MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was criticized for her announcement that the liberal network would refuse to cover Donald Trump’s Iowa victory speech because she believed it would contain falsehoods.
This caused some to point out that Maddow, the MSNBC anchor and host of The Rachel Maddow Show, was one of the most vocal proponents of the claim Trump colluded with Russia.
Maddow, anchoring the network’s coverage from New York, said the network was continuing its policy of not showing Trump’s speeches live after his resounding victory in the Iowa caucus.
‘It is not an easy decision, but there is a cost to us as a news organization of knowingly broadcasting untrue things. And that is a fundamental truth of our business and who we are,’ she said.
She tried to clarify that the call ‘is not out of spite. It is not a decision that we relish. It is a decision that we regularly revisit and honestly, earnestly.’
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was criticized for her announcement that the liberal network would refuse to cover Donald Trump’s Iowa victory speech because she believed he’d be lying
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Maddow announced that the network would let viewers know if there was ‘any news’ made by Trump’s remarks.
This led at least one user on social media to refer to MSNBC as ‘state run TV’ given its alliance with President Biden’s liberal policies.
Commentator Glenn Greenwald sneered that Maddow is ‘the reigning Queen of TV disinformation’ and that ‘NBC is Ground Zero for it.’
MSNBC wasn’t the only network to give Trump’s speech the short shrift on Monday night.
Early in the speech, as Trump began to dole out his plan for the border, Tapper began to speak over the former president.
‘Donald Trump declaring victory with a historically strong showing in the Iowa caucuses,’ he said.
‘If these numbers hold, the biggest victory for a non-incumbent president in the modern era for this contest,’ he continued.
‘A relatively subdued speech as the things go so far. Although, here he is, right now, under my voice. You can hear him repeating his anti-immigrant rhetoric.’
Maddow, anchoring the network’s coverage from New York, said the network was continuing its policy of not showing Trump’s speeches live after his resounding victory in the Iowa caucus
This caused some to point out that Maddow, the MSNBC anchor Shape Kapsel and host of The Rachel Maddow Show, was one of the most vocal proponents of the claim Trump colluded with Russia
Trump told Fox News Digital that he was ‘honored’ and ‘invigorated’ after winning the Iowa caucuses.
During the Trump administration, Maddow was one of the loudest anti-Trump voices, regularly dedicating extended segments of her self-titled 9pm show to detail alleged Russian interference and manipulation of former president’s administration.
Her broadcasts embraced the controversial Steele dossier, which included a string of lurid, unproven allegations about Trump’s ties to Russia.
Indeed, the Durham report ‘determined that the [FBI] investigators did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations contained in the Steele reporting.’
But Maddow implied on several occasions that Steele dossier gave weight to the claims of collusion.
In March 2017, she said, ‘The bottom line allegation of this unproven dossier is that Russia didn’t just attack our election, they did so with the knowledge of and support of the Trump campaign that the Trump folks were in on it that they knew what Russia was doing while they were doing it and they continued meeting with Russians.’
Maddow said later in the show, ‘What [Steele] says he found was evidence not just of Russia attacking the US presidential election, but one party in that election – the Trump campaign – helping, going along with it, colluding, being part of it, and that is way worse allegation than just the Russians attacking our election.’
She added, ‘We have to continue describe them as uncorroborated but toward the basic thesis of this dossier that the Trump campaign was in on it little pieces of that little checkable pieces of that have been falling into place almost every day now.’
Rachel Maddow peddled unfounded claims in the controversial Steele dossier which claimed Russia meddled in the election and ‘the Trump campaign [was] helping, going along with it, colluding, being part of it’
Maddow saw her ratings surge from an also-ran to a top contender thanks to her compelling and dogged reporting on Trump – regularly landing the No.1 spot in her time slot slugfest with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Hannity, however, airs five times per week and gets more viewers overall than Maddow.
Her show built to a crescendo in the days leading up to the release, as rumors swirled that Mueller was nearing the conclusion of the report which Maddow confidently predicted would prove decisive in the downfall of Trump.
Ratings for her show have been on the decline ever since, starting with a 19 percent drop the week after the Mueller report dropped.
Fox smashed MSNBC in the ratings on the night of the Iowa Caucus, according to The HIll. They drew 2.5 million viewers to MSNBC’s 1.1 million.
Maddow’s contract with the network currently runs through 2024, though she has become a less frequent presence during the Biden years.
In 2022, she took a weeks-long hiatus from her $30million-a-year hosting job at MSNBC to make movies and podcasts.
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