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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
Former Fox News host Chris Wallace would not commit to answering why he left Fox News as he was interviewed by comedian and host Bill Maher on the HBO show “Real Time.”
The interview came on Friday as Wallace was promoting his show on CNN/HBO Max series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” Mediaite reported.
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BILL MAHER: You left Fox News.
CHRIS WALLACE: But if on Fox News Sunday I told straight and they and they never second guessed me on a on a guest or a question, they let me do what I did and and I’m doing the same now.
BILL MAHER: I always thought you were the canary in the coal mine at Fox.
CHRIS WALLACE: I want to see how this metaphor ends up. Well.
BILL MAHER: Ah. Well, the canary gets out, the mine collapses. That’s. That’s my (laughs) No, I mean, you got out. I mean, it became a come on. Isn’t that why you left? Because it just became too hard to be in that loony bin?
CHRIS WALLACE: You know, I am so excited about Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, about CNN, about looking ahead to the future.
BILL MAHER: You just said you’re a big straight shooter, but you won’t answer that question, about Fox?
CHRIS WALLACE: You know, I have found message discipline. I know you’re going to be talking to Chris Christie in a moment. Message discipline–
BILL MAHER: That’s for politicians, not for us. We’re the other side, we’e the other team.
CHRIS WALLACE: Yeah.
BILL MAHER: All right, I’ll ask — We’ll talk it over in the commissary, too.
CHRIS WALLACE: Actually, I was thinking Mitch McConnell, just repeat the line over and over again.
BILL MAHER: So last question.
CHRIS WALLACE: We’re done?
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BILL MAHER: Yeah, almost.
CHRIS WALLACE: I’m having a good time.
BILL MAHER: I’m having a good time too. It goes fast when you avoid questions.
CHRIS WALLACE: Well played.
The show, “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” debuted on Sunday for CNN and the Nielsen ratings show that not many people tuned in, The Washington Examiner reported.
“The ratings show that there were 401,000 viewers, down 29% from the average, and 44,000 among those aged 25 to 54, down 64% from the average,” the report said.
By contrast, his competition on Fox News “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy,” garnered 1.3 million viewers and 78,000 in the 25 – 54 demographic.
His first guest was former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal, who defended the court after its decision to end Roe V Wade.
“I want to talk to you about public opinion. You like to quote Alexander Hamilton, who said that the court does not have purse like Congress, does not have the sword like the executive. That it depends on public acceptance for its authority. You talked earlier about public opinion. Look at the Gallup poll, which has measured approval of the courts since the year 2000. In July, the month after Dobbs, 43% approved of the way the Supreme Court does its job while 55% disapprove. That’s the most negative margin in the history of the court, worse than right after Bush v. Gore. You talk about social harmony, but when the court undoes a right that people have lived with for half a century, doesn’t that very much shake the authority of the court?” the host said.
“If you’re going to be a judge, you do not worry about popularity. You do not worry about what the general public will say by way of public opinion. And if you do that going over a very small edge here, people won’t accept your opinion. They’ll think you’re a group of politicians and there have been some bad days in the history of the court. And I start complaining about the ones that I didn’t like, I think you know what Abraham Lincoln said, when he read Dred Scott. He said, That’s a shocker. And you say did I like this Dobbs decision? Of course I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. Was I happy about it? Not for an instant. Did I do everything I could to persuade people? Of course, of course. But there we are and now we go on. We try to work together. I mean, it’s a little corny, but I think, but I do think it,” the former Justice said.
Who IS talking to Chris Wallace? Stephen Breyer, Tyler Perry, and Shania Twain join Chris – catch his show’s debut on @hbomax & @CNN pic.twitter.com/RKQH29PIOg
— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) September 23, 2022
The Supreme Court is set to be back to work in October and one case that it has agreed to hear has many waiting in anticipation.
The case is to decide if Republican legislators from North Carolina GOP have the authority to draw a partisan election map and not have state judges interfering.
