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The New Abnormal

There Is a Way to Take Down Fox News (And It’s Not a Boycott)

The New Abnormal

The Daily Beast

News & Politics

4.67.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2021

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Amidst hundreds of thousands of Americans dying from COVID-19, countless pleas from health officials and the CDC to wear maks and social distance, and a recent report from Lancet that put the cherry on top of the “this was basically Trump’s fault” sundae, Fox News has decided to do what Fox News does: Go against all of that. This time, their “poison pill” of choice, as Media Matters’ President and CEO Angelo Cursone calls it in this episode of The New Abnormal, is vaccine skepticism. “What Fox is doing with the vaccines right now is similar to the role that they played at every step of public health measures,” Cursone tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast. “They dismissed social distancing early on. They were sort of skeptical about the masks and Jeanine Pirro was warning her audience. That the only reason people wear masks is to do bad things.” Now, they’re telling their viewers they’re not sure about taking the “George Soros Kool-Aid.” (Rick Wilson is already seeing this play out with “MAGA moms” on Facebook). But Fox has a reason for this, adds Cursone, who shares his theory. It has to do with your cable bill—and it’s also the very way the network could be destroyed. The more outrage they get, the more viewers, the more negotiating power they have against cable companies to get them to charge cable watchers more for their channel. “Fox News, now, for every person that has cable news pays Fox news between $2 and $2 and 50 cents a month, whether or not you ever watched the channel and what they're trying to do, because they've lost so much, advertising [wants to] get that number up from about $2, a person to $3 to $3 and 50 cents over the next year,” and if there’s a way to hit them where it hurts, explains Cursone, it’s here. Of course, it’s not a New Abnormal episode if there isn’t talk of impeachment, especially the hearings going on right now involving the Capitol insurrection. Rick is particularly furious at Rick Scott and Marco Rubio: “They're basically just saying, ah, yeah, our little plot failed. Our little coup failed. So we're just going to hang out here and be the dick kids in the back of the room, throwing at the teacher.” Speaking of dicks, Molly tells the fun little tale of Marjorie Taylor Green and the Tantric Sex Guru and Daily Beast congressional reporter Sam Brodey talks about his experience witnessing the trial in person.


If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com



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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi folks, this is Rick Wilson and welcome to the Daily Beasts, the new abnormal.

0:05.2

Hi, I'm Molly John Fast, a left-wing pundit and an editor at large at the Daily Beast.

0:11.3

I'm also an editor at large at the Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist,

0:16.2

best-selling author and full-time troublemaker.

0:18.8

We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media,

0:22.8

politics and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer.

0:27.3

We take the issues seriously, ourselves, not so much.

0:31.4

Our world has been turned upside down.

0:34.1

On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we

0:38.5

get ourselves out of it.

0:39.9

Hi, Rick Wilson.

0:40.9

Hi, Molly John Fast, how are you?

0:43.1

I am feeling emotionally very exhausted.

0:46.9

I am feeling emotionally very angry, but that's just my sort of default emotion these days.

0:52.1

Watching this impeachment and watching these videos and watching Jamie Raskin, who just

0:57.7

lost his son, it is so hard.

1:01.4

I don't think I thought it would be so hard.

1:04.1

The idea that we were going to have these videos being revealed and these new revelations

1:11.3

about the coordination between certain Republican members of the Senate and Congress with

1:15.2

the mob, with Trump's role in it, I kind of priced that in.

1:18.2

I kind of felt that was coming.

1:19.9

But what really just made me so freaking furious yesterday, so fucking furious yesterday,

...

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