's crap. And that's the stuff you dismiss, but people who might disagree with a policy of Trump. Yeah, I'll talk to them. I disagree with the policy of Israel. I'll talk to them too or England or France, which I disagree with many of their policies, specifically immigration policies. There's a great opportunity here. Why would I say no to it? Why would anybody? We don't know what we're going to get. That's my point about Cara Swisher. She doesn't know what she's going to get, but she's already out the door, which means she knows what she's giving. What she's giving isn't needed, what she's giving isn't good, what she's giving doesn't get ratings. And most importantly, what she's giving precludes the importance of honesty, which is what happens when you disagree with your own team. You got to say so and you see it and people won't do it. So yeah, let the takeover happen, show these people the door and no one is going to miss

14:41Cara Swisher. No one, let me say it again, no one. I'm Tony Katz. This is Tony Katz today.