Rachel Maddow mocked FOX News and the Republicans for overhyping the Nunes memo.
“That’s it?…This memo will make Donald Trump innocent. This memo will put Robert Mueller in jail. It’ll abolish the FBI!…I can’t believe this is it. I don’t really believe in the whole cable news wars idea. I know people who work across the street at the Fox News channel. I have friends this work there. I think we’re all doing our own thing our own way the best we can, but oh my god. they have been hyping and hyping and huffing and puffing and working their audience into a frenzy for two solid weeks. They have literally built a right-wing public movement that this memo must be released because this memo will fix the Trump presidency. It will fix the Russia scandal for President Trump and make the whole thing go away. Apparently, despite that, apparently they didn’t know or they didn’t notice that this thing they have been clambering for and hyping for two solid weeks, that they have built up this frenzy around disproves their whole point…..I will admit to being shocked that this is all they released…”
Said Maddow: “They promised the Fox News audience. they promised the country, they talked a big portion of the normal media into believing they were about to shake the earth.”
Maddow also compared the memo’s release with her own release of two pages of Trump’s tax returns last year: “You know, I hyped that I had Donald Trump’s tax returns, then I clarified that I actually had two pages of Donald Trump’s tax returns for one hour before I actually released what actually were two pages of Donald Trump’s tax returns. For a year now, people have been telling me that was unconscionable hype about Donald Trump’s tax returns. But you know what? At least those actually were Donald Trump’s tax returns, even if they were boring.”
And Maddow points out that the memo actually contains a bit which undercuts its whole argument.Today was the big reveal – the memo! – that proves the whole Russia investigation is based on the dossier. And then they release this memo – which says in its final paragraph – they let slip in the last paragraph of the memo that, oh, by the way, the dossier didn’t actually lead to the Russia investigation.”
