Live from Music Row, Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed former Fox News contributor and author of Race Pimping, Mr. Kevin Jackson to the newsmaker line to discuss why he got hired and fired at Fox News.
Leahy: On the newsmaker line, the author of Race Pimping: The Multi-Trillion Dollar Business of Liberalism, Mr. Kevin Jackson. He’s a good friend of mine, we’ve known each other for many years. Good morning, Kevin.
Jackson: Good to talk to you again, man! I was just thinking that we have known each other for a long time. Good to talk, good to be on the program.
Leahy: We first met in person back in September of 2009 at the Quincy Tea Party which was a great event. Held in Quincy, Illinois, and the same park where Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, and Steven Douglas had one of their great seven debates in 1858. It was a huge celebration that day.
It was the first time that I met Andrew Breitbart. Andrew Breitbart was there. The late great Andrew Breitbart and Mike Flynn, my colleague at Breitbart. You were there, you were a very well-received speaker there. By the way, did you introduce your book Race Pimping there, or was there another book you were introducing?
Jackson: No, my book, there was The Big Black Lie and How I Learned the Truth About The Democratic Party. That was my first book. Andrew took a shine to me, as I should say, and discovered me, and then he got me on Glenn Beck. And then Glenn liked me a lot, and then he was bringing me back for a lot of different things.
In fact, the top shows that have ever been done on Fox in terms of ratings or shows that I was on, I’m happy to report. Then I got hired by Roger Ailes in 2015 at Fox. Then I got fired in 2018 because I tweeted that the Kavanaugh accusers were lying skanks. So that’s my history there.
But yes, that was a great event and it certainly would’ve renewed anybody’s spirit in America to come to that little town because you don’t think much about Quincy, Illinois until you understand the history of it, but boy, it was packed.
Leahy: It was a lot of fun. It was a great day. Glenn Reynolds – Instapundit – was there as well. And you gave one of the best speeches there that day, I thought congratulations on that.
Jackson: Thanks. My take on all this stuff, Michael, is you got to find a little bit of humor in it because it’ll drive you crazy if you don’t. And I literally was sitting here right now and asking myself, if I were a leftist or a Democrat, how detached do you have to be to support that party?
You have to ignore one of the worst economies in American history. You’ve got to ignore the stock market and your loss in your 401k and your home value, et cetera. You have to ignore foreign policy in Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and now Romania for goodness sake. China. You have to ignore Biden’s war that he created in Ukraine.
You have to ignore rampant crime in every major city. The corruption of the DOJ, Biden’s brain damage. How could you wake up in this country and possibly look at what the Democratic Party is doing and saying, I want more of that.
Leahy: Good point. Kevin, so you were hired by the great Roger Ailes at Fox News in 2015. He was I think the next year they told him to hit the road. He passed away.
Jackson: It wasn’t the next year. I think it was. Yeah, you know what you might have been. No, I take that back. So Roger hired me and within a year, it wasn’t even a year, he was gone because the second, when I re-renegotiated my contract, I negotiated with Suzanne Scott, who started out as this admin, but she had worked her way up and she then became president or CEO.
Leahy: So let me ask you this. So he was gone when you I think described Brett Kavanaugh’s accusers in a Twitter account.
Jackson: Oh yeah. He was gone.
Leahy: As “lying skanks,” what a lot of people would say, yeah, ole Kevin was pretty right about that. (Jackson laughs) But they fired you. What was that like being fired by Fox?
Jackson: So as I said to people who wanted me to sue them, because you know it was funny that they had a lot of suits going on for discrimination. A lot of blacks were suing Fox. And people were like, you should sue them, Kevin. And I’m like, I don’t care. Fox can fire me if they want.
And here’s the deal, they’re not as good of a station without me. I was a giant slayer on Fox. People go back and look at my clips and you’ll see I just destroyed leftists on Fox and I did it with a smile. And so I was very good at it. But when they called me up and they fired me I didn’t even know why I had tweeted that the Kavanaugh accusers were lying skanks because I had watched.
It was a month into this thing, and I went, this is ridiculous what they’re doing to Kavanaugh. They could do this to any man. There’s no man that could withstand the scrutiny of what the Democrats were doing to Kavanaugh. So I tweeted it, and then I got a call from corporate saying Kevin, tell me it’s not your tweet, it was a staffer.
And I went, what was it? And the lady told me, and I went, yeah, no, that was me. (Leahy laughs) And she goes, no come on Kev. Take it down. Take it down. And I said, no. I go, why would I take that down? I go, this is ridiculous. And this is a high-ranking person, the number two at Fox at the time. And she says, come on Kev, like that.
And I said, look, you’ve got a son. I go, you’ve got a husband, you’ve got a father. Don’t you want somebody out there standing up for men? This is ridiculous. You cannot let this go on this. Pretty soon guys are not going to be able to do anything or say anything. And I said I’m not going to do it.
She says, look, just take it down, and she gave me all the reasons. And here’s what she said that pissed me off. (Leahy laughs) She says, look, this is a career move, Kev. If you don’t do this, this could affect your career. And I went, what are you trying to tell me, that as a black dude working for Fox News, if I don’t take this down, my career is over?
Oh, Kevin, look here, you better do this…I was like, you must be out of your mind. I was talented before I got there. The reason why Roger Ailes said this quote to me is, “Kevin, you have the way of boiling down things to their essence better than anybody. I’m proud to offer you to join the Fox family.”
So the reason why Roger Ailes outed those words to me is because I’m freaking talented! So if you think that Fox is dictating my career, you’re out of your mind. Do what you want, but I’m not taking it down. And I hung up and two minutes later they fired me.
Leahy: Was there objection that you called Kavanaugh’s, accusers “liars,” or was it that you called them “skanks?” Which one was the most offensive? (Laughs)
Jackson: It was the word “skank,” I think which I find interesting because it’s used all the time. I could have called her far worse in terms of the lexicon. (Leahy laughs) But here’s the deal. So what she said to me is they, what was it?
I lost my train of thought when you asked me that question, but, essentially I could have kept my job if I just said, I’ll take it down. Everything’s good to go. And I was like, I’m not. I don’t need to do that. I don’t need the job. And it was a fat job. This is why when people call me a sellout, I’m like, you don’t get it. I walked away from a massive deal and in fact, the week before I got fired, I was in Fox’s office while they were prepping Tucker’s new show.
Tucker hadn’t come out yet, and Suzanne was saying to me, the CEO was saying, Kevin, so what do you want to do? What do you want to do with a show? And I said, look, Suzanne, I can block a show in two in four hours.
I can have a show ready to go, I’m talking about any topic because that’s what happens when you do radio and you’re so ready for everything. And so she goes, I know you can. I know you can. She’s prepping Tucker’s show. So we were talking about me having a show now. Would it have been Bongino’s weekend show? I’m much better. No offense to Bongino.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Kevin Jackson” by Kevin Jackson. Background Photo “U.S. Capitol” by Younho Choo.
