On MSNBC's The Weeknight, Angelo Carusone discusses how there are real fracture points in a fractured media landscape
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From the September 29, 2025, edition of MSNBC's The Weeknight
SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND (CO-HOST): You know, Angelo, Anne was actually part of a conversation at The Atlantic Festival that they turned into a podcast with Gary Kasparov, and I thought the conversation was very illuminating. And Gary is from the Renew Democracy Initiative, and this is what he had to say on this.
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So many things are happening in the gray area. And I would add on top of that that the media ecosystem being fractured contributes to the president being able to do this.
ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): I mean, a lot of what Anne was talking about before, I mean, I'm not nearly as smart as Anne is, but she's describing vibes. You know, it's vibes. And that is ultimately what it's about and what the vibes that they're able to project is be afraid, go along to get along is better than trying to fight back or to continue what you're doing. And the mechanism or the primary vehicle for executing those vibes is the ecosystem. It is not just the core right-wing media like talk radio and Fox, but then what they've been able to add on to it as a result of that having a center of gravity, which is all these podcasts and these bro-casts and all these, you know, wellness and fitness programs, they've all sort of glommed on to this narrative that Trump is selling.
And that means it gives them a lot of power, right? Power perceived is power achieved. That's why you're seeing a lot of this theater. So much of this is normative. And that's why I think you see so much frustration toward Democratic leadership because they're not able to recognize that it's not a fight in the traditional political context. We're now battling a fight in this ecosystem. It's a storytelling fight. Who's going to have better theater? Who's going to have better performance?
It is scary. And I'm always the downer on this. But it also is a real vulnerability because as you noted, it's very fractured. And they have to keep what is a very fractured, tense sort of environment together in lockstep. And that is precarious, especially during this period where they have to consolidate power by moving very, very, very fast. And that to me is the real opportunity moment that we're in right now. This fractured environment is actually hard to sustain, and we should be able to break it apart honestly.
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ALICIA MENENDEZ (CO-HOST): To the point about a chaos environment and a fractured media environment, I think it is notable that you had this headline in the National Review: "With more scrutiny, the Trump DOJ indictment of Comey gets worse." Not exactly a bastion of liberalism, the National Review. I thought it was interesting. They know I was obsessed with this, that last week when this whole Brendan Carr thing was going down at the FCC with Kimmel, you actually watched all the Fox News hosts try to walk it back like they were on the same talking points: "Oh, this wasn't a government decision. This was a business decision." It was as though they politically understood that this was lethal.
ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): That's right. They did. They knew that they could not be seen, none of them could be seen as defending and supporting, let alone defending, supporting the government, trying to censor speech. It's just -- I mean, there's a reason it's the First Amendment. I mean, back then, remember, the Third Amendment is you can't have random people, the government forcing you to stay in your home. Okay, I mean, they literally said speech is more important than having strangers sleep with me. I mean, it's deeply embedded in American politics. Okay, and so it is a core issue. And they couldn't toe the line on that. That's why they tried to sort of position it that way. And even right now, even these prosecutions, I think of John Solomon, who sort of, you know, there's not a right-wing attack that that guy has not been willing to execute himself or carry water for.
But in this case, it's like, oh, this is a little too far and it's probably not going to go anywhere. I mean, him and Megyn Kelly talking about that reinforces that. This is a really explicit weaponization of the government. And these are people who built their careers and their media careers and their audiences on the idea that they are opposed to government overreach. So at some point, everybody wants a little revenge, so they can get away with it: "Oh, Biden did it." You know, we're going to get a little bit, but at some point it can't become entirely normalized. They're not going to want to carry water for it. And that's why it's like I said, these are the real fracture points. And it's important that we're able to tell that story and create a mechanism where these people can actually push back on Trump. And that's part of this larger effort that we all have to do.