January 1, Liberal Fox Host Finally Admits She Got TWO Major Stories Dead Wrong

Wyatt’s Take

• Jessica Tarlov, the token liberal on Fox’s The Five, admits in her new book that her bias completely clouded her judgment on COVID mandates and the Jussie Smollett hoax—two stories conservatives called out from day one.
• She finally acknowledges what working Americans knew all along: mask mandates went too far, for too long, trampling on our freedoms while elites like her felt safer hiding behind government overreach.
• This confession proves what we’ve been saying for years—the left’s knee-jerk defense of their narrative blinds them to basic facts, and it takes years of being proven wrong before they’ll admit conservatives were right all along.

With less than two months until election night, Jessica Tarlov—the liberal voice on Fox News Channel’s popular show “The Five”—is making waves with a stunning confession. In her new book, she admits she got two major stories completely wrong, stories that conservatives called out accurately from the start.

Tarlov writes that while she still hopes Democrats sweep the upcoming elections, she’s not always a fan of her own team. Sometimes, she admits, Democrats go way too far. Sometimes they preach so hard that regular folks feel left out of their own party.

Her first big admission? COVID-19 policies. Don’t get her wrong, she still defends Dr. Anthony Fauci, the retired head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. But she finally concedes what millions of Americans knew all along: mask mandates went too far, for too long.

When Tarlov interviewed her conservative co-host Greg Gutfeld on her podcast “Raging Moderates,” she finally saw why he was so frustrated. The government kept telling people what to do instead of just leaving them alone.

“I think everybody has a feeling, after going through that period, I can’t believe I let people do this to me,” Gutfeld told her. “I can’t believe I stood six feet apart from people. I can’t believe I washed my Amazon packages.”

Gutfeld made the connection to current cultural battles: “The mask pressure is very similar to the pronoun pressure. You could just leave me alone… When somebody wants to compel you to do something, you instinctively resist.”

Tarlov’s second major admission takes us back to 2019, when actor Jussie Smollett lied about being the victim of a hate crime in Chicago. The “Empire” star claimed two masked men in MAGA hats attacked him, doused him with bleach, hurled slurs, and put a noose around his neck.

When she went on air, Tarlov joined the liberal outrage mob. But then the narrative crumbled. The whole thing was a hoax. Smollett had staged it.

Looking back now, Tarlov admits there were plenty of warning signs she ignored. The attack supposedly happened at two a.m. during a polar vortex in Chicago—not exactly prime time for anyone to be outside. The attackers allegedly recognized Smollett from his TV show and just happened to be carrying bleach and a noose.

“Did my liberal bias cloud my coverage? No doubt,” Tarlov writes in her book.

She explains the science behind why admitting you’re wrong is so hard. When researchers presented high-intensity voters with statements that challenged their beliefs, the regions of the brain responsible for processing physical pain lit up. Changing your mind literally hurts.

Our brains filter information to protect us from constant anxiety, just like our bodies filter out foreign invaders. Scientists call this motivated reasoning, which leads to what sociologists call cognitive armor—a defense system that pre-filters reality.

The most disturbing part? This process is largely unconscious. We don’t decide to ignore contradictory evidence—our brains do it automatically.

Tarlov points to the 2025 film “Eddington” as capturing the divide COVID created in America. Set in New Mexico, the movie examines a small-town mayoral election. The sheriff, played by Joaquin Phoenix, refuses to wear a mask, while the incumbent, portrayed by Pedro Pascal, tries to enforce a legal mandate.

The film shows how communities fracture along ideological lines and how cynicism infects our most basic civic functions. The sheriff doesn’t merely disagree with mask mandates—he’s fundamentally skeptical about institutional authority itself.

While Tarlov’s view was shaped by caring for a dying parent and fearing COVID would take him before cancer, she now acknowledges Gutfeld’s perspective shared by millions: that enforced masking was an intolerable infringement on rights and quality of life.

“Although the danger of COVID has receded, that debate continues,” she writes. “Were mandates a necessary evil? Or were they just evil?”

Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, host of “The Faulkner Focus” and co-host of “Outnumbered,” told Tarlov during an appearance: “If we’re ever going to go forward, we do have to look at the facts and have an open heart. They are not mutually exclusive.”

Gutfeld once described their dynamic this way: “It’s like going to the gym to lift weights. You need resistance. I want to see if my ideas can lift weights. And when you’re in there, you force me to work out.”

Tarlov concludes that she now looks for smart people to disagree with her, just as she hopes they look for her to do the same. The power, she says, is in knowing the truth and also knowing that we naturally resist it.

“Only then do we have a shot at a shared reality,” she writes.

Wyatt Matters

This admission is long overdue, but at least one liberal is finally willing to say what conservatives knew from the beginning. When the government starts mandating masks for toddlers and forcing small businesses to close while big-box stores stay open, working Americans saw it for what it was—control dressed up as safety. And when a celebrity cries hate crime with a story full of holes, we’re not supposed to ask questions? The real lesson here isn’t about debates or conversations. It’s that ordinary Americans have better instincts than the experts who lecture them. Trust your gut, stand your ground, and don’t let anyone—government bureaucrat or TV host—tell you what you already know is wrong.