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OpinionDecember 9, 2024

Michael Reagan discusses the contrasting atmospheres of Fox News and MSNBC, highlighting Fox's upbeat approach and MSNBC's struggle with humor amid political tensions, especially with Trump's return to power.

Michael Reagan
Michael Reagan

The next four years are going to be especially tough for MSNBC’s Joy Reid.

The always angry host of “The ReidOut” has spent the last four years ranting about Donald Trump and the danger he poses to democracy – and he wasn’t even in power.

She’s already politically insane. She regularly calls Trump a gangster and a Putin puppet.

I can’t imagine how she’ll deal with the next four years as Trump and his salvage team try to get America on the road to being great again.

Reid is so blinded by Trump hate that she — like so many humorless Democrats and her soulmates in the liberal media — has lost her ability to laugh or even recognize a joke.

She proved it for the hundredth time this week when she heard what Trump reportedly said to Pierre Trudeau during a dinner discussion at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump apparently said if Canada’s economy could not survive sweeping new tariffs on its exports to the United States, “We’ll just annex you and make you part of the USA. You can be governor of Canada, our 51st state.”

Reid acted like the joke was a declaration of war by a dictator she claimed wants to rule the entire Free World.

Reid’s joyless worldview is an example of why her network and CNN were two of the biggest losers in last month’s presidential election.

Harris lost. Biden lost. The Democrat Party lost.

But MSNBC and CNN, which had attacked Trump relentlessly and endorsed Biden and then Harris fervently, were almost put out of business as competitive sources of liberal news and opinion.

Once Trump officially won, their disappointed and misled viewers left by the hundreds of thousands and both experienced double-digit drops in their ratings.

ABC’s daytime talk show “The View” may not have the greatest political minds at its table, but the election and its aftermath boosted its ratings to 4.4 million viewers on Nov. 6.

It was like a funeral with most everyone despondent, dressed in black and looking suicidal. Sunny Hostin spoke for all the sad ladies and tens of millions of shell-shocked Democrats when she said, “I’m profoundly disturbed.”

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Fox News, meanwhile, was almost as much of a winner as Trump. It saw its ratings soar during the election because it covered Trump’s every speech and its personalities enthusiastically backed him.

But I don’t think that carrying the flag for Trump was the only reason Fox’s ratings stayed so high.

Unlike CNN and MSNBC, which are miserable and hateful places most of the time, Fox is a happy place — a fun place.

It’s where the hosts and guests are usually found laughing and smiling, even when the subject is partisan politics.

Fox News fans can see fun being had everyday on “The Five” at 5 p.m.

Whether it’s Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Judge Jeanine Pirro or the token liberal Democrat of the day, Jessica Tarlov or Harold Ford, viewers see happy humans who like each other.

“The Five’s” people have good senses of humor and clearly enjoy their jobs – and viewers can tell.

Somehow I can’t imagine Whoopie Goldberg and the other bitter ladies on “The View” or Joy Reid looking forward to doing their show every day.

So what are the angry stars on CNN and MSNBC going to do now, now that Trump is back in power?

They’re probably only going to become crazier and angrier because they don’t know how to laugh or have fun.

They didn’t know how to laugh when Trump was handing out French fries at a take-out window at McDonald’s. Or when he dressed up like a trashman and rode in a garbage truck.

That was very funny to us Republicans and to most normal people. But the angry faces on CNN and MSNBC couldn’t crack a smile.

Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an author, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation.

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