"Payback's a bitch!" Neil Cavuto is pretty happy that Donald Trump is attacking CNN

The Fox News host isn't even concealing his partisan bias in gleefully rooting on Trump against the news network

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published January 13, 2017 6:23PM (EST)

 (AP)
(AP)

Fox News' Neil Cavuto is standing up for his fellow media members responding to the bullying of CNN's Jim Acosta by President-elect Donald Trump during Wednesday press conference.

Just kidding! Instead, Cavuto is gloating that "payback’s a bitch."

"How does it feel to be dismissed, or worse, ignored?" Cavuto asked on his show on Thursday. "How does it feel when your feelings are hurt, when your reporters are singled out, and you’re treated unfairly and unkindly, even rudely?"

Cavuto went on to claim that no one had ever come to the network's defense, ignoring that CNN's Jake Tapper previously and publicly defended Fox News when it was singled out by President Barack Obama.

“Isn’t it obnoxious and unfair how some celebrate your plight?" Cavuto concluded. "Kind of feels like the way you celebrated ours, doesn’t it? They say payback’s a bitch. If only you would take a moment to rewind the tape and see the shoe was on the other foot. Or am I confusing it with the one now kicking you in the ass?"

Legitimate journalists have been rallying behind Acosta after the president-elect shouted at him for being part of a "fake news" network and the two got into a heated exchange. Acosta later reported that Sean Spicer, Trump's incoming press secretary, approached him and whispered that he would be thrown out if he asked the president-elect another question.

One of the journalists supporting Acosta is Fox News' own Shepard Smith, who criticized Trump's "belittling" and argued that CNN followed "journalistic standards" in how it covered the story, contrasting it with BuzzFeed's decision to publish the dossier of explosive and unverified allegations without editing it.

Ironically, Cavuto was frequently criticized as a Bush apologist during the administration of the last Republican president, to the point where he even claimed to have seen a Kerry/Edwards button on Osama bin Laden.

 

If you'll recall, Cavuto was the Fox News host subject to some of the harshest criticism from then-"Daily Show" host Jon Stewart.


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Donald Trump Neil Cavuto Shepard Smith