MSNBC host Chris Hayes opened the Friday edition of his show by a scathing monologue attacking President Donald Trump and conservative media, reports Mediaite .
Positing that Trump is a “symptom” of a larger problem in American politics, Hayes drew a parallel between the way conservative media reacted to former President Barack Obama’s administration releasing unemployment numbers and the way liberal-leaning media is reacting to Trump doing the same.
Hayes reminded his viewers that conservatives accused Obama of “cooking the books,” opining that liberal news publications are behaving differently, and reporting the news as it is, even if it can be interpreted as a positive for the Republican sitting in the White House.
“There is only one side doing this,” Hayes said, “conservatives and the now Republican president.”
“I’m telling you right now the jobs numbers are the jobs numbers,” the host said, adding that “the other side” is not “attached to the facts.”
“Donald Trump brought that same delusional madness into the White House,” Hayes continued, weighing in on the president’s alleged contacts with the Ukrainian government.
The host said that Trump is using the power of his office to pursue an “insane conspiracy theory,” referring to the president’s claims about the cyber-security company CrowdStrike.
“President Trump is as much a symptom of this as he is the cause,” Hayes said, before laying out his hypothesis as to why he continues to make supposedly false and misleading claims.
According to the host, since Trump is an avid Fox News viewer, it is only natural that he makes claims detached from reality.
“The man is first and foremost a Fox News viewer. That’s his central identity. That’s what’s going on in the brain.” Hayes said.
The host concluded that there is an entire “ecosystem” built around lies and that it is now trying to convince millions of Americans that it was Ukraine that meddled in the 2016 election and that the deep state is working to remove Trump from office.
WATCH: @chrislhayes on what’s “phenomenally dangerous” about this political moment:
“There is an entire eco-system built around this alternate reality that is untethered from fact.” #inners pic.twitter.com/ITsQ7Nx6vn
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) December 7, 2019
Hayes’ comments echo media critic David Zurawik’s recent remarks. In an interview last week, Zurawik argued that Fox News not only exerts influence on Trump but also “seeds” dangerous conspiracy theories , injecting them into the political and media mainstream. The conservative network, Zurawik suggested, does this to defend the president.
Fox News has been criticized for covering the Trump administration uncritically, but the president is reportedly not happy with how he is being treated. The president has publicly suggested that the cable network is not as good to him as it used to be, attacking some of its most prominent hosts. Privately, he has reportedly taken things a few steps further, going as far as contacting Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to complain about hostile coverage.
