Monday night was volatile in the war between Fox News and MSNBC, and the war inside Fox News as well.
The big story was Bret Baier’s crazy interview with Donald Trump. At 6pm, Baier let Trump skewer himself in unimaginable ways. The result was 2.6 million people tuning in as Trump liked, contradicted himself, actually admitted to having classified documents at home, and conceded that everyone he’d hired — all the “best people” from his administration, now hate him. This startling experience had to have been sanctioned by Rupert Murdoch, who let Trump swing in the wind.
Baier’s ratings were actually down from the 5 pm show, “The Big Five,” which today announced they were dumping Geraldo Rivera, one of the few people at Fox who can sometimes seem reasonable.
But then the big two hour block from 9 to 11pm went to MSNBC as Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell swept the floor with Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. When Maddow is in her chair, Hannity is crushed, and that leads to O’Donnell doing the same to Ingraham.
Nice work at MSNBC which must get Maddow back on a regular schedule when Trump goes on trial in August.
Trump: Mike Pence had documents that were classified.
Baier: And he turned them over.
Trump: No, he didn’t turn them over. He got caught. pic.twitter.com/CzLYO27adP
— Derek Friday (@DerekFriday) June 20, 2023