Billy Bush: The Infamous Trump Tape, Secrets of Corporate Media, & Megyn Kelly v. Harvey Weinstein
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When you realize, I mean, you obviously learned the hard way, I did too, but the people who run the business are just not good people. There's some friendly people, there's certainly some smart people. There are some people who are good people, but in general, I worked at three different TV networks full-time and then two others part-time, and I just found as a rule management, they just weren't people you would make the godparents to your kids. A lot of people are afraid. I just think it's like,

Is that what it is? Well, certainly linear television, you know, now the big companies, I think people are terrified. You know, you see management, they don't know where they're going to be the next day. Welcome to Tucker Carlson Show. We bring you stories that have not been showcased anywhere else. And they're not censored, of course, because we're not gatekeepers. We are honest brokers here to tell you what we think you need to know and do it honestly. Check out all of our content at TuckerCarlson.com. Here's the episode.

So leadership is hard to find, and gutsy leadership. You look back at the days of great sitcom television. You look at Brandon Tartikoff and Grant Tinker and some of these great legends that said, you know what, we're going to stick with this Seinfeld bomb. The ratings are terrible, but what a, there's something there, and we're going to hold on to it, and we're just, that, you know, as you're,

audience is shrinking and the gains are shrinking people are just terrified they're looking over the shoulder they're wondering you know am i the next to get fired so i i mean that's absolutely right i forgot seinfeld was a bomb at first it was not not doing well

I totally forgot that. Imagine someone pulling that off the air. They would do it now. Didn't work after two episodes or three episodes. This didn't work after a year or two years. No, it's incredible. Right? They had the runway, though, because they were making so much money. NBC was making money in every category then. And it had some good lead in and all that stuff. And then they stuck with it. And now it makes more money in reruns still than most original shows. That's incredible. Yeah.

You've been in TV for like 30 years or in broadcasting, certainly for 30 years. I still think though, even when the business was making a ton of money, it was a dishonest business. That's the way it felt to me anyway, when I started at CNN. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, I look at all the places I've been. It's, I think of what I think of our, I think of the moral high ground, like it doesn't exist. Yeah.

What does that mean? People grappling for the moral high ground. Anyone who gets fired based upon, you know, for moral purposes, they try to use the morality clause, which every talent has in their contract, the morality clause. They lunge for it. This is coming from people who don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to that. It's like it's just a big laugh. Everyone, you know, the firers are all crazy.

completely morally compromised. So, so, well, that's, I mean, I would just look at each other. Let's all look at each other for a second. Really? Do any of us belong standing on this? This is all about gain. Okay. Who's up? Who's down? Then why?

No, I, of course, I know what you're talking about. And I think that from, I mean, I'm obviously long out of it, but I think of that from afar when I see these people getting all huffy about this or that moral transgression. I'm like, wait a second, you know, you slept with my intern, you killed your own intern or whatever, you know what I mean? Let's call the whole thing off. No, that's right. But why, I'm just like general question, but why, why,

why not just call you in and say, you know, this isn't working for us financially. Why do they feel the need to dress it up? Not, not, I'm not speaking specifically of you, but it's always like, well, that's the Megyn Kelly situation, right? I mean, I love Megyn. Why not call her in and say, we gave you way too big a budget. This is giant. And the ratings aren't there. And also you're doing something different. Megyn, I love Megyn. She's a friend. Uh,

She was a ferocious attorney interviewing people at nine o'clock at night. And then, you know, the daytime show with, you know, like, here's the fresh muffins, everybody. And, you know, it's just all of a sudden it's like, well, it's like Martha Stewart years ago had a version of The Apprentice after Donald Trump had The Apprentice. They gave one to Martha. They thought that would be great. But Martha had a different idea. Her idea was.

I'm going to write sweet handwritten notes on pink stationery. I'm sorry we have to let you go. No, that's not the Martha we want. The Martha we want, the Martha we love is cold and tough. And a nut cutter. Yeah, nut cutter. You're out of here, bitch. You're gone. That's the Martha we wanted. So, you know, this is...

It happens that you have to stay, I guess, you know. But Megan is such a great example, though. So they hire Megan. She's, you know, got a kind of... Fired by the same man that fired me. And instead of saying, hey, the ratings don't match the $40 million a year budget or whatever it is, they fire Megan for asking a question about when blackface...

fell out of vogue or was not acceptable at all for Halloween and things. I mean, remember, think of all the late night comics who are working today that used to regularly do blackface on their shows. Okay. Uh, and there was a time where if a girl dressed up as Diana Ross, it was like, she legitimately loved Diana Ross, but then, you know, it, it, she's all Megan did was ask the question, why,

When, give me a year or a period when that became absolutely unacceptable to the point that your career and everything will be taken. So asking that was the equivalent of like lynching a bunch of people in Mississippi. Yeah, and then they trucked out, you know, different people from the network and, you know, Al Roker and Craig Melvin came out and they did a show and they talked about how horrible it was. And so they sent Megan on her way. What Megan did, I think is what you did.

And said, absolutely not. You'll pay me out in full. My contract will be paid. And I think Megan got all 60 some million dollars or whatever it was to then go off and build what she's built, which is pretty awesome. She's tough. She's a tough woman. She's tough. And she got tougher going through that.

And I think like a lot of people I've known, you either become a better person or a worse person. And she became, I think, a better person. Wonderful person. One of my favorite people, actually. So I think it was, you know, a huge victory for her on every level. I was proud of her. She didn't do anything wrong, but ask a question. I know. She never said anything.

We should be allowed to do blackface again. She didn't say that. Yeah. She said when was the all she did was raise the question. Now, remember, this is also retribution. The man that was the chairman of NBC News at the time who fired her, she had recently put out, you know, a an email calling him a liar.

Who was that? To the staff, Andy Lack. She called Andy Lack a liar because she said, wait a minute, we have someone who has corroborated Rose McGowan, the actress, who corroborated this in the Me Too movement in this whole Weinstein case. So just to refresh for people who don't recall, the allegation was, and I think it was true, that NBC had the goods on Harvey Weinstein that he was...

behaving in an abusive way, in a legit abusive way toward women. Yeah, Ronan Farrow was doing his report. Exactly. Yeah. And they sat on it? And Ronan alleges that they sat on it and said, you know, you don't have enough. You don't have anyone who's on camera and in name. And Megan said, wait a minute. Yeah, Rose McGowan, in camera, on camera, in name. We've got a name. She'll go. And they, I guess, overlooked that or refused to acknowledge it. And...

So, but the idea was that, you know, the guy who was president of NBC News at the time is Noah Oppenheim and he's a script writer. He's really a script writer. And he's so, you know...

Does he want to write scripts for Harvey? Who knows? But there's that relationship. And Harvey, you know, was never afraid to pick up the phone. I've had Harvey Weinstein call me. This is a great film. You should have this on your show and access Hollywood. When I was the host, you know, hammering me to have a he was, you know, an animal.

So it seems very likely that he was applying pressure to executives at NBC, including Noah Oppenheim. Yeah, it seems likely. You have to assume. Well, he would apply pressure to anyone. If little Billy Bush over at Access Hollywood is getting pressured, then you know that today's show is. For sure. So Megan pipes up and says, actually, Andy Lack, her boss, what you're saying is not quite right. And they decide we got to kill this woman. Yeah. So it's retribution. Yeah.

Clean and simple retribution. And I'm sure Megan's lawyer, Brian Friedman, who's one of the best lawyers in this game, turned and said, oh, no, you're not going to just. Yeah, she has done absolutely nothing wrong. Nice try. You can try and brand her a racist, which she is not for asking a question. But you are going to pay her out in full.

And then she's going to go build her own network. And by the way, I saw her last week that Megan surpassed NBC News and YouTube views on her own. That's so great. So she was crowing about that. It's a new world. I'm in the comments section if you look down, by the way. Way to go, girl. I love it. So why? And I'd forgotten this part of it. Al Roker and Craig Melvin are two hosts on NBC, both black and white.

They torpedoed Megan. Look, the play ball or not. Right. I mean, they were asked to appear and talk about, you know, the severity of it. And this is when you're in the machine of it, the severity of blackface and, you know, appropriation and all these things.

Look, these types of situations are offered to you, right? I mean, play ball with the big machine or maybe you're out next too. I will say this, Craig Melvin is a really good guy. I like him a lot. For the two months that I was at the Today Show, he had the office next to mine and we would call in response, sing. I liked the guy so much, I would go, it's a beautiful morning and then he would finish the lyric and he was just a charmingly lovely guy.

Roker, on the other hand, is a bit vindictive. He's not jovial. No? Because you do think fat people are jovial, just by definition almost. Well... I mean, I always assume that. Don't you? Well... Like Santa Claus, kind of. Yeah, you're supposed to be. Yeah, you're supposed to be. Maybe that makes you mad, but...

Although Al got himself in shape, however he did it. And, and- - Oh, did he? I haven't seen, I don't have a TV. - Well, he's, listen, when I was at the Today Show and I just got there, a producer of mine called me and said, "Hey, Al Roker just liked a tweet from someone calling you a white-splaining racist." I said, "What?"

So I looked, I'm saying, wait, I'm on the air with him every day. You got to be kidding me. So I went to my boss, the head of NBC, the head of the Today Show, Noah Oppenheim. And I said, hey, dude, I can't sit on the air with someone who's going to be liking tweets that call me names that are insane. I haven't done anything of the kind. I don't know what that even means. Like, what are you talking about?

So he's like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. And he had to go talk to, you know. Oh, I'll talk to him. But you could file him under the group of people who did not want me there. Right. So there's a group that didn't. And, you know, Matt Lauer. Did Roker ever say, I think you're a racist? No. To your face? Oh, hey, Bushman, how are you? But like this thing. But I could feel like when I got to the Today Show, there was definitely something.

Wait, where'd you been? Just get access Hollywood for 15 years. Okay. In LA. Let me give you the brief of how I got to the today show. Yeah. Um, I built some leverage. I made, I got a relationship with, uh, the woman who was the head of talent for, uh, ABC news. Good morning, America. Who's that? And her name is Barbara for Dita.

