‘That Could Be A Potential Next Move for Them’: Is ‘Morning Joe’ Looking To Jump to Fox News?
Podcasters speculate why MSNBC hosts might want to curry favor with right-wing network
Call it a case of one media power couple sussing out another.
Progressive YouTube personalities Krystal Ball and her husband, Kyle Kulinski, recently dug into the post-election meltdown of Morning Joe.
The MSNBC program has been losing viewers — and has been relentlessly skewered across the spectrum — since hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealed that they had traveled to Mar-a-Lago for a personal meeting with Donald Trump.
Things only have been getting worse since, including Brzezinski’s decision to apologize for a comment made by journalist David Frum about the drinking habits of those at Fox News.
Referring to Trump’s embattled nominee for secretary of defense, who worked as a Fox News host and has been dogged by allegations of excessive drinking, Frum said, “Well, just given what one sees on camera, if you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed. So that’s alarming,”
A short time later, Brzezinski called out that comment on-camera, saying that it was “too flippant,” while heaping praise on those who work at the right-wing cable network.
It was that need to appease rival Fox News that caught the attention of Ball and Kulinski. Several years ago, Ball herself had been a host on MSNBC.
And like many in the media, Ball and Kulinski have been mocking Scarborough and Brzezinski’s need to curry favor with the powerful and influential at the expense of personal values and integrity.
But it was that need by Brzezinski to smooth any hurt feelings at Fox News by Frum’s offhand remark that stood out to Ball and Kulinski.
Not only has Morning Joe been troubled since the election, the fate of MSNBC as a whole is uncertain as ratings are down across-the-board and its parent company seeks to spin-off MSNBC and several other cable networks in its portfolio.
“Well, we know that MSNBC is kind of in a death spiral [having] lost half their viewership,” Ball said.
She also questioned whether the new spinoff would be able to continue to afford the high salaries which Scarborough and Brzezinski command.
“So, guess what would be a logical move for them to maintain their money and their power and their influence and their sway in Washington. Fox News, which now has something like 70 percent of the cable news marketshare,” Ball said. “It’s going to be the only place that’s relevant and has access, really, in the Trump era.
“So they could be thinking that could be a potential next move for them. So let’s not piss off the potential new boss,” she added.
Kulinski said he concurred with Ball’s supposition.
“When you said it, ‘Oh that’s right,’ because the genesis of the fight is David Frum’s comment of, ‘Yeah, Pete Hegseth drinks too much for Fox News, and if you’re drinking too much for Fox News you’re drinking a lot,” he said.
“Why would you get offended over that? The only reason is you want to maintain good relationships,” Kulinski added.
Watch the full discussion here:
Please support our work…
Please subscribe…