Can MSNBC make it through the year? Can CNN even make it through the year? Those folks believe that they have such a huge impact on the politics of this country. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Can MSNBC make it through the year? Can CNN even make it through the year? Right now, Farron, you looked, I looked at to verify, our views are higher than CNN right now. They’re higher in prime time. They’re even higher than MSNBC. But those folks believe that they have such huge impact on the politics of this country. Take it from there. You’ve been a long critic of this for a long time. Go ahead.
Farron Cousins: Rachel Maddow has agreed to take a pay cut. That’s how bad things are. Because MSNBC has purged, I think, what, 53% of their viewership, CNN, 47% of theirs. So they’re just hemorrhaging viewers in the last month. And to be honest, something similar happened on YouTube with all of the people on the left. There were massive subscriber exoduses, I guess you would call them and then within about two weeks, everybody had gained everything back. Everything’s back to normal and fine.
Mike Papantonio: Not MSNBC and CNN.
Farron Cousins: But not with the corporate media. And I think there is a good reason for this. I was actually talking to my wife about this yesterday. I think what sets this apart, why these corporate media outlets are dying and not Fox, of course, because Fox’s audience wants to tune in for the rabble, for the crazy. This is what we believe. But on the left here, you don’t want to sit there and have these CNN hosts or MSNBC hosts lecture you. You don’t care to sit there and watch them talk to the politician of the day.
Mike Papantonio: They’re not even journalists.
Farron Cousins: Right. Because when they’re talking to the person of the day, they’re not really getting news. They’re getting that person’s talking points about why they’re good, this side’s bad, blah, blah, blah. Thank you. But they’re talking to each other. Now, what I do every day.
Mike Papantonio: The bubble, the Democratic bubble.
Farron Cousins: Right. Well, what I do every day is I look into the camera and I’m talking to the person. Whoever it is that is watching that video, I’m talking to you, I’m having a conversation with you. When you listen to a podcast, people feel like they’re part of the conversation instead of just watching two people talk about things you don’t understand on tv. That’s the difference. That’s why YouTube has become far more popular. That’s why podcasts are surging. It gives you a sense of feeling like you’re a part of the conversation instead of being lectured by people who talk down to you.
Mike Papantonio: Well, not only that, you’re good at what you do. Okay. That’s one reason they watch. Second of all, you are not committed to a baseball team. You understand this is not. Now you absolutely have nothing but awful things to say about Trump and you have for years and years, and you regularly attack Republicans, but you also attack Democrats. When the Democrat comes out with boneheaded ideas and they’re so far out there, you’re not afraid to do that. They will not do that on MSNBC. They won’t do it on CNN. And there’s another thing that I read, I thought was.
Farron Cousins: They’ll attack the hell out of Bernie Sanders, though.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Well, or course.
Farron Cousins: They’ll absolutely go after that guy.
Mike Papantonio:: Because he’s not a real Democrat. So, I read something I thought was really interesting, and it is, the American public is tired of being hustled and lied to by MSNBC and CNN. Here they talked about Biden is fine. Right. Everything’s fine with Biden. Russiagate, most people don’t even believe it happened now and now they’re opening up to that. That Kamala is winning. Yeah? These are all lie after lie that corporate media, they turn on Rachel Maddow and she’s saying all of this, and they’re thinking, oh great, everything’s fine. But it’s all a lie and it’s a lie that’s being told because they pay Rachel Maddow $30 million. So she says, okay, I know that this is all nonsense, but I’m gonna say it anyway. That’s one of the big factors that I read that people are reacting to. They say, I don’t feel like turning into MSNBC and knowing that what they’re telling me is nothing but a big hustle because corporate is telling them to say that. Corporate says, this is our talking point for the day. You remember that, right? When I did MSNBC as a commentator with Ed Schultz, these memos would come down, this is what we’re gonna say about TPP, this is what we’re gonna say about Hillary. And Ed would say, hell no, this is not what I’m gonna say. And they freaked out about it. Right. Because they weren’t being listened to. Corporate leadership was being ignored by Ed Schultz. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And a big part of that too, with the whole Biden thing was that was something you and I for well over a year actually talking about how Biden was declining, we took so much heat for that. And hey, guess what? We were a hundred percent right about that. But the corporate media wasn’t there. They only got there when Biden crapped the bed during that debate. But everybody else that was looking at this objectively.
Mike Papantonio: For months and months.
Farron Cousins: We had been there. So that was a huge hit to the credibility of these networks that pretended everything is fine. Nothing to worry about here. And when you look at Biden today, he’s so much worse today than he was in that debate. I think this man right now is on borrowed time.
Mike Papantonio: He started to walk outta the Amazon jungle just three weeks ago. He did not know where he was. That was the only explain. He turned around. He’s looking, well, where’s my handlers? Well, there’s no handlers, Joe, because they’ve all left you. You are alone now. And so he starts walking into the Amazon jungle. I mean, it’s so sick. But they knew that. Rachel Maddow knew that. Joy Reid knew that. Joe and Mika knew that.
Farron Cousins: The White House people they had on their programs every day.
Mike Papantonio: Right. They all knew it. So Rachel, who, oh by the, she took a $5 million cut. She’s being paid $30 million. Why? Because she says what the hell needs to be said to please corporate. And that’s what Joe and Mika’s always done. Joy Reid, hell, I don’t know. She’s out like in the ozone. I don’t even know what she babbles about anymore. But they better have a come to Jesus meeting and they better say, this doesn’t work anymore. This is like an old model that doesn’t work. Comcast, what do you think they’re gonna do?
Farron Cousins: I really don’t know because you either have to retool this entire network, which takes time. It takes money, and there’s a horrible rebuilding process that goes into that. Or you go down with the ship. You keep playing in the band as the Titanic sinks into the water trying to keep everybody calm. But either way, it’s not in a good situation. I think you’ve got a serious credibility issue. I think a lot of people have already found better outlets to go to. Outlets where people can actually speak their mind without fear of the corporations, without fear of these overlords. They can talk and they can speak passionately and intelligently. You don’t have to be on cable news to matter anymore. And I think these hosts on MSNBC don’t quite understand that yet.