She ended up offering me a job. Ben Sherwood was running ABC News at the time. They offered me a job for Good Morning America to leave Access Hollywood and become like a national correspondent, but rotating in in the studio and get your shot, basically. Wow.

beginning back up even more how'd you end up on access hollywood i was uh i did something local i did some local um feature reports back at wnbc in new york after doing radio for six years started in radio in new hampshire of all places right out of college then i went to dc had my own morning show there for five years uh like a you know a morning zoo type of uh morning show

And then I did this local thing on television, just my own feature reports, fun stuff that I would write and edit and like that made me laugh. And people liked it. And so ultimately they came to me and said, what's your deal? We'd like to have you. We're looking for an East Coast correspondent for our show Access Hollywood. You'll get to do red carpets and meet all kinds of movie stars. Okay. Sounds good to me. So that I started doing that in the end of 2001. And yeah,

you know, moved to the Today Show in 2016 and was there for 15 years. What was that like? I mean, it was really fun in the beginning. It was just awesome. You know, back when must-see TV was on Thursday nights. So, you know, like, you know, the ratings were big. There was car service. It was super fun. I got to do all these events and I sort of moved my way up. And in 2004, they moved me to Los Angeles to become the host of it. And I'm out there

You know, until I said, God, am I going to die doing this? Like, I got to change it up. So I put this like plan into effect to make some inroads. But you could have stayed forever, right? Oh, I could have stayed forever. Yeah. But I really wanted to get to like a Regis Philbin style, you know, morning show. Yeah. Fun, warm. And that was when I made the move to Good Morning America. Then NBC said, wait a minute. Whoa.

Leverages that thing. They know when you have it or you don't. - Yeah, that's right. - They knew I had it. They knew I was moving and so they said, "Okay, we'll give you the nine o'clock hour at the Today Show. It's yours."

come on in when was that and that was 2000 so i made the move you know my first day on the air at the today show was uh at the rio olympics yeah yeah in brazil in the summer of 16. in the summer of 16 and my last day was october 7.

So sorry to laugh. Yeah. I should say. It was exactly two months. In the interest of honesty, we went to high school together and dated sisters. So we've known each other for a while. We should get into that. We don't need to get into that, but I'm just saying. Your wife's younger sister, my first love. Yes. And so I, obviously I was watching all this carefully as it unfolded. I just, I felt phony not saying that. So you're living in LA, wife and three kids. You plan to move them back to the East Coast. Yeah.

You go to Rio, big deal. It's the Olympics. NBC has the Olympics. This is how they're going to roll you out. Yeah. Right. Heck of a rollout. Viewership's always up, the whole thing. It's the craziest viewership of the cycle, yeah. Yeah. And you get to Rio, I'll never forget this, and you got basically under my, like right away, the knives came out for you on staff. Right away. What happened? Um...

Well, remember the Ryan Lochte story. The Ryan Lochte story broke. It was big. Ryan Lochte was held at gunpoint overnight. They went after after swimming competitions. He and some other swimmers went out, got drunk, partied, and then they were at a gas station in Rio and they were held at gunpoint. Anyway, we wake up this morning, the morning after this, read it. Oh, my gosh, this story about Ryan Lochte.

Two hours later, somehow, I run into Ryan Lochte. And he's just bumbling down the street with vodka breath. But he's by himself and just bumbling. And I've got an iPhone on me. And I'm like, this is a huge story. We're just walking down the street in Rio? This is one of our major athletes held at gunpoint in a foreign country at the Olympics. This is massive. I only have this. So I give it to my friend.

co-host and friend who's with me. I said, roll this. Lochte, come here. And I pull him over and I said, roll the camera. I have a minute and 42 seconds still on here. It's all I got before the Olympic Committee, U.S. Olympic Committee representatives saw me across the street talking to Ryan Lochte on an iPhone and they buck over to stop me. But I get him to tell me what happened.

And I'm like, wow, because the second week of the Olympics is always a little slow. You got swimming and you got gymnastics and all the big things in the first week. And it's only track and field. It's like pole vault. And it's like you need something else. Like a storyline would be great. All of a sudden we have Olympic athletes at gunpoint. This is incredible. And Lochte tells me this story and I go on and well,

it becomes something else. I mean, first of all, Al Roker goes crazy on me and he's like, no, this American apologist stuff begins. And the narrative is set. Wait, wait, I don't understand. So this seems like a legit suit. How could Ryan Lochte do this? He's a terrible, a terrible American with these, you know, this, this entitled American, uh,

bravado, you know, and his friends, because he was apparently, he had torn down a poster outside of the bathroom of this gas station and all these terrible things that they were doing. No, they were held at gunpoint by terrible people. And

I said, wait a minute. We don't know that. This is live on the air. Yeah, live on the air. I said, wait a minute. We don't know that. All we're getting is that Ryan Lochte did all these terrible things from the minister of information of the Rio police, not known to be the least corrupt police organization in the world. Hello. So I said, hang on for a second. Why would we take that? It's like taking the minister of, you know,

In Gaza, they're making the minister get his statistics. You don't, someone who's obviously biased. So I said, okay, just calm down.

We don't know anything about what these guys did. In the end, when everything came out, Ryan Lochte didn't lie about anything but one thing. He said he was sitting at gunpoint. He was actually kneeling at gunpoint. That's it. So in other words, everything he said was totally true. And the entire U.S. media organization, led by NBC because we're on the ground,

Totally savage this guy. Ryan Savage him. How a horrible American entitled, you know, this apologist attitude has come, you know, to to think he can do anything he wants. Victim of a violent crime. The victim. Yeah.

Why do you think they did that? And by the way, I want and he capitulated and he like did this whole apology thing and he did an interview with Matt Lauer. He apologized for being held at gunpoint? Oh, he was like, I'm sorry. I guess I did pull the thing down or the I don't know what. He just apologized for what they told him to apologize for. And in the end, he did nothing. He did nothing wrong. Strong families are built on strong foundations and it all begins with what you bring into your home.

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Whatever happened to him, do you know? No. Right. I mean, he did a reality show for a minute or tried to. Did he dance with the stars, Tucker, like you? I don't know. I never did that, Billy. Yes, you did. That's bullshit. And you were terrible. I didn't do that. I think actually I was staying at your house during that. Tom DeLay was worse, but you were better. Well, that's something. But I still don't understand...

Like this, this was basically a decision by this was from a viewer's perspective. Al Roker decided to change the story and everyone followed him. Well, he was sipping caperanhas within this, this, this cocktail. And he started going after me like I'm defending, you know, this, this Ryan Lochte who behaved like we need to be able to call out our own people who behave terribly. And poor Ryan. I said, we don't. You can pull it up on YouTube. We don't have the information. We don't know. Just wait, wait, wait.

And then two weeks later, when the breeze blows through and everything's done, it comes out. Absolutely. Ryan Lochte told the truth. What do you think Roker's so angry about? I mean, he's like a weather guy on some morning show and he gets paid all this money and everyone's

Everybody wants to be more. Everybody wants to be a great interviewer, but you have to prepare for those and you have to be curious. But what's he mad about? He seems to have succeeded far beyond. I don't know. People in network, these big organizations are territorial.

Very territorial. You can look back at the stories of, you know, Ashley Banfield's story of, you know, the big wigs ahead of her keeping her down, not wanting her to rise up. I was always very close to Matt Lauer and Al Roker until I got to the Today Show. And then I had like targets on my back from the moment I got there. Both of them. There's two worlds. There's the, yeah. And, you know.

Remember, my relationship with them before was as the guy on Access Hollywood who basically would promote them. Right. Right. Our job was to promote everything on NBC, whether that's The Apprentice or whether that's The Today Show. I am the chief rabble rouser entertainment guy. We cover everything. But NBC stuff is first.

Yes, you can cover, you know, 24 on Fox, but first cover Seinfeld because it's on NBC. So we promote our own things. It's just like a football announcer saying, and tonight, don't be a, you know, make sure you catch NCIS LA tonight at something on CBS. It's a lot of promotion. Access Hollywood was basically a promotional vehicle. So when I showed up as, no, I'm now one of you who could potentially replace you one day because you're,

Old. Older than I am, and that's just the way it works. Then, you know, you can feel the energy change. So when I ultimately got fired from NBC, it was a lot to do with the inner workings, the politics of being the new guy there. What I find so interesting about it, everything you're saying makes sense. Of course, I've seen it a lot, but...

What's interesting is that nobody said anything to your face, that it was all feline passive aggression treachery. Yeah. I've written a great chapter that I wrote, and I wrote it years ago, so I wouldn't forget any details of what exactly happened with my firing. And it was just, it's unbelievable. I was playing catch-up the whole time. I found out that the Access Hollywood bus tape was,

was in the NBC News building by Matt Lauer. Matt Lauer came to me after I got off the air at the Today Show on a Tuesday morning and he said, hey, what are you going to do about the tape? I said, what? What do you mean, Matt? He said, the tape, the bus tape, you and Trump and all that. I said, what are you talking about? I said, what do you mean? And I knew what the, I remembered the tape. It's 11 years old at the time. So back up, just start at the beginning of this story.

What was this tape? When was it shot? It was shot in 2005. It was the end of... Access Hollywood was rebuilding a studio, so we had to find a reason to get out of the studio. So we did Access Across America. It started in Miami, and it goes to whatever, to Atlanta, and then it goes to... It works its way back to...

Los Angeles giving the studio people enough, the workers enough time to finish a new studio. So it's just a, you know, it was sponsored and the whole thing. But the last stop. How long was it? Pick up Donald Trump at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles and drive him 20 minutes to the studio. Deliver him because he's going to make an appearance on Days of Our Lives. And he's going to be playing him. He's going to be playing a big role.

Gaudy billionaire who gets hit on by, you know, a young starlet. That's his character. Oh. You figure Donald should be able to pull this off. So the bus is pulling in and the cameraman, okay, wait, the cameraman, get off the bus. We got to go down to the end so we can catch your arrival. So the cameraman get off and they run 300 yards ahead while the bus is waiting, stopped, waiting to, you know, for it to film its approach.

