When Elon Musk declared the death of the legacy media in the early morning hours of November 6, it didn't really surprise anyone who had been paying attention, particularly over the past four years. We all watched them step on rake after rake trying to defend the Biden administration when the whole world could see that Joe Biden was about five beers short of a six-pack.
The corporate media has been in a steady decline through the 21st century, but there's no question that they started careening off of a cliff when Donald Trump broke them all by winning his first presidential election in 2016. It truly was a turning point and at the center of the media's demise was the 'Russia collusion' hoax.
They've never recovered their sanity since.
Recently, Twitchy favorite Drew Holden reminisced about how much the media beclowned itself with that fake news story. Holden loves to write tweet threads full of receipts, like when he recounted how much journalists lied about Hunter Biden's laptop or about the COVID lab leak theory.
This week, Holden set his sights on the media's loving, borderline obscene relationship with the man at the center of the Russia hoax, Christopher Steele, and the now-infamous Steele Dossier.
🧵Thread🧵
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
Trump’s return to the Oval Office has me reflecting on some of the worst “journalism” during his first term.
Of that long list, one in particular jumps out: the corporate press hype around the Steele dossier.
Do you *really* remember how bad it was? Follow along. ⤵️
Oooh, this is going to be fun. Let's sit down with a bowl of 'member berries' and travel back in time to watch the beginning of the end for the 'journalists.'
Before we even knew all of the details about the fake dossier, the legacy media was already canonizing Steele for the simple reason that he was an enemy of Trump.
But before that, there was the hype: the hero worship of Christopher Steele, the spy who was going to save American from Trump, the Russian puppet.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
I mean, @washingtonpost put “hero” right in the title.
The rest of the piece is worse. WaPo repeats the claims — that the… pic.twitter.com/i6z3QoHEPw
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The rest of the piece is worse. WaPo repeats the claims — that the Russians had kompromat on him for engaging with prostitutes! Maybe Trump was compromised — verbatim without mentioning in the first instance that there’s no evidence these claims are true! Look at the highlights. An unthinkable breach of journalistic ethics. There was plenty more.
Who needed to verify anything Steele said? It was damaging to Trump so it MUST have been true, right?
The aforementioned @nytimes did much the same.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
As I write in the longer piece, doesn’t the Times recognize that simply printing these lurid conspiracy theories, without so much as bothering to confirm any of them, helped give them legitimacy to their readers?
They claimed the… pic.twitter.com/qxsfFqBnHP
They claimed the president might be a Russian intelligence source!
But maybe that’s exactly why they did so.
Ethics, schmethics! The Times had a candidate they had to take down because he wrote mean tweets about them.
And @nytimes felt it necessary to suggest on Twitter that our noble spy feared for his life from — who else! — Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/WT00029S8s
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
LOL. If Trump was anything like the monster they wanted him to be, they wouldn't have dared write these things about him.
But they knew he wasn't. They just chose to lie about him in defense of St. Christopher Steele.
But, man, maybe the worst outlet for Steele dossier hype was @CNN.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
Even as the dossier started falling apart, they kept repeating that it wasn’t entirely debunked yet.
Hope springing eternal for the fraud. pic.twitter.com/uS3itNYVBc
Oh, CNN. Do you even read what you publish?
We love how the headline claims 'corroboration,' while the first sentence in the article admits that none of the allegations against Trump were confirmed.
How embarrassing. And disgraceful.
The reason @CNN did this was straight forward: if the small stuff is right, maybe the big stuff—like Trump allegedly gallivanting with Russian hookers, or being in Putin’s pocket—was true too!
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
No matter that there was no evidence. pic.twitter.com/UKYzWlbaxE
They didn't just want it to be true, they needed it to be true. They salivated nightly about it being true, so much so that they ignored the fact that the dossier's cupboard was completely bare.
And that narrative from @CNN was dutifully repeated ad nauseam by its staff, including @jaketapper, @jimsciutto, @ErinBurnett and @AlisynCamerota (h/t @RealSaavedra ) pic.twitter.com/vQxo06d5dE
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
Of course, they did. They're obedient ideological slaves to the leftist narrative.
They might want to rethink doing this again though, now that ABC had to fork over $15 million to Trump because George Stephanopoulos defamed Trump, not to mention CNN recently losing another defamation lawsuit.
We hope Trump sues all of these news outlets for pushing the Russia lie against him for YEARS. There's no reason he can't.
There are many more examples in the piece from @CNN but @brianstelter gets his own box here too. pic.twitter.com/gJUviMbtl9
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
It wouldn't be a trip down memory lane without an appearance from The Potato.
