OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Barstool Sports personality Francis Ellis was caught on a hot mic smearing Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Jesse Watters just days after making an appearance on Watters’ program. Ellis was also heard mocking the network’s audience as stupid.
Ellis, who hosts Barstool’s “Oops the Podcast,” made the horrific comments during an episode of “Barstool Rundown,” where he was heard accusing Fox News of “trafficking in hate.” Co-host Adam Ferrone signaled that the show had ended and asked Ellis about his most recent hit on Watters’ show, “Jesse Watters Primetime” on Monday.
“He wanted me to talk about how Democrats in Massachusetts want to lower the voting age to 16,” Ellis answered, explaining that he attempted a few far-right jokes on the program, but didn’t like how he conducted himself on the show. “I just couldn’t get my feet under me. And I was like, I’m trying too hard.”
“But what if they offered you not just a segment, but what if they’re like, ‘Francis, we want you to do the eight o’clock to nine o’clock hour!’” Ferrone then asked Ellis, where the two mocked the idea of him joining Fox News.
Then Ellis tore into Fox News and the hosts who invited him on the show and gave him a platform to speak.
“Look, I got home. I talked my wife about it ’cause I was disappointed in myself and she was like, ‘Let’s be honest, like, do you want to be working with these f***ing people?’ She was like, ‘I watched the rest of his show — he’s a f***ing joke,’” Ellis said.
“This is still part of the ‘Rundown,’” Ferrone said, and another voice confirmed, “Still rolling, baby!”
“And then like, Tucker comes on and just screams,” Ellis continued. “It’s so weird. … They’re just trafficking in hate.”
Ellis then attacked the Fox News audience, which he claimed consisted of people too stupid to realize that he was intentionally screwing with them.
“I think last night I went into a place that I shouldn’t have gone to,” he admitted before adding, “No, because last night I was like, yes, the Democrats are like eating children beneath pizza shops. There are people watching that, who don’t know that I’m f***ing with them. They’re like, ‘Finally a young, handsome person is saying it!’”
Listen below:
“They’re just trafficking in hate.” Regular Fox News guest, and Barstool Sports star Francis Ellis, caught on hot mic slamming Fox News, Fox News hosts, and the Fox News audience. (Via Mediaite and Barstool Rundown) pic.twitter.com/9nPl9inG7G
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) December 7, 2022
A producer at Barstool can then be heard attempting to make Ellis feel better about his duplicity.
“Are you Jesus?” the producer asked. “What are you gonna fix everybody? Come on bro. You’re there to tell jokes.”
“I’m not here to fix people,” Ellis replied, “but I’m certainly not here to like further divide the country.”
So, in a matter of minutes, Ellis made it clear that he can’t stand Fox News, any of the network hosts, and believes that anyone who watches or listens to Fox is “dumb.”
But if they offered him a job, he said he would likely accept it.
Beyond that, Fox News continues to smash rating records.
Fox News’ lowest-rated show in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic nearly doubled MSNBC’s highest-rated show in the demo on Tuesday. Fox News not only swept the demo across all time slots, its lowest-rated show still outperformed CNN and MSNBC’s highest-rated program by a wide margin. Fox’s America Reports at 2 p.m. was its lowest performer in the demo, bringing in 221,000 viewers.”
CNN’s top-rated show in the demo, meanwhile, was Erin Burnett’s OutFront — bringing in 147,000 demo viewers. MSNBC’s top-rated show was its 9 p.m. MSNBC Prime, which brought in 116,000 demo viewers, a little more than half of America Reports’ 221,000.
Carlson’s primetime show on Fox News smashed another key barrier earlier this year.
This has also been a huge year for Watters, who is a co-host on “The Five” and now has his own show on the network.
Waters took over as the permanent host of the 7 PM EST weekday time slot this week on Fox News and he raked in 3.8 million total viewers on his first day. That represented the network’s best ratings in that timeslot in more than a year.