Because the woman who he's going to be acting with is waiting. And there's a welcoming crew from Days of Our Lives. They're all waiting. And this is the arrival shot. So the cameraman gets off. He never stops recording. We're still sitting on the bus with the microphones. And he never stopped recording. But the red light is still on. So the audio is still recording as the cameraman runs away. Can't imagine worse luck, right? But who cares? It's just Donald Trump from The Apprentice.

And you're just doing this silly little thing. This is 2005 and we're doing this silly arrival shot. Well, the Donald at that point, while we're waiting, you know, he gets into his, what he likes to talk about. And, you know, and you don't, you don't choose the agenda with Donald Trump. He talks at you. And, uh, you know, he started by talking about, um, my cohost, Nancy O'Dell. And, uh,

And he, you know, she's so hot. What happened at that? I handled that beautifully. And he keeps going. I'm sorry. I'm just too amused. He just starts talking and talking and talking. And well, everybody knows what, what he talked about. And then when we arrived to the shot, except for the end part, the most amazing thing about the whole famous line that starts with grab. Yeah. I just can't even say it. Cause it's never funny to me, but, uh,

The amazing part about all that is I have no recollection. The first time I ever heard that was 2016. Of course. Days before they fired me because I always remembered it for the personal connection that

him talking about taking nancy odell furniture shopping and i thought oh my god that is so funny like he took nancy odell furniture shopping because he was trying to hook up with her and he's like here let me i'll buy you this coffee i'll buy you an armoire i i was like this is so absurd it's oh my god do you think it was true but here's the amazing thing uh oh yeah definitely i got 100 uh

I got off the bus and, oh, so the cameras are there. We returned to filming and I'm like, Hey, Donald, meet the person you're acting with. And the whole thing lines up and looks like I'm feeding a wolf to this, you know, feeding this lovely damsel to this wolf after what has just been said, but no one knows what's just been said. And I don't even recall hearing the thing. Uh,

Of course not. I didn't hear that until 11 years later. The whole, it's just a giant shit show. Well, but also you work in LA in the middle of Hollywood. Like you hear a lot of stuff every day. I mean. I mean, Julia Roberts has said worse to me. I mean, not really, but like, I mean. Right. I mean, I know the world and you were at the center of the world. So like everyday people are saying things they wouldn't want to be on camera. Right. But you also have this, we worked in this incredibly weird world where,

Where you have like 10, 15 minutes, in my case, forever, because it was a drive across town, to really talk to someone before you talk to someone. Yes, of course. You and I chit-chatted for 15 minutes before we turned these microphones on. Just like, hey, you know what's going on? We've been chit-chatting for 40 years. Yeah, but I've known you for a long time. But if you didn't know me, you would have that time. Always, always. To establish a little rapport. Always. And you meet them where they are. Yeah. So, yeah.

And with him, you don't have a choice. You know, it's never, how's the wife and kids? There's never that. There's, you know what I did the other day? Great shot over the bunker. You can only hope it's a golf day. But then, listen, here's the amazing thing is after that happened, like if you want to look at like

I reported it. I didn't report it like he said terrible things on the bus. This is awful. I reported it to my ran upstairs to my boss and I go, oh, my God. Every time with Trump, it's something else. The animal. You wouldn't believe what he did. He tried to take Nancy O'Dell furniture shopping and so he could get laid. I was like, this is crazy. And I'm telling you, you're not going to believe this. The next day, that boss says, oh, no, I heard the whole thing. What you told me yesterday.

The guy was rolling. I said, he rolled on the tape. I said, well, you better do something with that tape. And the reason I said that was for nothing that I did, nothing that I was ashamed of. I don't care. The reason was in 2005, Donald Trump was the biggest star on NBC news, not news, on NBC, making $100 million in profit a year for the network. Had that tape leaked out in 2005 when it happened,

heads would have rolled, including mine, because you just completely tarnished our major cash cow. But can I just ask, I mean, I've been around, you know, microphones and cameras my whole life. And my understanding to this day is you don't tape people without their knowledge. In the state of California, it's, well, this is what's amazing. So in 11 years later,

NBC News themselves leaks that tape to the Washington Post. Of that, there is no doubt. They never launched an internal invest. You have a proprietary piece of property that could affect a presidential election and it gets out of your building to someone else. You don't launch an investigation as to how that got out. Like you've got to you've got to find out how that got out. Well, it would have ended in five seconds and it got shoved off to the Washington Post. I guess what I'm saying is it's unfair.

To tape people when they don't know they're being taped. It's also illegal in the state of California. If both people don't know it's litigious. That's why they gave it to the Washington Post. You got the biggest story of the entire, the October surprise of all surprises. You've got it in your hands and you leak it to someone else. Why? You're a giant news division. This is so many clicks for you. This is so much traffic. Why wouldn't you own that? Well, you can't because you're,

Donald is litigious, first of all. And second of all, there's enough reason to believe there's no camera on the bus that he didn't know he was being recorded. But it's also wrong. You shouldn't do that. I mean, why is it different putting a camera in somebody's bedroom or bathroom? It's wrong. It is wrong. So that's what I fought all week long before I got fired. Okay, so – but let's – it's actually a more interesting story than I realized. So –

This happens 2005 now, almost 20 years ago. You tell your boss he's seen the tape. He has seen the off the bus, the bus portion of the tape when you talk to him. He heard it that one day and told me I never heard it. He just said, oh, yeah, the audio was on. He told me I heard the Nancy stuff. He never mentioned anything about the word grab. It never came up. Who was your boss? Rob Silverstein. Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. But here's the crazy thing. Executive producer of the show. Executive producer of Access Hollywood. But we'll get to how he's become the executive producer of my new show once again, how that's come full circle. What? Forgiveness, Tucker. It's an amazingly powerful thing. You ought to try.

You ought to try it. He's working for it. Don't think I didn't kick his teeth in. Don't think we didn't fall out for two years. Don't think I didn't take back the Rolex I gave him as a gift when I moved from the from the from the peewees to the big leagues. When I got my big job at the Today Show, I had a party and I said, here you go, baby. I'm giving you a Rolex. Thanks for helping me get there. Two months later, I said, you son of a bitch. If I ever see you, I'm going to kill you and I'm going to give me that fucking Rolex back.

And now he's your producer again. Now he's my producer again because you know what? We had so many, just sometimes you have, he's, I don't blame him because he was looking to

He asked for permission. When he sent the tape to NBC News, he was asking for permission to use it. Wait, so, okay. Let's just back up here. Because I know the story, but others don't. So you, and Rob Silverstein was your friend too. Not just your EP. Oh. Yeah, yeah. Spent the night together sharing a bed during the blackout in New York in like 2012 or whatever it was. Wow. Because we had nowhere to go. Yeah, sweating next to this guy.

So that's the last you hear of this tape.

for 11 years until you get off the air, if I'm following this correctly, and Matt Lauer comes up to you and you're not thinking about the tape. No one ever mentioned the tape again. The tape is just like faded into the past. - The day before that Monday, Rob Silverstein called me in New York and he just said, "Hey, just, you know, NBC's asking, "I've been over the tape with Trump and the whole thing. "They may want to like look at the, "they're asking for a transcript. "I may send it to him 'cause Trump said some crazy things. "You, don't worry about you. "You don't do anything on it. "You don't even say a thing."

I say, okay, whatever. It doesn't mean anything. Then the next day he says, I'll call you if anything happens. Well, I never got a call from him. The next thing I hear about it is it's in lack's hands. Andy Lack, the chairman of NBC news has it. And Kim, whatever her name is, the legal counsel, the lawyer, she's on it. And Lauer says, you should probably go see Andy Lack, you know, before this thing, they have it. And I was like, oh, okay.

Oh my God. Okay. So I went, left the studio, went across up to Andy Lack's office and Noah was there. And I said, Hey Noah, what's going on? And he said, yes, we got this tape. I said, listen, I've never, I don't know what tape, like I know about the tape. I just, but I've never heard it. Like I've, so he played it for me.

And I will never forget sitting in Noah Oppenheim's office, the president, the general manager of the Today Show, as he played the part. And when it got to the grab line, Noah laughed. He was in the room. He laughed. Oh, and I guess I got fired for laughing, but there he is laughing. Because when you hear something that absurd, what do you do? You laugh. Mostly laugh. It's like a nervous laugh. It's a, you know.

I've never heard anyone say what he said. I was like, this can't be real, obviously. So I'm going to laugh, but I don't recall it. So it's just the first time I ever heard it was that day. And I went, oh dear. And then I watched the tape and I saw the arrival and the greeting. And I said, oh my God, the optics of this are just horrible. I'm the first to admit this looks terrible. And what happened in the ensuing days was, hey, what do you want to do about this, Billy?

And I said, what do you want to do? I said, what do I, that's crazy. This is from Andy Lack, the chairman of NBC News, who was the only person in the world I'd hit with a tire iron if he was sitting right here. Yeah. And Noah, I wouldn't, I've forgiven Noah. Andy, tire iron. Truth. But in the ensuing days, it was all, what do you want to do? We could do something with this. You know, these things, I remember this quote, these things have a way of getting out.

That's what Noah said to me. And I'm like, no, they don't. You can't. Listen, what if if I become the guy who's preamble before interviews gets used, that's whoever that public figure is, is never going to talk to me. I'm going to be the guy that no one wants to talk to. Don't talk to Billy Bush before the interview. The cameras are rolling because he's probably secretly rolling. It's journalism 101. And no one came to my defense on it, of course, because they're all it was such a hot time. Everybody was just.

You know, their heads were in the sand. But that whole week was what do you want to do? And I said, you can't use this. It's illegal to do that to him, to anyone. I wasn't defending Trump. I'm defending my reputation as a journalist and someone who wants to interview other people in the future. And just basic fairness. Yeah. And also, by the way, you were paid to interview Trump and to do this set piece within the scene with him.

