MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan: Dominion filings show Fox News “is a propaganda organization, not a news organization”
Hasan: “We've got to stop legitimizing this stuff as news”
Published
Citation From the March 6, 2023, edition of MSNBC's The ReidOut
JOY REID (HOST): I think a lot about -- I used to every so often just tune in to Rush Limbaugh because I wanted to hear what he was saying. And what he would do is he would give the wildest beliefs of his base, which are white working class people for the most part. He would say to them that it's really not the rich, it's really not, you know, the system. It's really the Blacks, it's the feminazis, it's the women. They're against you. They're trying to hurt you, right? And that was very powerful because it was a feelings message. It didn't need any facts.
MEHDI HASAN (GUEST): Exactly.
REID: Fox News took that same brand and put the word "news" at the end of it. Like, there's almost nothing more powerful than that. And Jim Jordan is doing the same thing. He puts this thing called "committee," and committee is saying, 'Look, my wild belief system has a committee investigating it. It must be real.' I really don't know how you overcome that when a good third of the adult population is immersed in that day in and day out.
HASAN: So, I would say two things. Number one, we've got to stop legitimizing this stuff as news. And I've said for a while, I agree with Senator Elizabeth Warren that Democrats shouldn't be going on this channel, shouldn't be treating it as a news organization.
I was glad to see Joe Biden refuse to do the Super Bowl interview with Bret Baier. Bret Baier, straight news Bret Baier, who according to New York Times' reporting on Saturday was saying in private, 'Hey, let's not just trust the numbers. We need an extra layer when we decide our election results.' What's the extra layer? Whether Trump agrees? That's the straight news host.
So I'm glad Joe Biden did what Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and others have refused to do. He said, 'I'm not going to play this game.' Democrats need to pursue that. We have to make the point that this is a propaganda organization, not a news organization.