UPDATE! Fingers crossed, if all the chips fall right, Mark will be dropping by "Tucker Carlson Tonight", Friday, live at 8pm Eastern.
On Wednesday night, I guest-hosted "Tucker" and for the third night in a row we were the Number Two show in all of cable TV - not just cable news, but everything. "Hannity" and "Tucker" were the only two shows to pull more than three million viewers - and, as on the previous nights, I had a bigger audience than MSNBC's Chris Hayes and CNN's Anderson Cooper combined. So it's been a boffo week ratings-wise by every metric, and I thank you for that, very much. I also thank Justin Wells and his producers - the best team in current affairs television, no question. And as always I'm grateful to Vincenza and Sindy for making sure my hairpiece is glued down and the discoloration from my discount-mall collagen injections is dialed back a hue or two. Much appreciated, ladies.
Thursday's ratings will likewise be hot stuff, but nothing to do with me. President Trump started speaking in New Hampshire at 7.30pm, and was still going strong when I handed over to Sean Hannity at nine o'clock. As I observed at 8.59, the President had definitely cranked it up a notch for campaign season: Among other observations, he said that the European Union didn't have much going for it, except that his family came from there.
So there wasn't a lot for me to do, but we did have a trio of analysts on hand - Charles Hurt of The Washington Times, Joe Concha of 710 WOR New York, and of course Lisa Boothe, who, as I always say, watches the Democrat field so you don't have to. All three crop up below - and Charlie Hurt in particular is worth paying attention to: four years ago he was one of the very first on Fox to predict (when Rich Lowry and others were scoffing at him) that Trump was going to ride this particular format all the way to victory. Click below to watch the President punctuated by me, Lisa and Charlie about three minutes in, and Joe about fifteen minutes in:
One segment we didn't get to was the latest developments in the sudden and convenient demise of Jeffrey Epstein, but Tucker's team has posted my interview with a New York prison warden, Cameron Lindsay, here.
As Tucker said the other week, he now assumes, with almost any utterance from any tentacle of the federal government, that they're lying to him. So bear that in mind with selective leaks from the still unreleased autopsy report. Yesterday we were told that Epstein's body had a broken hyoid bone (near the adam's apple), which is certainly possible in hanging but, as reporters put it throughout the day, is "more commonly associated with strangulation".
If you're wondering what that actually means, a survey out of Montreal examined 239 suicides by hanging. Precisely six had a broken hyoid bone. So 97.5 per cent of hangings didn't. We had an excellent guest lined up to address what she called an "exceptionally suspicious" finding and the other pathological questions, and I'm hopeful she'll be able to make tonight's show.
It's a great privilege to be a small part of a show as successful as Tucker's. The man himself returns on Monday. All week long, I've been accused all over the Internet of lying about his supposed "fishing trip" when everyone knows the jig's up and Fox has canned him. Hey, don't be a rube sap patsy pushover all your life. Unlike you, I happen to know where he's fishing - in a legendarily bountiful part of the Dominion of Canada, as it happens. And I also happen to know how many weeks ago I was asked if I could cover for him on these particular dates. Tucker is a unique voice on the American right, which is why the left is frantic to take him out. But they haven't succeeded yet.
Tonight my chum Tammy Bruce is on the loose. After my telly exertions of recent days, I'm taking a day off to attend to various matters, but I'll be rounding out my shot at a TV lifetime-achievement-in-a-single-week award with Kat and Tyrus on Saturday's edition of The Greg Gutfeld Show - that's at 10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific.
If you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club please feel free to weigh in below. We have fun in the Steyn Club: for more info, please see here. And, if you know of a wee lad or lassie of a Steynian bent, there's always the perfect pre-Labor Day present: a Steyn Club Gift Membership, or alternatively a stateroom on the third annual Mark Steyn Club Cruise.
