Shortly before President Donald Trump issued an infamous tweet with a video in which he physically pummeled a wrestler with a CNN logo on his head, "Fox & Friends" thought it would be funny to hold a contest in which viewers get to come up with disparaging nicknames for the network.
First they cited a tweet that Trump had at that time pinned to the top of his Twitter account.
"If we thought he was gonna back down, he's certainly not, he is doubling down on calling them a fraud!" exclaimed "Fox & Friends" co-host Pete Hegseth.
"Well, who's he gonna use for fake then? Is he gonna use that for MSNBC now?" asked "Fox & Friends" co-host Clayton Morris.
"That and the failing New York Times!" said Hegseth. He went on to argue that CNN is "so bad that it's the Fraud News Network. Think about why he would say that! You've got the video that comes out, the reporting that was proven to be wrong, and the three reporters that were fired. And day in and day out that they have to walk back from things."
Hegseth concluded by predicting that CNN's reporting on Russia would also be discredited.
"I mean, CNN used to be the breaking news place, right?" asked "Fox & Friends" co-host Abby Huntsman. "That's how I remembered it growing up. It's really taken a turn over this past year and I think people realize that, that when you turn that on, you know exactly what you're gonna get."
She added, "And it's gonna be very much anti-Trump, everything that he's doing wrong."
By Matthew Rozsa
Matthew Rozsa is a professional writer whose work has appeared in multiple national media outlets since 2012 and exclusively at Salon since 2016. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012, was a guest on Fox Business in 2019, repeatedly warned of Trump's impending refusal to concede during the 2020 election, spoke at the Commonwealth Club of California in 2021, was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022 and appeared on NPR in 2023. His diverse interests are reflected in his interviews including: President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (1999-2001), animal scientist and autism activist Temple Grandin, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (1997-2001), director Jason Reitman ("The Front Runner"), inventor Ernő Rubik, comedian Bill Burr ("F Is for Family"), novelist James Patterson ("The President's Daughter"), epidemiologist Monica Gandhi, theoretical cosmologist Janna Levin, voice actor Rob Paulsen ("Animaniacs"), mRNA vaccine pioneer Katalin Karikó, philosopher of science Vinciane Despret, actor George Takei ("Star Trek"), climatologist Michael E. Mann, World War II historian Joshua Levine (consultant to "Dunkirk"), Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (2013-present), dog cognition researcher Alexandra Horowitz, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson (2012, 2016), comedian and writer Larry Charles ("Seinfeld"), seismologist John Vidale, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman (2000), Ambassador Michael McFaul (2012-2014), economist Richard Wolff, director Kevin Greutert ("Saw VI"), model Liskula Cohen, actor Rodger Bumpass ("SpongeBob Squarepants"), Senator John Hickenlooper (2021-present), Senator Martin Heinrich (2013-present), Egyptologist Richard Parkinson, Rep. Eric Swalwell (2013-present), Fox News host Tucker Carlson, actor R. J. Mitte ("Breaking Bad"), theoretical physicist Avi Loeb, biologist and genomics entrepreneur William Haseltine, comedian David Cross ("Scary Movie 2"), linguistics consultant Paul Frommer ("Avatar"), Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (2007-2015), computer engineer and Internet co-inventor Leonard Kleinrock and right-wing insurrectionist Roger Stone.
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