That was your job. Like you didn't it's not like you and Trump were like in a bar or something. It was like this. You were you were working for the same company. It was a primary job for me then. Remember this. The Apprentice was the biggest thing on TV and Trump. Every other celebrity had a publicist that followed them around and said, you can't say this. You can't do that. You can't use this. You know, they try to shape your message.

Trump's publicist literally just carried like a bag for him because Trump is going to do what Trump's going to want to do. He doesn't care. So he was a soundbite machine. I was with him three days a week. And when I wasn't with him, my boss would say, how do you get the next thing with Trump? We got to Trump's. We need him for we need him every day if we can have him because he's saying things like never the horrible stuff he said about Rosie.

Every entertainment show couldn't wait to run that as a headline. Of course. Right? No one does this. Amazing. Except Trump. He's gold for ratings. He's unbelievable. In fact, he's helped us. So I was constantly tasked with get on his plane, get into his apartment, go on a house tour with him. One of the great things I did with Donald Trump, still available online. Check it out. We went voting together in 2004. Bush-Kerry.

And we went voting together and it was, we went to four different polling places and he wasn't registered at any of them. It was hysterical and he kept getting furious. So I just did all these things. Did you have fun? It was part of my job. Like I got promoted. I ultimately became the host of the show because of the amazing things I did with Donald Trump. I dressed up in black.

In disguise and snuck into the season two auditions of The Apprentice. And I auditioned as a mustache and I had a cowboy hat on. I called myself Richard Broom. And I made my way over to a table and Donald was sitting at the table and I sat down with eight other strangers. And as he asked questions of everybody, see if they'd be a part of the cast. No way. And he looks at me and he goes, you're a weird looking fellow. Right?

He said, take off your hat. I took it off. He goes, if I don't know, that's Billy Bush. I don't know. We had a huge laugh. I mean, let me tell you something. Donald Trump was the greatest reality television host ever, ever, ever. He was, especially for our show and for that show.

That show began as something else. And it turned out, you know what? Why don't we instead of doing 15 minutes of the boardroom at the end, let's do 15 minutes of stupid lemonade sales and then 55 minutes or 45 minutes of the boardroom.

At the end, because that's what people really want to see. Because of the drama. The drama. Trump going, look, Brandy, I can't believe it. You look like, can you believe what Sarah said about you? It's terrible. She shouldn't say that about you. Sarah, you look like a nice person. Why would you do that to Brandy? And he would just pit these fights, right? And people loved it. Yeah. Yeah.

Amazing. Amazing. It was five years ago this month that people started to drop dead in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Five years since the beginning of COVID. Tens of millions dead. Societies reordered completely. Economies destroyed. And yet, for some reason, we still don't know answers to the most basic questions. Where did this virus come from?

How did it get here? Why did the government tell us to do things they knew wouldn't work? None of those questions have been adequately answered. And one man knows those answers. His name is Dr. Tony Fauci.

Until now, nobody has really pressed. And now a documentary filmmaker called Jenner First is out with a new film explaining exactly what happened. The film is called Thank You, Dr. Fauci. Jenner First spent years trying to get answers. And in that time, as he awaited Dr. Fauci's response, he went through tens of thousands of pages of documents.

and piece together the story, which is shocking. We are proud to host that documentary here on TCN from December 20th to January 19th. You will see it exclusively here on TCN. Again, it's called Thank You, Dr. Fauci, and it's worth it. How was he regarded at NBC? Oh, he was, this is a story that'll blow your mind. My brother is a great healthcare executive. Yes. Built a company called Athena Health. The chairman of his board at one point became Jeff Immelt.

who became the chairman of my brother's board. My brother reported to him. From GE. As the CEO, yeah. And from GE, and GE, you know, owned NBC long before when The Apprentice was just coming on. And Donald wanted his contract renegotiated, and he'd demand, forget Jeff Zucker and the NBC people. I want Immelt to do this with me. I want the CEO of GE to do my second year deal. And Immelt told my brother, he's like, you know,

If there were cameras at that lunch or a little hidden microphone at that lunch, I guess I would have been fired because you just go with what Trump wants to go with. Yeah. And they were similar. Yeah. I mean, you know what I mean? Because here's one thing about Trump. He is his loyalty isn't long. If you like if I were to say to him, hey, how dare you talk like that? Like, I'm not going to be on this bus. You shouldn't say such terrible things. I will. I'm leaving. And I took a moral stand and walked out or whatever I did.

Get rid of Billy Bush. We don't like him. We're doing entertainment tonight only now. That's it. And then you're done. So literally my job hired to was to make sure we had him as often as possible and get great sound bites and kick ass. Did you ever hear any NBC executives complain about him or his politics? No, but I do know that, look, he was placated as every big star of every big show in the business is all the way up to the, you know, ivory tower.

100% from Jeff Zucker to Jeff Immelt. Here's a beautiful irony. Jeff Zucker, who I like, was running the show at NBC Entertainment. He's the one who put, he built the,

If Trump is Frankenstein, he built him in the laboratory and they built this apprentice and they made him the wheeling and dealing machine on his helicopter. This incredible image. Can you imagine a better image on network television crafted for you than that one? And Zucker then became years later.

The head of the resistance, the guy that built them, then became the head of the resistance. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. In a matter of 10 years, like this recording of this bus tape that was a I would have been fired. It had leaked out then for hurting the star. Eleven years later and a lawsuit over Miss Universe and whatever else. NBC feels completely differently about Donald Trump. And now it's get him at all costs.

Get him out of this presidential race at all costs. I don't care who we have to kill or shoot in the head on the way, including Billy Bush. No problem.

Get rid of him. So that's... It's an incredible... There was so much going on during that period that it... Of course, the tape and that one phrase still kind of hangs in the air, but the actual story never really got told. There was too much chaos going on. No, it's never been told. It was like the opening salvas of a war and like an atrocity was left unexamined. No, and look, I was a sitting duck, right? It was a hot time. People were feeling...

really strongly you know as they as they still are trump is you you it's like country music love them or hate them right i mean so what was that did you okay so you move over and that just to be i just want to say this for the third time that tape after you spoke to uh rob about it to your ep about it the next day was never mentioned again and for 11 years

No, never mentioned again. It was no intermittently over the years. Be like, God, that reminds me of the time that Trump told me about that. But it was always about Nancy O'Dell, maybe every three years or something. Right, right. Maybe five times total between 2005 and 2016. Nancy O'Dell always has a reference because Trump said something that reminded me of. Right. The whole thing. Was Trump political, by the way? Was he regarded as political when he was the host of The Apprentice? No. No.

God, no, no, not at all. The idea that this if you want to talk about just bad luck in general, the idea that Donald Trump in 2005 would one day run for president and he's talked about it forever, but he would do it to just mix things up. He called me right before he announced and said, I'm going to announce. And I laughed. Yeah, because I'd known him all these years. And I thought of Trump forever.

as a person who was not serious about politics, who was going to use it to sell a book or promote a show or whatever. Or reboot the image after The Apprentice had run its course. That's right. It was very successful. So I literally laughed at him when he called me. I was in the car. I'll never forget it. Yeah. And he was totally calm. And he said, yep, I see what you're saying, but I think this time I'm going to surprise you.

And he sounded totally different. But I agree with you. You knew him much better than I did. When he came down the escalator, I said, oh, my God, this is going to be unbelievable. This is going to he's going to he's having so much fun. Exactly. This is a joke. He's having fun. And all of a sudden, everything he said that people didn't like, he got more popular. And he's like, what? I don't think he he he was surprised more than anyone. Like, wait a minute. They like me more. OK, OK.

And he just steamrolled everybody. So do, wow, man, it's also, it's also amazing in retrospect, but did he, and all the time you spent with him, did he ever say anything you thought was political at all? No. Yeah. Interesting. Never. No, he was, it was, it was not, not a chance. We went voting in 2004, the beginning of The Apprentice. And he, I remember him laughing, he,

I said, have you endorsed one of the, I mean, have you given money to one of the candidates? Are you behind one of them? He goes, I am.

I said, which one? He goes, I can't tell you. I said, is there a chance that it's both of them? And he said, there is. Like he had given money to both guys. You're my guy. Here's a check. You're my guy. Here's a check. Remember, Trump was open about that back in the day. He was like, look, I needed to build. I wanted my businesses to thrive. So I played nice with everybody on both sides. Remember his wedding in 2005 with Melania. There's Bill and Hillary Clinton. And, you know, everyone's there kissing the ring.

Amazing. Yeah. Okay, so you go up to Indy Lack's office, Noah Oppenheim is sitting there, you screen the tape, and they say to you, Billy, what do you want to do about this? Yeah, what do you want to do about this? Like, do you want to get... Like, it's your problem. I mean, I could have done what the little minion who wants to save his butt...

And I might have if I had been if I wasn't so stupid or I didn't get what they were saying. In other words, they're saying, do you want to get out in front of it? What if I had taken that tape and the most disingenuous little save my own ass move? I get on the air and I say, OK, look, yeah, I know this was recorded before the interview and it was off camera. It's an off mic thing and the whole thing. And, you know, don't read into how bad that is as a journalist to be doing this, but I

Because this is such a serious election and in the interest of all information and candor, I want to present this. And I want you, the American people, to hear this because you're about to vote on the president of the United States. You should know this. And so it's just these are extenuating circumstances. And here I go. And I don't look good on this tape because I have to greet this and do this greeting at the end. And it looks bad. And, you know, but I really don't.

It's important to me to do this. And then I put it out there for people. I might have been the, wow, Billy Bush is courageous by the media establishment.

