On The Last Word, Media Matters' Matthew Gertz describes the “strange” and “disturbing” Trump/Fox feedback loop
Lawrence O'Donnell: “Matthew Gertz has given us the definitive study of how Fox News governs the thoughts of the person who is supposed to be governing the United States”
Published
Citation From the April 2, 2018, edition of MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell:
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL (HOST): Matthew Gertz has given us the definitive study of how Fox News governs the thoughts of the person who is supposed to be governing the United States of America. And he did it in a series of tweets that will guide historians for centuries unless historians at some point just give up writing about the Trump presidency because they consider it some abberant joke in the history of the American presidency.
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MATTHEW GERTZ: Well, thank you very much. Yes, I've been tracking this since mid-October. Every morning, waking up seeing whether the president is tweeting and when he is, seeing if I can match it to whatever is happening on Fox & Friends that morning. Fox & Friends is the president's favorite show. He frequently praises its hosts. He thinks that they do great work. And often what I found is whatever the president is tweeting about in the morning, it is often based on what he's seeing on that program. You know, you will have him echoing the exact same bizarre conspiracies that no one else is talking about.
You will see him talking about three, or four, or five different topics in a row that mimic Fox & Friends segments from that day. So what I eventually concluded was, yes this is what is happening, the president of the United States gets up every morning, he turns on his television, and he watches Fox's morning cable news program and tweets in real time about whatever he sees. You know, I also spend several hours a day watching cable news and tweeting about it, but I am not the president of the United States. This is very strange and I think disturbing for a couple of different reasons. You know, the cast of Fox & Friends are not exactly the brightest and the best. These are not Rhodes scholars. They are people that once attempted to roast marshmallows over an open flame with their bare hands and that didn't go well.