Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump’s recent wave of attacks against CNN and MSNBC’s Morning Joe are understably  leading to outrage and counterattacks from many in the media–who see it, rightfully, as a dangerous escalation in rhetoric against the press. But in these condemnations let us not forget how much of a role these very players had in the rise of President Trump.

First, let us begin with CNN President Jeff Zucker. A recent profile of Zucker in the New York Times heroically frames the CNN head as a leader in the Trump resistance: “The Network Against the Leader of the Free World” the headline screamed with a hero-shot of Zucker looking pensively off into the distance. The piece begins by painting Zucker as a sleepless muckraker:

Jeffrey A. Zucker hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep lately. But he says that’s nothing new.

“I don’t sleep that much anyway,” Mr. Zucker, the president of CNN, said on Wednesday in his fifth-floor office, just off the network’s glassy Midtown Manhattan newsroom.

A television executive with a reputation for pugilism — a plaque above his desk reads “Punch Today in the Face” — Mr. Zucker, 52, has weathered decades of battles in his industry. But he and CNN are in the middle of their most intense bout yet: an unlikely public fight with the leader of the free world.

Omitted from this profile is a major section of media history and one that, if the average reader read it, would see Zucker not as a victim but someone who just suffered a massive self-inflicted wound.

It’s no secret that Trump received outsized media coverage early on in the 2016 race, nabbing in 2015 alone nearly 2 billion in free media (compared, for example, to Bernie Sanders’ $321m) –including much from Zucker’s CNN–on his way to securing the Republican nomination. While much of this coverage was negative in tone with a marketing product like Trump, there really is no negative coverage; so long as his name remained in the headlines, that’s all that mattered. CNN rushed to cover, for months, each and everyone of Trump’s manufactured controversy and did so to the tune of record-smashing ratings. CNN even hired Trump aide Corey Lewandowski while he was not only still under contractual agreement not to say anything bad about Trump, but was still collecting checksfrom the campaign.

Aside from raking in record profits riding the Trump spectacle as President of CNN in 2015 and into 2016, Zucker’s role in the rise of Trump is far more direct. Before taking over CNN in 2012, Zucker hired Trump to be the face of the reality show juggernaught The Apprentice while serving as head of NBC Entertainment in 2004. The show not only boosted the Trump brand, it almost certainly saved Trump from the brink of financial and marketing extinction.

As Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan noted in her must-read summation of Zucker’s role in the rise of Trump, Zucker didn’t just help Trump to the White House–he’s probably single handedly the most responsible for doing so:

Looking for someone specific to hold responsible for the improbable rise of Donald Trump? Although there are many options, you could do worse than to take a hard look at Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide.

It was Zucker, after all, who as the new head of NBC Entertainment gave Trump his start in reality TV with “The Apprentice” and then milked the real estate developer’s uncanny knack for success for all it was worth in ratings and profits.

Zucker did so knowing full well Trump’s well-documented record of racism and sexism. Zucker hired Trump long after he stirred up racist sentiment in New York by calling for the Central Park Five to be executed in a 1989 full-page ad–despite not knowing if they did the crime (they were later found innocent of all charges). Zucker let Trump stay on as host of The Apprentice long after he repeatedly trafficked in the gross race-baiting of Obama Britherism. Long after he bashed“illegal aliens” on Fox News. Long after he smeared women with sexist insults for decades. Long after he accused the first African-American president of cheating his way into the Ivy League college.

Zucker knew he had a racist, sexist demagogue on his hands for years but did nothing–indeed, he actively participated in in the horror show–because he was making himself and his corporate buddies millions.

The glowing New York Times profile, of course, failed to mention any of this. The article briefly touches on Zucker’s role in hiring Trump at The Apprentice but doesn’t mention–much less ask Zucker–about his role covering up and enabling Trump’s bigoted past.  It’s not hyperbole to suggest that, without Zucker, it’s very likely Trump would be an also-ran on Dancing with the Stars and not sitting behind a desk at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Other Trump flacks-turned-#Resistance wannabes include Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the co-hosts of Morning Joe on MSNBC. Trump recently lashed out at Brzezinski in a sexist, even-shocking-by-Trump-standards tweet accusing Scarborough and Brzezinski of courting him for an interview at Mar-a-Lago.

“She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!” Trump tweeted. Immediately, Joe Scarborough fired back, writing an op-ed in The Washington Post titled, “Trump is Not Well” and sanctimoniously tweeting how Trump was ruining the otherwise noble traditions of the United States, including an exceptionally corny one involving an eagle bowing its head in shame.

The underlying accusation that Scarborough and Brzezinski had courted Trump, if not true in this specific instance, is broadly correct. Like with Zucker, Trump was turning on people who had long held him up in order to boost their ratings and access to the nonstop media spectacle that was Trump 2016.

As Occidental College professor Peter Dreier noted in his excellent HuffPo essay on Scarborough’s rank hypocrisy, “Joe And Mika Owe America An Apology”:

In late 2015 and 2016, when Trump’s campaign was gaining momentum, [Scarborough and Brzezinski] defended him against his critics and offered him advice. For example, at an event at the 92nd Street Y in New York in November 2015, Scarborough proudly recounted how he frequently called Trump to offer political guidance. Returning the bromance favor, in January 2016 Trump talked about Scarborough with Boston talk radio host Howie Carr. “He’s a great guy, and he has a great show … and we have a lot of fun,” Trump said. After Trump won the New Hampshire primary in February 2016, Trump appeared on “Morning Joe” and told the co-hosts: “You guys have been supporters, and I really appreciate it.”

Scarborough and, to a lesser extent, Brzezinski frequently gave Trump sympathetic and often lavishing coverage when they thought him an ally and/or a harmless novelty. Like Zucker and countless others, Trump’s well-documented racism and sexism were something to be brushed aside and laughed away until that very same mean-spirited bile was spat in their direction. And when it did they, predictably, resorted to moral preening and outrage theater. Both Morning Joe hosts were at Mar-a-Lago on New Years Eve 2017–that part wasn’t made up by Trump. Why? What was to be gained by rubbing elbows with Trump and his court hanger-ons? Knowing full-well how hateful and sleazy Trump is, even to them, they still sought access.

And now they and Zucker want our sympathy? They should get it to the extent no one should be subject to sexist smears but anything beyond that–any attempt at rebranding them as bold truth tellers fighting the Trump regime–ought to be dismissed as the joke that it is. Those who helped build up Trump cannot be tasked with bringing him down; if only because, should Trump wake up one day and decide Mika, Jeff, and Joe his friend, there’s nothing in their past to indicate they wouldn’t stop on a dime and happily accept the offer.

This article was made possible by the readers and supporters of AlterNet.

Header image source.