MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes both took offense to Donald Trump’s inauguration Monday – albeit for different reasons.
Maddow, the prized possession of the ailing news outlet, raised concerns about the presence of tech moguls at the event, while Hayes criticized the president’s unprepared speech.
These criticisms were part of the network’s coverage of the inauguration, which included appearances by Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Tim Cook from Apple.
Furious to see Cook seated next to Trump’s nominee for the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, Maddow initiated a scathing critique that commenced with a query aimed at the general public.
‘How is this happening in America?’ she asked aloud, exasperated.
Shortly after, after Trump took his oath and gave his speech, Hayes likened him to a ‘cult leader’ because of his fervent fanbase and rhetoric.
Days before, Saturday Night Live panned the pair for their aesthetic similarities, in a skit that lampooned the station and its opinionated coverage in anticipation of the well-attended event.
The day prior, an outgoing Joe Biden offered his final TV sit-down to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, in what many slammed as a softball interview. As it stands, the network is struggling with waning ratings, especially post-election.
‘Kristi Noem, the nominee for homeland security, next to Apple CEO Tim Cook,’ Maddow, fresh off a pay-cut that will see her paid $5million less each year for the next half-decade, began.
‘How is this happening? Why are people with tons of money up on the dais with Cabinet nominees and family members?’
Fellow hosts Alex Wagner and Joy Reid – the latter of which was also lampooned by NBC’s not-ready-for-primetime players – at this point weighed in.
‘It is a message,’ said Wagner, whose paltry viewership in the 9pm timeslot just saw her replaced by a returning Maddow who since 2022 has only aired once a week on the network.
‘It is a message,’ fellow primetime host Reid reiterated, weeks after being floated a pay cut, insiders told The Ankler last month.
‘And I think it and I think they are up there for the very reason that you probably think they’re up there,’ she continued, paving the way for Maddow to frame the assembly as ‘a pivotal moment.’
She then honed in on Bezos, whom she billed as ‘the billionaire owner of The Washington Post and Amazon and that space company [Blue Origin].’
‘[He’s] standing in front of RFK Junior, the wildly controversial nominee to be Health and Human Services secretary. One who, interestingly, has not yet had his confirmation hearing scheduled.’
Her co-stars all appeared to agree, as did a commentator reporting on the ceremony at rival CNN in Jake Tapper, who also painted the coalition as a cause for concern.
‘Those five people… control so much of the information we receive,’ the journalist said, days after CNN lost a defamation lawsuit stemming from one of his segments.
‘So much is in their hands when it comes to ascertaining, monitoring, or refusing to monitor what is real, what is not real,’ he went on, before offering a dystopic prediction about the future.
He told viewers how ‘we’re about to enter an era of deep-fakes and all sorts of misinformation’ – and that ‘the degree to which those five gentleman play a role or do not play a role, will be pivotal in terms of where the American people are four years from now.’
The comments quickly spawned a firestorm on social media, with many accusing The State of the Union host for pedaling fear and misinformation.
Back on MSNBC, Hayes, in horn-rimmed glasses that Maddow too had made part of her wardrobe, compared the conservative who already served one term in the Oval Office as a manipulative, overbearing cult boss.
‘The obsession of Trump’s rhetoric is always a theme of national decline and national humiliation.
‘And there’s something strange about hearing it the second time,’ he said, in a purposely poetic undressing.
‘Of course, the first one was the American Carnage,’ he continued, referring to the conservatives first term, after which he was narrowly voted out of office.
‘It’s a little like a cult leader who keeps predicting different days for the end of the world because it’s kind of like, okay, the first time you did this, we’ve had all these corrupt, terrible elites and they’ve taken I’m here is your retribution.
‘I’m going to make America great again.
‘And then it’s like, well, you didn’t try that once. I mean, the degree to which the first term has been just completely taken away from everyone’s memory, how he kind of ran as a person who never actually held office before in this campaign.
‘And to hear a very similar thematic speech that promises just around the corner on the other side, that’s when the next end of the world comes,’ Hayes continued.
‘That’s when the next time we are bathed in holy light, that’s the next time when everything turns around permanently for the United States. And we heard exactly that in January 2017. And he had a run at it.’
As for a conclusion, the commentator cryptically stated: ‘There is something very strange about hearing that kind of vision and prediction a second time, like like the cult leader taking a mulligan and telling you Paradise is around the corner again.’
Also in attendance was Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and the CEO of now-banned TikTok Shou Zi Chew.
