‘Fox Said It First, The President Said It Second’: CNN’s Stelter Highlights Trump-Fox Feedback Loop

If you’ve paid attention to President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed these past few months, you’ve likely come to the realization that much of Trump’s social media activity is influenced by what he has recently seen on Fox News. In fact, not only is he essentially live-tweeting his fave Fox shows, but what he hears on Fox & Friends and Hannity is making its way into his speeches and policy proposals.

During today’s broadcast of CNN’s Reliable Sources, host Brian Stelter and his panel discussed this relationship between the news network and the president, asking if we are seeing “state-run media or media run state.” After Daily Beast editor-in-chief John Avlon pointed out that Trump TV was plan B if Trump didn’t win the presidency, he explained that the “dynamic relationship” between Fox opinion hosts and Trump demeans the work being done by the real journalists at Fox.

This led Stelter to play a montage of the president making remarks during a speech and how he was essentially parroting talking points that had been delivered on Fox News days or weeks earlier.

“Fox said it first, the president said it second,” Stelter said after the video played.

“That is extraordinary,” Avlon reacted. “Typically talking points in the past have gone from politics to partisan media. this is a two-way street in something close to real time.”

He went on to say that this is “self-reinforcing” and helps dumb down our political discourse as it “increases the tribalism of Twitter” and feeds the social media mob.

Watch the segment above, via CNN.