Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo fired back at Tucker Carlson’s accuser, former producer, Abby Grossberg. Abby filed a lawsuit against Fox News, Tucker Carlson, and others for what she claims was harassment and mistreatment.
But Grossberg went on MSNBC and other shows to grab her 15 minutes of fame and cast doubt on her own claims. Now Grossberg is going after Maria, trashing the veteran financial reporter. Grossberg worked with Bartiromo before she joined Carlson’s show.
Grossberg belittled Maria to Time Magazine saying she used her relationship with Trump to keep her job and the Murdochs off her back. “If they were marginalizing her, she could always say, ‘I can get the President of the United States on the phone,’” Grossberg said. “She had that power over Fox, and it protected her.”
For a woman suing over mistreatment that is a weird way to stick up for other women at the network, who presumably would be dealing with the same issues she is suing over. And Maria let her have it.
She said:
“I have interviewed four American presidents and several international heads of state during my distinguished career and have had rapports with leading figures across the world.
“These allegations are absurd and patently false.”
Fox News said it “will vigorously defend Fox against all of her unmeritorious legal claims, which are riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees.
“Maria Bartiromo has cultivated an extensive list of contacts over the course of 30 years that enable her to connect with numerous sources spanning business and politics across Republican and Democrats, CEOs to analysts worldwide.”
Grossberg said whined about Tucker’s power on MSNBC: “There was an aspect of ‘I can pick who the Speaker is. I can pick who the president of the United States is, pick who the Republican candidate is going to be.’
“I thought that was very dangerous and didn’t want that kind of power. I didn’t want to have senate candidates calling me and being very upset ‘are you gonna destroy our whole campaign tonight’ because he could do that. He would call and tell them that if they don’t come on the show, we will destroy you.”
MSNBC host Nicole Wallace said: “What is it about the culture at Tucker, because, listen, as someone who covers him and has covered, covers him as a force that threatens democracy until Friday night, it falls in this category: shocking, not surprising. What was for you as someone inside Fox shocking about the culture at Tucker coming from Maria’s show?”
Abby said: “It was very out in the open. What you see is what ends up on air. People are believers who are there.
“I was really, I found it difficult to cover the kind of stories that they wanted me to cover. I wasn’t expecting it. Maybe I should have. That’s what some people say.
“But for example, right toward the end of my time there, when the January 6th tapes were coming out, Tucker was very set on finding an FBI person who was implanted in the crowd and spinning this conspiracy that they were ultimately the ones responsible for the Capitol attack, not Fox News, as they’re about to go into the Dominion trial, that it was really the FBI that set up this thing, not Fox telling the American people that the election was rigged and the voting machines did it.
“And when I went back to them and said, look, there’s no conspiracy theory here, I called this attorney that’s representing one of the Proud Boys, and he flat out told me on two occasions:
“‘There is no conspiracy. Get away from this stuff. This is dangerous. Tell Tucker to stop. I’ll come on your show and represent my client. But I absolutely will walk off if he asks me this.’
“And the response was, well find somebody else.
“Tucker is really intent on this and that wore on my mental health, too, because by that time I had really begun to connect the dots that the programming that we were putting on the air every night was not just generating business, but also generating hatred in the audience.
“And after January 6th, I had this wake-up moment that this is hurting people.
“People are getting angry and people are acting out on that anger. And this is not okay. And I don’t want to be part of that.”
That was too much BS for even Wallace who called out Abby:
“I guess some people who have kept an eye on what he’s done would say that you might have known that before. Right. You go to work for Tucker in 2022.”
“Yes,” Grossberg said weakly but it was too late.
She said of Tucker’s firing:
“There were feelings first of “Yes!” and then also the reality that you don’t want anything bad to happen to anybody.
“But at the same time, Tucker and his executive producer Justin Wells, who was also fired, really were responsible for breaking me and making my life a living hell. So there is a feeling of justice, but it’s only partial.
Former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who is suing the network, says she agreed to “spy” on anchor Maria Bartiromo:
“I had been asked to spy on her by the Fox bosses and report back on what she was doing … I would tell them what she was doing.” pic.twitter.com/UvsNPCpAZ5
— The Recount (@therecount) April 25, 2023