Donald Trump claims not to watch much TV, what with him being so busy “reading documents,” but you’d never guess it by the way he obsesses over the “fake news media” on his unhinged Twitter account. Just last week, for example, he fawned over the Trump propaganda machine that is Fox News before taking direct aim at CNN, saying, “CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly.”
CNN is, of course, his favorite punching bag, but he’s also shown a great deal of disdain for The New York Times, NBC News, MSNBC, and, well, just about any outlet that doesn’t kiss his crusty, gnarled toes. So, like the cruel, bloodthirsty emperor he wishes he was, he’s called for a “contest,” one to determine which network is “the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me).” The winner, he declares, will receive the “FAKE NEWS TROPHY.”
A frontrunner, one might imagine, would be MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, which Trump went on to attack in a subsequent tweet. Trump linked to a post from White House social media director Dan Scavino that made fun of Morning Joe for airing a pre-recorded episode on Friday without declaring the show wasn’t live, adding, “The good news is that their ratings are terrible, nobody cares!”
Instead of locking swords with The Washington Post like Trump would like—the Post first reported on the pre-taped show—Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski fired back at Trump. Scarborough took the opportunity to chuckle at his adversary in a now-deleted tweet, while Brzezinski implied that Trump was the one who fed the Post the story in the first place, as it was noted that “a longtime viewer of the program” wrote in to ask whether the show was airing “fake news.”
“We finally know who the single-sourced anonymous viewer was who whined to The Washington Post. #MouthBreather,” wrote Brzezinski, who has since deleted her tweet.
Perhaps more interesting than the fake news-off would be a contest between those Trump deems real news. One wonders: Who would win between Fox News, Breitbart, and that lunatic conspiracy account he tweeted about last week? They’re all pretty much the same these days.