The demands made by Donald Trump's administration that preceded the approval of the $8 billion merger between Paramount/CBS and Skydance Media provides a direct line to the scathing episode of "South Park" this week that stunned viewers and infuriated the White House.
That is the opinion of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough, who pointed out that "overreach" by Donald Trump and his inner circle when it comes to bullying the media has a cost.
The Comedy Central show — in which the size of the president's genitalia was mocked, he was shown in bed with Satan and Jesus returned to Earth to complain that he was being sued by the president — set off a wave of outrage on the right and delight from Trump's critics as clips swiftly went viral.
Host Scarborough made the point that both Republicans and Democrats are prone to overreach, believing they will always be in power, only for another election to bring political change.
After making his point by citing recent history, co-host Jonathan Lemire noted the swiftness with which the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, were able to turn the Paramount deal into an attack on the president.
After sharing a clip, which led him to joke that it was one of the few they could show due to the content, which led to off-screen laughter, Lemire explained, "South Park relentlessly mocked President Trump on Wednesday night's episode and criticized the parent company of Comedy Central, its network, for that segment."
"This, Joe comes, of course, just days after the creators of the show reached a $1.5 billion streaming deal with Paramount," he added, which led Scarborough to note, "And that is the definition of blowback. I mean, with the media, it's again, it's just I mean, you can pay me now or you can pay me later."
"But just for the uninitiated, for people, they're saying how could they be so mean to Donald Trump, and they are," Scarborough joked. "They are vicious. If you haven't watched South Park they went after, they go after Jesus. They showed images of Mohammed after being told they were going to be killed if they did so. They, of course, have gone after liberals all the time. They go after conservatives all the time. They are equal opportunity offenders. They go after Scientology."
You can watch Joe Scarborough explaining "blow-back" before the South Park clip below:
- YouTube youtu.be