What a courageous guy. He had to do that. We'll give him a pass because look, he brought forward this beautiful thing that will take out the enemy. Because he's screwing Trump. Because he's screwing Trump. And in the end, this is the very beginning of Trump derangement syndrome. No matter what, screwing Trump is paramount above everything else. Yes. So I would have gotten the pass.

from the media and maybe still, you know, take a little vacation, but be back still at the Today Show making lots and lots of money for, you know. But I said, no, no, it's wrong. I can't have people look at me that I've got to be. I'm not the guy that's doing that to anyone. Yeah, I know the stakes and I know how you want this election to turn out. I know how you want it to turn out, but I can't do that. I

They said, OK, we understand. And then they tried to get Access Hollywood. OK, why don't you guys do a little version of this and put it on? And then I made a huge mistake. And I said to my executive producer, I said, Trump didn't know that this was on. Any other guests would know. I have no protectionism of Trump. I don't, you know, whatever.

It's just wrong. And they're setting you up. You're going to become the fall guy. Trump's going to sue NBC for putting this thing out there because he didn't know he was being recorded. And you're the fall guy, you dummy. And they're going to fire you. And he went, oh, my God, you're right. So he called back Andy Lack and he said, no, I'm not putting it on Access Hollywood tonight. That was a Friday night. No, Thursday night.

Remember that Sunday, the 9th, was the second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton. They needed this out there before the debate. So Anderson Cooper's first question could be,

about this about sexual assault and Donald Trump perpetrating it. This is insane. So wait, hold on. A little background context. You said this was the beginning of Trump derangement syndrome. Did you sense that at NBC? Oh, God. Absolutely. I mean, anything. Remember this over at ABC News. They did at the same time when Trump became president, they launched a 70. They built a 75 person investigative unit. I know the guy who was head of it.

dedicated to anything negative on Trump. Find stuff on him and get him out. This is not journalism. This is not news. It is activism. That's crazy. When you're calling journalism, it's total activism. What do you think that was? All the major networks. That's why, by the way, when NBC does the shitty thing that they did, ABC and CBS don't call it out. They don't say, you know, hey-

You're competing with each other. I would want to pound my competitor. Look what you did. That was dirty because all of them would have done it too probably. They all shared that mission. Even at the

you know, channel I worked at, which was the one conservative channel. You know, a lot of people hated Trump, really, really hated Trump. But you were in such an interesting spot because you knew him so well for so many years. Yeah, totally different. I hosted eight pageants for him all over the world. I went with the Donald to Ecuador, to Bangkok, to Panama. Yeah.

as we try to take back the canal. I was with him all the time. I flew on his plane and hosted the Paley Center panel on this incredible phenomenon, The Apprentice. And Donald said, you can fly with me. And we flew on the plane. I'd never seen Donald without a tie on. It was this tight, rolled up sleeves, buttoned, you know, the white shirt unbuttoned, no tie. It was incredible. Never have I seen that. I didn't know what to make of it. I was like, he's so relaxed. This is weird.

But he hung out and we told stories. I had spent more time with him. I still think I've spent more time with him on camera than anyone. I bet that's right. Oh, for sure. And I've spent a lot of time with Trump and I'll just say it. I've enjoyed pretty much all of it. Wildly entertaining. Wildly. Wildly entertaining. And I have to tell you, one of the funniest people I have ever... Yes. The laughter that I...

I splitting my sides laughing at the things he would say. And some of it's because he's almost like a caricature, you know, the third person speak and all that. It's just, it's wildly funny. So you don't really take much of it seriously. You know, when he said what he said at the end of the tape there that I never for one second thought that that was a serious thing. I mean, who would say that? And I just, but yeah.

You just laugh. Yeah, the funniest. I agree, the funniest. The funniest. I once took someone, I went to dinner with them, and I brought someone who was...

you know, politically on his side, I think, but was like, really Donald Trump. And at the end of the meal, this is probably got in the car with a person who goes, that's the greatest dinner I've ever had. Yeah. I've never had a dinner like that in my life. Anyway. But so given the, I think you actually have spent way more time on camera than anyone in the world with Donald Trump. So it just puts you, but again, as you've said, not in any kind of political context, but,

So now you're working on the Today Show, biggest news show in the country. They put out an APB to all properties. Find us something that shows, because a woman who was a Miss Universe contestant, this is early end of September, had come forward and said he was disparaging towards me. And Trump said, I've never been disparaging towards a woman in my life. I've never done anything like that. So then NBC said, okay, find something that,

of, look at all your tapes, everybody, every division of anything he might've said disparaging about a woman so we can prove him wrong. Ha, we gotcha. And then Rob Silverstein, my executive producer at Act, was like, oh, wait a minute. That tape that's collecting dust in my thing, he said something about Nancy O'Dell that was disparaging. Remember, this has always been about Nancy O'Dell. And so he takes the tape out and he's like, then he calls NBC to say, hey,

I may have something. I could use it. I'm not sure. I need your legal approval because although a very small division, it's a division of NBC News, Access Hollywood. So I need legal permission here. I don't want to go out there because I don't think he knows he's being recorded. I need a blessing. And then they sent it. And from there they said, okay, we'll take it from here. Thank you so much. What do you think that was? Why? I mean, it's just so especially strange for NBC, which as you've said a couple of times was a recipient of

like all this profit, you know, a hundred million dollars a year from this show. So like they love Trump and, but they pivot so fast to hating Trump obsessively. Why? Well, 11 years, a lot can happen. Like the bitter negotiations over the Miss Universe pageant and the fallout and lawsuits and countersuits. And you know, the, he, after he left The Apprentice, they replaced him at one point with, uh,

Yeah, they tried to replace him with Arnold Schwarzenegger and he denigrated them. Schwarzenegger's terrible. Those two hated each other. They fought. You know, Trump's a street fighter. He's the king of the concrete jungle. Yeah. You know? And so he's like, once the apprentice had died, he blamed them for it. And, you know, he fights dirty. And they...

You know, and I think they had, you know, that big lawsuit over Miss Universe kind of bummed them out. And they ended up hating each other. It happens. Yeah, it does. In some of, you know, and so a falling out. And then when he decides to run later, now it's like, get him at all costs. And they want Hillary. They just. Yeah, they want Hillary, but you didn't see that.

But with such vitriol for Trump. Yeah, it was great. And it wasn't just NBC. It was everybody. But it was everybody. Like what? But looking back eight years later, any idea why? It's not like Trump is super right wing or anything. Well, back in the day, look, I'm going to confess myself. I said, listen, I spent a lot of time with Trump. He'd be a terrible president. This is a crazy idea. Yeah. This is. And I said that on the air in 2015. Yeah.

On my live daytime show, I said, as a man who has spent probably the most amount of time, this is a terrible idea. Now, to be clear, you know, I'm the nephew of George H.W. Bush. You know, this is he was a real hero.

steward and by-the-book sort of guy and felt, you know, he was character first, all these things. Trump was something we'd never seen before. Well, and also he was, since you brought it up, he was running against your cousin. And he's running against Jeb, low-energy Jeb. Yeah. Is what he called him. So this puts you in, like, the weirdest position of anybody in the media. Yeah. Yeah, when he started saying the low-energy thing, I was like, oh, man, really? Donald, Jesus Christ.

You're so brutal, but God, that works, doesn't it? What people misjudged was they were sick of everything that the way things had been done and that he knew that. And that's why Trump is smart, just because he he knows where people are and he met them there. So, you know, genius in that regard.

Amazing, amazing story. And you're, I hadn't really, this whole time we're having the conversation and I sort of forgot that. It's so much, there's so many crazy, unbelievable details, right? But at the end of the day, I think it's been handled. I think it's like they have had a moment with their conscience where

and realized you can't do this. This is a part of the recording. Nobody knew it was being recorded. You can't do that to someone. You can't do it to me as a journalist to, you know, out somebody like that. And you can't do it to someone like Donald who's going to sue you. So it's dead. Okay. And as soon as Access Hollywood said, they're not doing it either. We're not touching this. NBC didn't want to touch it. They knew that Trump would sue them. They slid it to the Washington Post. How'd they do that? I'm on a plane.

i'm on a plane that friday two days before the debate i'm going home to los angeles see my family and right before the wheels go up might look at my phone one last time and bang there's the story in the washington post and i go oh my god

And the next week is the most chaotic week of my entire life. Did you have cell service on the plane? I got Wi-Fi 15 minutes later and I had a million messages from Noah. You're going to be fine. You're okay. Don't worry. We'll take care of you. The head of communications at NBC, don't worry. You didn't do anything. You did nothing. We've got you. Don't worry. We've

got you. Security will be waiting for you at LAX. We have a car. A security guy will take you to the car. A car will take you home. Don't worry. We've got you. We've got you. Next day, we've got you. We've got you. Got me to the point. Did your wife text you on the plane? My wife texted me and we had a dinner at a friend's house that night and they're like, hey, are we still on? And I'm like, yeah, of course. What do you mean are we on? They're like,

This is sort of big, I think. I mean, it's kind of huge. It's kind of everywhere. And I'm like, no, no, they got me. We're good. They got me. Because I didn't do anything. They got me. We land.

TMZ paparazzi. I get home there. Wait there. The next day I buy $5,000 worth of new suits. Cause as much as they give you pay on the today show, they don't buy your clothing. And I'm like, I got to get some new suits. I mean, I got a fancy new job. I'm an important little guy. This is great. I buy a bunch of suits. I have someone tailoring them in my living room. I'm doing all this. The next day, Sunday, I go out and there's a car and driver in the driveway and

And as I'm about to open the door with my bags, the driver says, hey, they just canceled the car. I said, what? It's got to be a mistake. What are you talking about? No, they canceled the car. And I'm like, oh, God. I called my lawyer. I said, what's going on? He said, yeah, they want to suspend you tomorrow. I said, I need to be able to talk tomorrow. I need to be able to say something. They can't suspend me. He's like, they're suspending you tomorrow. And then from there, just this shit unfolded. I...

I think I did call you on Saturday and said, they're going to try and screw you. I think you did. As a man who knows what it looks like when it's coming. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. I said, hey buddy, you're fucked. Yeah, I did say, I said, they're going to try and fuck you. And you're like, no, no, no, I've been here a while. I've worked for this company. No, no, they love me. This is the network that raised me. No, no, no. They couldn't do that to me. I didn't do anything. I'm fine. So my advice, I'll never forget it was, because I still think it's good advice,

march into any lax office and say, listen, bitch, can I call you bitch? You may have some thought about destroying me. And I father of children. So you can't, I just didn't see it. But if you do that, I will go on good morning America on Monday. And we're going to talk about your marital infidelity. Just, just so you know, no, no, no, because like, you're not allowed to destroy me. So like, how about don't do that?

