WATCH: Morning Joe Airs Over 90 Seconds of Unedited Fox News Segments Slamming Trump
Morning Joe was all in on Fox News Friday morning when producers decided that two segments from their cable news competitor were worth sharing to their viewers unedited. It is likely not a coincidence that both segments were critical of President Donald Trump, who is a constant subject of criticism on the MSNBC morning show.
It is not unusual for cable news opinion programs to air segments from fellow networks, but is far more common for the competitor’s segments to be used as source material for derision and amplify a larger point of contrast about whatever political perspective an opinion program is eager to promote. What occurred Friday on Morning Joe is rather uncommon, however.
The first segment featured Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, who on Thursday tore into the seeming hypocrisy of Trump blasting the media while doing the very thing for which he criticizes the press: “He decries fake news that isn’t. And disseminates fake news that is. This is one where he could apologize and move on.” The Smith commentary that was featured lasted more than 30 seconds.
This clip wasn’t necessarily lauded after its airing on Morning Joe, but the fact that it was broadcast on Trump’s favorite major cable news outlet seemed to give the critical commentary more heft as presented by the MSNBC hosts. “Even Fox News sees Trump’s crazy” was the leitmotif of this segment and the one that followed later that hour that featured Andrew Napolitano.
The context of Napolitano bit featured on MSNBC was the Fox News judicial analyst calling to question Trump’s decision to move federal budgets around to fund a controversial border wall, an action that Napolitano sees as potentially unconstitutional and a demonstration of too much power in the executive branch. This segment lasted almost 60 seconds in length.
After the Napolitano segment aired, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough heaped high praise on his cable news competitor, saying “that’s what a conservative sounds like.”
There are clear benefits of the strategy of featuring more unedited versions of their competitors — production cost and talent fee savings! But the downside of promoting competitive content? Well, viewers may just decide to watch the source material live instead of the mediated versions on Morning Joe.
Or they can just watch on Mediaite, where both of these segments were first curated yesterday, shortly after they were initially aired/released.
Watch above via MSNBC (and Fox News!)
