MSNBC spent 30 years hemorrhaging viewers — so they changed their name.
Now they're MSNOW, and on Monday Trump made sure the whole country knew what he thought about that.
The moment a reporter identified himself as being with MS NOW, Trump unloaded — and he didn't stop until the reporter was done for the day.
Trump Unloaded on a Network Nobody Watches
"MS NOW? What a terrible show – they have the worst people on that channel," Trump said from the briefing room podium.
The reporter, identified by Mediaite as Jake Traylor, tried to push through and get his question answered.
Trump wasn't interested.
"MS NOW – that's the failed MSDNC, right? They failed, they failed, so they gave it a new name. You know why? Because nobody watched it," Trump said, before adding “and fewer people are watching it now.”
https://twitter.com/theblaze/status/2084342985005707534?s=20
Traylor tried one more time.
"You're fake news," Trump told him. "Don't ever talk again! You're fake. You're one of the worst in the business."
The Numbers Prove Trump Right
MSNBC didn't rename itself MS NOW because business was booming.
They rebranded because Comcast was spinning off its cable networks into a new company called Versant – cutting the NBC umbilical cord – and the name MSNBC suddenly made no sense without NBC in it.
The new name stands for "My Source for News, Opinion, and the World."
Their viewers apparently didn't get the memo.
In 2025, MS NOW lost 15 percent of its total primetime viewers in a single year.
Younger viewers abandoned ship even faster – down 40 percent in that demographic year-over-year.
Fox News pulled 2.65 million primetime viewers during the same stretch.
MS NOW pulled 915,000.
That's not a competition.
That's a rout.
https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/2084386186328469648?s=20
Then MS NOW overhauled its entire programming lineup in June, hoping fresh shows would stop the bleeding.
Every single new show lost viewers immediately.
Weekend programming dropped 20 percent.
The network that demoted Rachel Maddow to Monday-only appearances is now watching her replacements fail just as fast.
This Is What Happens When the Audience Stops Trusting You
Trump has called them fake news since 2016.
In November, he called a female reporter “piggy” during an exchange with the press on Air Force One.
"If there's nothing incriminating in the files sir", a reporter said in reference to Epstein, before being brutally cut off.
"Quiet. Quiet, piggy," Trump fired back.
The media spent a decade insisting that was just Trump being Trump.
But American viewers kept turning the channel anyway.
CNN is collapsing the same way – down 16 percent in primetime and 31 percent among younger viewers in 2025 alone.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2084341973586940408?s=20
Fox News went up 11 percent that same year.
Nobody watching MS NOW is confused about what they're getting.
They know it's the same MSNBC – same ideology, same anchors, same relentless anti-Trump posture – with a new logo slapped on the outside.
And when Trump looked at that reporter Monday and said "you're one of the worst in the business," he wasn't just settling a score with one guy in a briefing room.
He was saying out loud what tens of millions of Americans have been saying with their remotes for the better part of a decade – and the ratings prove every word of it.
Sources:
- Jack Davis, "Watch: Trump Goes Off When Reporter Says He's With 'MSNOW,'" The Western Journal, August 3, 2026.
- Staff, "MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW, Leaving NBCUniversal Behind," The Hill, November 17, 2025.
- Tim Graham, "New Lineup of MS NOW Shows Aren't Catching On – They're Falling," NewsBusters, July 14, 2026.
- Staff, "Cable News Ratings Drop: MS NOW Slides as Fox News Sees Year-Over-Year Loss," TV Insider, August 2, 2026.
- Staff, "CNN, MS NOW and Fox News Ratings Show Huge Swings," Yahoo News/TV Insider, January 2026.