All your sexual harassment claims from everywhere you've ever been. Right. You who would later go on to fire, you know, Matt Lauer and claim you knew nothing. Exactly. Please. And by the way, Andy's landed at PBS, apparently. He's producing a new series at PBS. Fire him.

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So go to Jace. Go to Jace.com slash go. J-A-S-E dot com slash go. Use the code Tucker to get your Jace Go with a special discount. Jace.com slash go code Tucker. We were talking about this off air, just having spent both of us a lot of time in this business. The television executives are that rare group, and you don't run into them very often, who don't respond to anything but threats.

Whereas like, you know, normal person, your wife, your children, your friends, anybody off the street, the lady at Dunkin Donuts, like they can all be reasoned with and they're moved by love and, you know, a cogent argument. TV executives, it's like if you don't have a gun in your hand, well, you just said you got the job because GMA was thinking of hiring you. Yeah, that's leverage. That's it. That's the only thing that moves. Right. The right thing will never be done. Exactly. Wait, someone else wants him. All right. Now we want him. Move it over to here.

But that's life. You know, the leverage, I get it. God, it's not my life. That's not the world that I live in outside of- It's not the world. I'm leaving, you know, I wish I had the wherewithal.

then to know what was happening. It was so hot and so crazy. And I had to hire a litigator and all these things. And we ended up doing a deal with them to let me go. And it was not my full contract. And it was, and then the next day there's reports that Billy Bush got all this money. It's not even half of what they reported. It's like, it's, it was a, it was a shit. I had bought

a place in New York that I'm super proud of. I remember. I took a bath on that. I mean, you want a 360 shit show and it happened like that in an instant. You're at the highest you've ever been in your career. You can't believe it. You got drivers wherever you're going. You're like, dude, I'm maybe drinking a little bit of that Kool-Aid thinking I'm pretty cool. And maybe I, and here's the positive part. Maybe God said,

You're not ready for life yet. Amazingly, you're 44 years old and you don't know what a struggle looks like. You have had a pretty sheltered life. I'm looking, trying to think of it on a bigger picture. And you need, everyone in this life, no one goes unscathed. Everyone has to get their doors blown off in some way. Hopefully it's not cancer with a child or something terrible, but it's going to be something horrible.

that's going to shake you to the core and you got to figure it out. This was mine. I'm not extraordinary that I've had to deal with getting my doors blown off. I'm only extraordinary in the details of it that the reality guy from 2005 is now destroying 16 other people to become the Republican candidate for president. That's all very extraordinary. But I think what happened then was three years of silence

and then getting back to work and slowly putting one foot after the other and leading to, you know, this moment now where I'm... The whole thing is just absolutely incredible. I watched with amazement and real sadness. And by the way, you were one of the very, very, very few people that, you know, just didn't give a shit and spoke.

it's called it for what it was you were you well i was totally outraged by it and the lying behind it and we talked to this off air but if they were like you know or what you said about meg and kelly if they're like okay you know it's not the returns aren't what we thought they were going to be we're going to have to let you go that's a totally reasonable thing to do

If they had said, Billy, we're just too embarrassed and like, let's work out some way or whatever. I don't. But they were like morally high handed with you like you committed some kind of crime. And I was outraged by that. Well, what did you do wrong? I never understood it. And then this and then the small, you know, then I was unhirable.

I was just unhirable. I didn't work for three years. I know. I know. Three years is a long time. I didn't work. Couldn't get hired. And to my fault, what I should have done is launched the Tucker Carlson network right then and there. The technology wasn't ready for it. It wasn't. I wasn't ready. I was like, no, damn it.

This big family that had me in it is going to have me back because it isn't right. And I'm going to stick around until they do. And finally, I made it back. You know, an extra at Warner Brothers hired me. I've done it for five years. And I'll forever be grateful to the woman who lives very close to you down here since she's retired.

Lisa G who hired me and I got, you know, going again. Sue, can you, without, you know, getting too painful, but just sort of linger on what those, those days you, you, you walk outside and the driver tells you that the car has been canceled. So you call your lawyer. Did you call Noah Oppenheim, Andy Lack? Yeah, I called Noah. And I mean, and you know, the, at that point, everything goes to the lawyers. Their phones no longer answer.

So they're told by legal, you cannot talk to him at all. And so... Because you never had another time? Six months later, I talked to Noah Oppenheim. But you never talked to him there in the middle of it. And he said, Noah... Here's the beautiful thing. Noah said to me, if you...

If you never speak to me again, if you hate my guts for the rest of your life, I understand. I'm so sorry. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I'm so sorry. Well, I called Noah because I know Noah and I was, I probably shouldn't say this, but I did. And I called him. He called me back. I was in the car with one of my children coming back from a college tour. I'll never forget it. And she was driving. She was just wanting to drive because she'd gone to boarding school. She didn't know how to drive. Anyway, we're in the car. He calls me back on speaker and

And she reminded me of this actually last night when we were saying you were coming. And I completely lost control on him, like completely lost control, scared my daughter. Because I was just so, I mean, I've got nothing to do with it, but I was just so mad.

Yeah. That someone could do. Well, I felt it like it's just so unfair. And then you don't call the man directly. And it's, through the lawyers, legal won't let me. It's like, what? Yeah. You just suspend all humanity and decency because you work for some stupid company. It's going to be gone in 10 years. There won't be an NBC. Like all of this is passing away. All of this is fake.

And what matters is treating other people with decency. And they just forget that. There's a history of that at the Today Show. If I were still the host of Access Hollywood and all of that had happened, and I had never spent two months at the Today Show, I hadn't made that very recent move. I don't think they would have fired me at Access. I think I kind of, I was the Matt Lauer of the place. It's a smaller place, but I'd been there so long. People looked up to me. I kind of had influence. I could, they wouldn't have done it. They needed me.

But remember, I'd gotten to the Today Show where half the place didn't want me there in the first place. So it was definitely inside politics. Mean girls, high school shit. And now, I mean, things, it's so long ago and things have changed so much.

Oh, that I kind of feel sorry for Matt Lauer, who at the time I was outraged. And I laid into him, by the way, I got to speak to Matt Lauer nine months afterwards. And he and I said, you know, he fallen yet. He had not fallen yet. But he called me with some bullshit about I can't believe that Trump is president and you lost your job, which is the number one thing I hear from everyone. But I was like, not from you, asshole.

And I laid into him. And I laid, please don't try that on me. I'm not dumb. I mean, you're the leader. I said, you're the leader of that place. You could have fought for me and you didn't. And I know why you didn't. Because you didn't want me and my full head of hair in that building. And I get it. I laid and said, no, no, no, I fought for you privately. I'm like, no, you didn't, dude. I know you didn't. And your minions didn't. And shut up and save it. And then when he got fired, I was like,

hey, are you okay? Here's some books. Try these three books. I did the same. I also texted him. I never liked him, but I always text people when they get fired just because I feel like we should do that. We should. You don't want to... I texted Jeff Zucker when he got fired. You did? Yes. And you know, the funny thing is,

um yeah i really disliked jeff zucker intensely i worked for him and i intensely disliked like the way you say intensely i did and he got fired and i was in bed i was in the morning and someone said zucker just got fired and i texted him immediately it's two-liner you know because been there and uh never heard back from him this was four years ago probably three or four years ago and i was at a lunch in abu dhabi last week and guess who sat next to me jeff zucker

Wait, he didn't choose to sit. No, he just wound up. Wait, his placard, his name plate was next to you. Yes, I sit down at lunch. In an official capacity. This is some type of event. Yeah, I was just traveling. He didn't know he was sitting next to you. No, I wind up sitting at lunch. There's Jeff Zucker. And the first thing he says to me is. Thanks for your text. Yes. That's the first thing he said. People remember these things. They do remember them. Always reach out.

Someone's down, always reach out. That is, can you say that again? Because that's the truest thing in life. Whether it, like someone gets diagnosed with a disease or something, you're like, oh my God, I don't know what to do. Maybe I'll do nothing. Would they get fired or something like that? Always reach out.

Always. That is. And I can tell you that from a guy I had when I got canned, I had beautiful letters. Julie Bowen reached out. You know, we also went to high school. She was we went to high school. God, did I have a crush on her? Yeah. Jeez. But.

But Suzanne Somers and Cindy Crawford and crazy Dennis Quaid and it goes on, but there's many, many, lots and lots of letters. It's funny you remember it all though. Oh yeah, Kate Walsh, the actress. And oh, we know who you are. You're the greatest guy. I'm so sorry.

It's like, oh. Always reach out. Always reach out. So you texted Matt Lauer when he, boy, talk about a fall too. I mean, that was, Matt Lauer had one of the nicest, most impressive wives ever. Yeah, Annette. An amazing person. Yeah, very sweet. Very smart. But what, did he respond when you texted him? Yeah.

Yeah. Have you seen him? And then afterwards, we, you know, I chatted with him once and I haven't talked to him in years, but, um, you know, I think when they, there was this funny thing that happened in Rio, like when we got back from Rio and the Olympics, all these people were writing these stories, like in touch weekly gossip magazines were writing, Billy Bush wants Matt Lauer's job and he's got in for it. And this is just stuff that in no way is true because I'm trying to build a

nine o'clock regis style show we were going to do it at the top of the rock the top of the building with like a jazz quartet like a morning live audience it was gonna we had all these wonderful plants it's gonna be the most amazing show uh so we're like i don't i don't want your job but he read all these things and he thought that i was planting them through my quote-unquote team whoever would be on my i'm just a kid that came from access hollywood

Oh, you didn't have a team? Oh, my team. So he called me to his office. This is while I was like, this is after my first month. I'm still there. And he's like, hey, I need to talk to you. These reports that have come out, like you want my job and all this stuff and all these things that started in Rio and all this. I need you to know that they have to stop and they got to stop now. Whoa. And I went, oh my God, are you a crazy person? Have you been in this business and you're so psychotic and it's gotten you to the point where you think otherwise?