And, of course, MSNBC, Adam Schiff, and Rachel Maddow. (Or was it Chris Hayes? We can't tell them apart.)
Where breadth is concerned, though, no one worked harder to amplify the bogus Steele dossier than @MSNBC (shout outs to @RepMaxineWaters and @SenAdamSchiff who, if they were capable of feeling shame, would hopefully be ashamed of this). pic.twitter.com/w1O3UrCSQ3
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
And of course, @maddow was at the center of the Steele hype.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
All in serve of a lie to try to overturn the will of the voters and run Trump out of office. pic.twitter.com/FTTLcyzgSf
Sounds pretty insurrection-y to us, MSNBC. We thought you were the 'defenders of democracy.'
One of the funniest angles of this to revisit was from @NPR, who acted as if they were above reporting on the dossier because it wasn’t confirmed, but they brought in countless guests to try to tell the fake story.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
The back to back highlighted quotes are…cmon man! pic.twitter.com/IXOpJPgLr4
NPR adopted the brilliant strategy of saying, 'We're not going to talk about it. So ... let's talk about it.'
And then that came back to bite them in the tuchus in 2020 when they also refused to cover Hunter's laptop, which turned out to be completely true.
And I can’t leave @NatashaBertrand off of this thread.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
The same author who helped invent the “Hunter Biden’s laptop is Russian disinfo” conspiracy theory had a leading role in the Steele dossier, too. pic.twitter.com/Ida3ttjSRH
We can't confirm this (kind of like everything contained in the dossier), but we have it on good authority that Natasha Bertrand is, in fact, Satan's emissary on Earth.
Her then-outlet, @politico, did too.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
I’m not sure “The Smearing of Christopher Steele” — written by “a former member of the CIA’s Clandestine Service” has held up. pic.twitter.com/9l8VnMvgh5
How DARE anyone 'smear' a man who was lying about everything?
This is just another version of Politico's favorite news angle, 'Republicans POUNCE!'
Holden then took a number of other 'news' outlets to the woodshed.
Just look at this lede from @AP.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
Again, for something that can only now be called a conspiracy theory. pic.twitter.com/BuNy8eHhsc
This is, I kid you not, a real tweet from @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/pgdOgUHvdt
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
'James Bond.' They truly have no shame.
But even they are outdone by @ABC, who took the bogus Steele dossier and made it a movie.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
Look at this tweet! My eyes are bleeding. pic.twitter.com/RzeKF44bQa
They made ... a movie ... about him.
The unintentional hilarity went completely off the charts with that development.
Just wanted to use this as an opportunity to repeat my working theory that @Slate is a right-wing psy-op. pic.twitter.com/qbxaasWZtm
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
And you can imagine many blue checks got in on this one.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
A few favorites from @tribelaw and @MaxBoot, plus obligatory @JRubinBlogger mention. pic.twitter.com/uzkeVPHQdQ
Speaking of movies, check out that rogue's gallery. Jen Rubin, Max Boot, and Laurence Tribe.
Even Batman doesn't have villains that evil and grotesque.
Holden concluded his thread by wondering if the media during Trump's second term could possibly exceed the shame they brought on themselves in his first.
You surely remember where the story led: to the Russian collusion hoax, and Trump’s first term ground nearly to a halt.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
That impact would’ve been impossible with the rabid promotion of the allegations in the Steele dossier.
Allegations entirely without merit.
So for those of you who have asked what I think coverage of Trump’s second term will look like, I submit to you that it’ll be hard to top the promotion of the conspiracies contained in the Steele dossier.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 23, 2025
But don’t count the corporate press out.
No, we will not count them out. They have proven that there is no bar that they cannot slither under.
The difference between then and now, however, is that these same media outlets have lost ALL credibility with everyone in America except the far, FAR left.
As if to prove the point, Holden later brought a couple of receipts from Trump's recent trip to storm-ravaged North Carolina showing how the 'journalists' have learned absolutely NOTHING.
This is going to get old quick. pic.twitter.com/8xdzX13lpp
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 24, 2025
LOL. If any legacy media outlet uses the words 'fact-check,' it's the best indication of all that they are lying through their teeth ... again.
And it's already old.
If you want to read Holden's full article about Christopher Steele, the Steele Dossier, and the media destroying itself before our very eyes, it is available on his Substack.
It is worth a read. Both for the laughs at the media's expense and as an object lesson in why no one should EVER trust them again.
About anything.
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