Donald Trump's road to the White House was paved by Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan said on Sunday.
Hasan, who last week pointed out "openly delusional" comments coming from Donald Trump, published an extensive farewell to Murdoch. Hasan didn't let him off the hook for anything.
Hasan cites three of the "most destructive events" of his lifetime — the Iraq War, the Brexit vote, and the "rise of Trump and his big lie" — and claims that they "simply could not have happened without Rupert Murdoch."
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Hasan called the rise of Trump perhaps the "worst of all" of sins by Murdoch himself.
"Worst of all may be Murdoch’s central role in the rise of Donald J. Trump and the Big Lie. The fact is, Fox laid the groundwork for Trump’s presidential victory in 2016. Fox built a conservative audience enraged and agitated by “birther” conspiracies and anti-immigrant sentiment. Fox primed millions of viewers to care about ridiculous nonissues that Donald Trump would successfully exploit during his campaign," Hasan said Sunday. "Not to mention that, starting in 2011, Fox literally gave then private citizen and businessman Donald Trump free air time every week with the recurring segment 'Mondays with Trump.'"
Hasan continues:
"Fox contributed to the myth of Trump long before he became candidate Trump. After he took the Republican nomination, Fox essentially became his propaganda arm, and once he took the White House, it morphed into state TV," the article states. "Then came 2020, when Trump lost his re-election bid and declared victory anyway. Fox and Murdoch had a moment of opportunity to break with Trump. They had the chance to say, 'You lost. We’re done with you. Now, let’s move on.'"