I'm planting stories to get rid of you so I can have the number one chair. Oh, my God. Like, do people do that? Like, I'm just I just want you to like me, dude. I just want you to take me out to lunch and say welcome. Yeah. Like I have to every new person that arrives to a show that I'm the anchor of. Of course. Of course. Welcome. Did Roker ever confront you directly?

confront me about anything. Oh, I mean, he's just like attacking me. Well, he attacked me on air about the Ryan Lochte thing and after that it kind of, it brushed away and, you know, Roker's, it was very difficult to deal with in that you just have to kid gloves, you know what I mean? Yeah. Walk on eggshells. Did you ever talk to him again? He left me several voicemails. I still have them, by the way. Really? An Al Roker voicemail. Hey, Bushman, I'm coming to town. Just, you know,

Feeling so good that you're fired. I mean, not really, but like, I'm so glad you're not here. So now I can like you again. I just can't like you here. It's too close to my stuff. I was looked at as a predator by the men. I will say this, the women on the show, terrific.

Delightful. Really? We had the best time. Hoda Kotb would put her arm around me and say, Bushman, you and I are the future. And it turns out Bush and Kotb are the future, just not this Bush. And so, yeah, I mean, the women were great. Oh, you know, I totally forgot. Two separate worlds in the Today Show. Seven to nine. Wait, they hired another... I totally forgot that. Yeah, that's the... Denump them. But...

Wow. I have trouble connecting dots sometimes. Yeah. But look, here's what happens. This all leads, this leads to... Hilarious. Yeah, the irony is... I never thought of that until right now. Thank you.

Neither have I. What's it like in, I mean, so do you ever talk to her about it? Oh, your cousin. Yeah, Jenna. No, not. Yes, we talked once at my bar at Barbara Bush's funeral in Houston about it. But I remember when I was coming in.

or making my moves and things were going really well for me. And I was making that move to the today show. She was like, how do I like, they just keep having me do the same things. How do I get out of this? And I gave her some advice and, you know, I said, well, just stop interviewing your dad like every week. Don't do that. That's a start. And then, but she's done incredibly well. And, and she, you know, I love her and she terrible situation for her to be in while they're, you know,

totally defenestrating your cousin and you move up. - Yeah, that is- - Poor thing. I mean, I felt as badly for her because it's just awkward. She didn't want it that way. - Of course not. Of course not. Wow, also- - And we have great fun today. I mean, I saw her recently and we always have laughs and everything's wonderful.

I and recently ran into Phil Griffin. No way. MSNBC. This is why I thought I thought he was behind all this and I was ready to lay into him and I started to. And he was like, no, no. The man that fired you, I hate him, too. Lack. Yeah. Everybody hates lack. So one thing everyone agrees on is that Andy Lack is a very bad guy. You know, it's funny. Phil Griffin fired me.

And it's one of the very, maybe the only firing, I've had a lot of firings, but it was the only one where I had no hard feelings whatsoever. Yeah. And he called me in at Thanksgiving. I'll never forget it. And I was about to take the train back to Washington. He goes, hey, can I talk to you for a sec? Buddy. Called everyone buddy. Buddy. Probably still does. And he goes, hey, you know, we hired you here at MSNBC. We were hoping to move the channel right to compete with Fox. That didn't work. Okay.

And then you brought in Rachel Maddow onto your show, and it turns out she's way more popular with her audience than you. So we're going to let you go because it didn't work. But we'll pay out your contract, and it's totally fine. He was so direct with me and honest with me. That's exactly what – I mean, first he started – he was, like, attacking me.

in the New York Post, page six, and I called him up and I yelled at him. Do we have to do it this way? We have to do it this way. News people have to do it this way. They have to. They have to use the gossip pages in New York. Exactly. It's so sad. To crush you and whatever. But once I called him on that and he stopped-

um, he was totally honorable about it. Good. And, you know, I obviously don't like or approve of MSNBC, but I've never attacked Phil Griffin because he paid me the honor of directness. I like that. Me too. What he said to me in June was when I was coming after him, I wanted to corner him. He said, uh, he said, no, I asked Andy, Hey, you know, you've helped,

Yeah, what's his name? Brian Williams before. Like, you stand up for people that we like. And Billy Bush is a good guy. Like, what are you going to do about Billy? And Andy said to him, he told me, fuck Billy Bush. Why? Who gives a shit? Who cares? Billy Bush. What? Doesn't matter. He's nothing. Forget him. And so, literally just... And I thought, oh my God. But it endorsed that everybody agrees that Andy Lack is a terrible guy. My dad...

Called two people on my behalf. My father, bless his heart. You called Noah Oppenheim. My dad called Andy Lack. And he's like a really high integrity, clean fighting guy. Only tells clean jokes. Like, you know.

calls up and says, he says, Andy, I don't know if you know this. No, he wrote him a letter. He says, I've recently had a case of the shingles. I don't know if you've had a case of the shingles before, but they're very, very painful. And I just hope that one befalls you soon. You're a horrible person. Jonathan Bush, he's since died three years ago. But then he also called Steve Burke because back in the day, dad knew his

His father, not well, but his father was Dan Burke, who ran Cap City's ABC. So Steve Burke, who was the CEO and chairman of NBC at the time, dad called him and said, there's no way this apple could have fallen far from the tree. What you're doing to my son is unbelievable. It's a character. You're killing this guy. And he didn't do anything. And shame on you. There's no way the apple fell that far from the tree. Your dad was an honorable, honorable man.

And he was like, I'm so sorry. I don't know what to do. And I just had it in my hands. I'm sorry. So sorry. And I was like, that was it. But of the people, always reach out when someone's down and always call to tell someone an asshole that they're an asshole when they are. Exactly. Right? But be direct. Be direct. And that's why you'll never hear me attack Phil Griffin, even though... Right. Good. And me neither. Because it cleared. I wanted to like him so much. And then I was like, but he...

I remember his face like walking out of Andy Lack's office when the plan was in motion to fire me. MSNBC was never first on the air with a story, and they were first on the air with the bus story because they knew it was coming. It was a setup. They had colluded. So just one detail that I alighted over, which is how it got from the vaults at NBC News to—

to the Washington Post. Who did it go to? We don't know exactly, but if you want to begin the internal investigation, Noah Oppenheim is the president of NBC. He's the head of the... He's general manager of the Today Show. His co-editor of the Harvard Crimson newspaper, back when he was a Harvard man, was...

A writer named David Fahrenthold from the Washington Post. And Fahrenthold is the one. They ran the Crimson together. They were both groomsmen in Hillary, in Chelsea Clinton's wedding. Actually? Co-groomsmen. Oh, yeah, because one of their other buddies was the guy that Chelsea married. So they were groomsmen in the wedding together. Anyway, that guy's the one who released. It's like the paper trail is terrible. I mean, it could start there. No way, Sue.

The college buddy of the NBC president. He's now a writer at Washington Post. And then two years later, a year and a half later, he gets his own NBC News contributing gig. And he gets a sweet gig over at MSNBC. So they pay him back for the hustle. That's where I would start the investigation. I'm not saying that happened. But I would begin there and just see if it saves you some time. I don't know. Now, I can guarantee you.

Here's the good thing about Noah. Noah didn't want to do this. I'm his only hire. He was new on the job and he made one move. I'm going to change that third hour. I'm putting Billy Bush in there. He's got personality. That's the guy we want. Boom. He makes his one hire. Then this thing blows up on him and Lack, no question, turns to him and says, get this tape out into the world. Find a way to do it. And he did not want to, but this was the obvious way. So...

You know, his only choice was to say, no, Andy, I'm not going to do that. It's wrong. I hired the guy and we shouldn't do that to him. But he didn't. What happened to Andy Lack?

Andy eventually got fired. Oh, he did? To be fair, everyone who was involved in all of this has all since been fired. Everyone's been fired. This is like the Soviet Union where, you know, all the early Bolsheviks commit these mass murders. It's not worth it, folks. Then they're all killed. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Kamenev, Zinoviev, Trotsky all die. But lack is now, I've been told, at PBS somewhere producing some series. Why was he fired from NBC? Uh, don't know.

Just one bungle after the next. The Me Too movement came and the Harvey Weinstein thing he bungled. And then he bungled the Brian Williams, that disaster. And then the Matt Lauer disaster. And I think at the end of the day, they're just like, this is not a good guy. Was Brian Williams on your side? He never reached out. I mean, I like Brian. I have no reason not to.

I always had fun with Tom Brokaw, was on the same floor as me where my office was. Craig Melvin was right next to me, loved Craig. Craig came up to me at a country club. I was having lunch with an old agent of mine out in Rowatan. I went out there to have lunch with an old agent who was kind of in poor health. So I just went to see him. And I ran into Craig and his wife and their kids in the parking lot. And he said,

I'm so sorry. What happened to you? Like this is, you were such a good guy and I just, it's terrible. Is he still there? He just got the big promotion. He's in the Lauer chair. Oh, maybe he planned this whole day. He took, that's a long plan, Greg. That's an eight year plan. No, great guy. Lovely, uh, decent singing voice. And, um,

Amazing. So the people you know, you still must know people in linear television at the Today Show or other places. How are they feeling about the prospects of their business? There's like a few big contracts left, but they're all shrinking. Like Stephanopoulos just renegotiated to come down. Everyone's coming down. They're all coming down to earth. Hoda left, but there's still plenty of $20, $25 million a year people like everyone on Good Morning America. Yeah.

But there are all their renegotiations come down. The whole thing is slowly the lowest for the next five, 10 years. I think there'll be a place for the for that morning TV. Right. But but not at these astronomical. It doesn't feel like it drives anything anymore.

