RACHEL MADDOW (HOST): Last night we led this show talking about the newly announced deputy national security adviser for the incoming administration. She, too, is a Fox News Channel personality. We finished the show last night talking about the meeting the president-elect would have today with this very controversial activist who has made it his life's work to abolish the VA, to privatize the VA. He also it turns out is a Fox News personality. And when you start looking for it, it's kind of remarkable this pattern, it's kind of remarkable the number of points of overlap between who the president-elect is meeting, who he's floating for top jobs in his administration, who he's appointing to top jobs in his administration, the points of overlap between that roster of people and the roster of people who are contracted to appear on cable news, specifically on the Fox News Channel, which the president-elect does sometimes like to criticize but we know he apparently never likes to turn it off.
The pattern is amazing. All those folks also, you know, Ben Carson, has reportedly been offered the Housing and Urban Development job in the cabinet. He's a former Fox News contributor. Newt Gingrich as we know considered till the last second for vice president in the Trump administration, former Fox News contributor. Scott Brown who has also met with Trump about the VA job apparently, Fox News contributor. Laura Ingraham and Monica Crowley both reportedly considered for White House Press Secretary, both Fox News contributors. John Bolton reportedly under consideration for Secretary of State, Fox News contributor. There's Mike Huckabee, right, there's Jeanine Pirro both meeting with the president-elect in this weird runway camera thing that we do at the elevators of his apartment building because he hasn't moved to transition offices, right? Both Fox News contributors. The First Amendment may or may not be safe under this president.
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But we do know that the incoming president watches Fox News and he likes it now, apparently. He likes it enough that he's picked it up by the ankles, given it a good shake and started to move its whole roster off of Rupert Murdoch and onto the taxpayers of the United States. What a time to be alive.
