"Trust the Science (TM)" High Priest Jake Tapper: Is Global Warming Causing This Increase in Earthquakes?

He's as good at The Science (TM) as he is at writing novels.

Before that, Joe and Mika are getting more blowback from communists, perverts, and other criminals. This time it's David Frum.

On Wednesday morning, Frum joined Scarborough and Brzezinski to discuss Trump's defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth and reports that his heavy drinking had worried his Fox News colleagues.

"If you're too drunk for Fox News, you're very, very drunk indeed," Frum joked on "Morning Joe."

During the ad break, a producer spoke into Frum's ear, warning him not to repeat his comments on Hegseth's alcoholism allegations, Frum wrote in a column for The Atlantic.

"The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we're in," Brzezinski said on "Morning Joe" during the next segment. "We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that's a good debate that we should have often, but right now I just want to say there's a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want to leave it at that."

So Frum penned a piece for The Atlantic tearing apart what he called Brzezinski's "apology."

"It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease," he wrote.

Scarborough lectured viewers for 20 minutes on Thursday morning while he ripped into Frum's column.

"The sound of fear? The apology? None of that is true," he said.

These jerkoffs are jockeying for position and knifing each other as their whole corrupt grift sinks into hell.

Rachel Maddow is also furious at Joe and Mika for having a slightly different grift than she has.

MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow is reportedly furious with her Morning Joe colleagues for meeting with Donald Trump after he won the presidential election.

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski visited the president-elect a little over two weeks ago at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to 'restart communications' and set a 'new approach' ahead of his second term.

Maddow, along with other hosts at the troubled liberal network, are calling this move by the married Morning Joe co-hosts 'opportunistic,' according to a report in The US Sun.

'The meeting at Mar-a-Lago created a lot of tension in the teams, and many other stars...see both Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski as opportunistic and with very low self respect and forgetting their values of being journalists with independence and integrity,' said a journalist who's worked at MSNBC for 15 years.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the journalist made it clear who has a problem with Morning Joe pivoting from calling Trump a fascist and an admirer of Adolf Hitler to having a cordial meeting with him to figure out coverage going forward.

'They have lost a lot of credibility. Rachel Maddow is pissed at them as are other presenters like Chris Hayes and Ari Melber. They are so frustrated,' the journalist said.

MSNBC disputed this report, claiming that Maddow hasn't said anything on air or off air about Scarborough and Brzezinski meeting with Trump.

'Any insinuation otherwise is merely speculative,' an MSNBC spokesperson told The US Sun.

That denial is so weak it's essentially an admission.

MSNBC's ratings remain down, though Joe and Mika's ratings are mostly stable after falling after the election.

Maddow's ratings, on the other hand...

Despite this, Morning Joe hasn't dropped as much as other MSNBC shows. Between the third quarter (pre-election and Trump meeting) and November, Morning Joe lost 14% of its audience. In comparison, the network's prime-time 9 pm hour hosted by Alex Wagner (and Rachel Maddow on Mondays) was down 32%.

In addition, Chris Hayes was down 15%, Joy Reid 30%, and Lawrence O'Donnell 24%. Nicolle Wallace, the usual ratings leader for the network, was also down some 14%.

That depressive derp-faced dog and cradle-robbing cougar adultress usually leads the network in ratings?

News networks, in general, are down post-election, with MSNBC down 47% and CNN down 33%. On the week of the Trump meeting announcement, even Fox News saw a small 9% dip. Meanwhile, in prime time, MSNBC lost 52% of its viewers, while CNN dropped 39%.

Joe and Mika did not appear on MSNBC today. But they're traveling to Arkansas to interview Clinton, so their absence might mean nothing.

Bonus: Vox Media announces moar layoffs.

The digital media company Vox Media is implementing layoffs and a substantial restructuring of its lifestyle properties, according to an internal memo obtained by ADWEEK.

The changes will primarily affect the titles Thrillist, PS (formerly PopSugar), and Eater, as well as the media production and technology team, chief executive Jim Bankoff wrote to staff on Thursday.

A representative for Vox Media declined to specify the scope of the layoffs.

"The scope"? You mean the numbers?

Based on their refusal to talk numbers, I'd say the layoffs are real, and they're spectacular.

posted by Ace at 01:00 PM

| Access Comments