Well, it's so scared. It doesn't take an opinion. It doesn't take a position. It doesn't. It's it's it's the competition. They're not. Today's show and Good Morning America are not competing to win or to grow. It's who can die the slowest. Yeah.

That's the fight. But it doesn't... I mean, it used to be for decades, you know, if it appeared in the first hour of the Today Show, it kind of defined the news. 7.35 a.m. was known as the money slot. Whatever airs, still to this day, whatever airs at 7.35, folks, that's the best thing they got. And after that, you can move on. But it doesn't seem like it determines what people are talking about at 8.35 anymore. No. No. No, the internet is...

is just ate it ate eating destroying everyone it's an insatiable belly it can't get enough so what'd you do after so you get canned and then what happens so i get canned and my life falls apart and i start drinking heavily i i i pathetically cry and cry and cry and and and and i can't get

I just have like anxiety and panic and I end up going to this place called the Hoffman process. The day that Donald Trump walked in for his first day of work as president of the United States was the day that I walked in, turned in my phone and checked in for nine days in a mental health retreat for because I couldn't I couldn't sleep. I couldn't. The panic and the anxiety was just

cancellation like at that level is it's it's severe the mental toll you know we're fortified now nothing could happen like that again to me i had to learn the hard way and i was maybe especially weak at the time so far so

So far from Marcus Aurelius that I couldn't handle that, but I wanted to, I had suicidal ideation. I had like, I was on a balcony in this place I was renting and I was like, and I had to lay down on the ground because I felt myself like wanting to go to just get away from, I had paparazzi everywhere outside following me, saying shit to me and

And I just got so bad that I went to this place and that was my first, that was in January of 17. And that was my first step in putting myself together. I walked on the flames with Tony Robbins. I read every book you could read. I started, you know, yoga. I, you know, my found this amazing pastor who became my friend. I had this wonderful photo of me in church walking.

at this church, it's a way church in Los Angeles, Pastor Chad Veach, a really great guy. And he, I didn't know he was doing it. I mean, he said, everybody, he said a prayer for me out loud and everyone in the congregation reached forward and put their hand on my shoulders. I like fell apart crying. And I was like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to put myself back together. I'm, I'm, this is, we'll fortify here. And then you just one step after the next and step to the next and, and then you get going. And yeah,

Life gets better. I didn't think it would, but it's like now it's about to get much better as I follow great pioneers like you and Megan and others and do things my way. People who've been fired. Yeah. Yeah. It's so, you know, I mean, it's probably hard even to think of it, but I wonder if like

when you're 70, you won't think, you know, it's probably, what was it all bad, that experience? I think that's right. People will say to you when you're having, in the shittiest time of your life, they'll say, it's all going to work out in the end. It's all going to be a reason. It's all, believe me, once you get through it, life will never be, and I think there's truth to that. You just got to get to the other side.

I wasn't ready for anything bad to happen to me. And now I'm ready for whatever comes next. Yes. I really am. I'm very, I'm not, I can handle it. Whatever it is, I can handle it. And also to go and do the show that I'm about to go do on my own, I think it's helpful to know what it feels like to be down. No matter who you're talking to, if you're a professional communicator, to know what it feels like

to be down is a really important tool. I strongly agree with that. Yeah.

I also think I've noticed, certainly noticed it in my own life that success isn't necessarily great for men and especially men. And it does, you do get filled with hubris actually. Yeah. Oh, I thought I was a cool guy. Yeah, I've been there. I've been there. I'm not mocking you in any way because I've certainly been there. And in fact, I've been there so much that when I got fired the last time, Susie, my wife, she was like thrilled I got fired. Absolutely thrilled. She didn't like the employer anyway.

Uh, she thought that they were, that's interesting. No, no, she was thrilled. She was, she was actually walking the dogs and I called her and I was like, I just got fired. And she goes, why? I said, I don't know. They didn't tell me. She goes, I'm so glad. Oh my God. I love you so much, Susie. Oh, that's great. She's like, but she's the best. Yeah. But I, and she never said it or would say it, but I do think she on a gut level understood. It's like, it's important for a man to have setbacks once in a while because it,

It reminds you what's important. These are all cliches for a reason, but it reminds you that you're not God and you need to know that. That's really important to know that. And if life was just one rosy contract after the next and look at me, look at me, what kind of textured life would that be? You can't...

Come back and triumph over something if you got nothing to triumph over. So that's just the way life is, right? Well, you look at Lauer and Roker and they're hardly alone in this, but they're like legitimately successful people in television. I mean, they're the most successful people in television. Very, very rich and in the long run. And very long run. Lauer's run. Unbelievable. Roker's even longer. By the way, take me out, but not after two months. How about after 20 years when I'm sitting on a giant pile of money? Right, when you pay off the mortgage.

But why are they so unhappy? Like, I've wondered this. I got on a TV in 1995. It says 30 years. I've always noticed that, that the most successful people are, like, miserable. Someone yesterday told me, knows Larry Fink, who's, like, one of the richest people in the world, runs BlackRock. He said, Larry Fink, really smart, you know, complicated person, not all bad. But the marker, the distinguishing characteristic of Larry Fink is he's miserable. He's truly unhappy. Yeah.

What is that? Why are so many very successful people miserable? I don't know, but I do know that I don't want to be a billionaire. I'm not interested in it. No. No, thanks. Amen. I want to have enough to do the things, you know, that I want. But why do you say that? Because there's, I mean, not to say more money, more problems, but it's a drug like anything else. Keep taking it. Keep taking me more. Give me more. Give me more.

It's never going to satisfy. It's just never going to satisfy. And you've seen that. I'm not doing what I'm doing. I'm not launching my new show to become rich on my own and make a lot of money. I want to be stimulated. I want to have conversations like this. I want to look at you and be honest with you and talk to people

Every person I talk to in a completely honest, authentic, funny way. And I don't, the truth isn't going to appeal to everyone, but the truth matters. Yes. I care more about that. I care about being stimulated every day. And if we do well, that's awesome.

So it sounds like the just in you're telling the three years of not working where it's not good not to work. It's not good not to work. You got to get up and have someplace to go. That's you need to have something you're doing. Yeah. And not, you know, I just kept thinking, how could they betray? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. How could they betray me like this?

Oh, I couldn't get out of my own way. I was like, just so mad. My brother said something beautiful. He said, when you get over all this, you're going to get over it. And when you do, you're going to get the opportunity to come back as yourself. Well, your brother, speaking of getting screwed, totally different line of work. He got screwed. He knows what it feels like to have an activist investor throw you out of the company you built. And I talked to him the other day about something random and sounded totally happy in a place. Totally.

Now, he's overcome that, and you know what he did? He launched, he started another one. Amazing. Yeah, he's got a new healthcare company called Zeus Health. So he started Athena, and Zeus is the father of Athena. So he's reminding everyone who built it. It's also A to Z. Yeah, A to Z. How did you get over that? How did you forgive? Because you actually, I think it's fair to say, at this point, we're almost two hours in, anyone who's followed this, I think would agree you did get shafted. How did you forgive? Um...

Because, well, my executive producer who sent the tape, he was only looking to cover his ass in case he used it and Trump sued. So when I really thought about it, I'm like, he was trying to cover himself. He wasn't trying to hurt me. It ended up really hurting me, but he didn't mean to. And the good times that I've had with him far outweigh the bad. We've traveled all over the world to Olympics and all these different things and covered so many things together. And we really work well together. So we healed the friendship.

And now he's going to be the producer of my new show. And we're back together. That's amazing. Am I a big person or what? I mean, come on. That little shit. But I love him. And now he works for me and I don't work for him. But with Noah, I knew that Noah was just doing what they told him to do. And he didn't have, he just arrived to this giant machine and he didn't have the guts to say no.

Yeah. We're doing the right thing. I'm not doing that. Most people would have done what he did. Most. Yes. Takes a really big person to character to not do that. So I forgave him. Uh, and what's he doing now? The only one I don't forgive is Andy. And I could, if he came to me and asked for it, but he doesn't return, you know, he's just a, he's just a shit. I tried calling him once. And so I'm fine not forgiving him. Like I'm fine. Like,

I can, like, I'm not, my soul won't rot if I can just live and hate one person, right? It's just one. Tucker, it's just one. You may, look, I'm no theologian, but I think you, it's possible you get the anti-lack exemption. I don't know. I don't know. I just, I kind of like hating him anyway. And what's, so what's Noah Oppenheim doing now? I don't know.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm going to rush to call it. Yeah. Let's call him Billy Bush. That was, um, thank you for doing this. Okay. Now will you tell people to tune into my new show? A hundred percent. January 13th is Monday. We begin. And guess what? The name of the show is just to bring everything A to Z hot mics with Billy Bush. The mics are still hot, except for we know they are. Where are you? Where are you doing it from? Um,

I got a great little studio over by that Howie Mandel, a little corner of Howie Mandel's operation that he set up for me. And then ultimately we'll build out. In Los Angeles. In Los Angeles. While we're doing that, we'll build our own. So how long, so it's been your whole life you've worked for companies. Yeah. I work for myself now.

And the Hot Mics is like, it's the zeitgeist. Sports, politics, entertainment, pop culture. Are you excited? Everything that's happening in the, that's hot. Yeah, I'm really excited. Really got a great team of people. I'm learning this incredible world that you know so well. No makeup required. Did you know that? I don't even.

- Right, but I'm saying you- - Young, beautiful 50- - You've worn makeup your whole- - You look the same. You have no gray hair. What are you doing? Do you do rinse out? Do you do a little rinse out? - I actually, honestly wash my hair with Dr. Bronner's bar soap. So, and I shave with it and I use no products whatsoever.

Yeah. And I am Scandinavian, which helps. And I compliment you as a man of good hair. Your hair is fantastic. And hair, to the Hair Hall of Fame, we have a shot. There you go. I have a picture of us in high school, same hair. Big hair. Big hair. It was bigger than the 80s. Yeah. Yeah. You were an animal, man. This guy, this is, you got yourself going on the right path. Yeah. Well, that was wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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