Richard Cohen Quotes

Fox is Trump's safe space. It's where he's not going to be humiliated, where he's not going to hear uncomfortable truths.

Progressives know there is something very wrong when a nation divided politically has one major network operating as a propaganda arm of the Republican Party and 90 percent of talk radio is dominated by right-wing extremists.

Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox.

The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party.

I am not saying Russia is not important, but Trump's base is very well defended against that: 'the liberal media is out to get him', 'it's fake news', and all the rest.

As a media consultant to Republican presidents, Ailes proved a deft manipulator of racial fear. But it was in building Fox News that he found his calling.

Fox is described as a news operation, a news network, but it's also a political operation.

There are so many families that are divided by Fox and Trump. I think a lot of people have been surprised by just how deep and how corrupt the roots are - how there's been collusion between Fox and Trump right in plain sight the whole time, and yet it's not often recognized.

I think it's clear that Trump is usually in a reactive mode, reacting to what he sees and hears on Fox.

MSNBC will never be as liberal as Fox is conservative.

But in the right-wing media, they do have a right-wing bias. And they also have an agenda. So their agenda is: we're an adjunct of the Republican Party, and we're going push that agenda every day, and, as you say, brand these stories that help further the right-wing cause.

American media has just become talk radio, incredibly partisan name-calling and op-eds. I think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan proved it has completely failed to act as an effective fourth estate. And young people didn't sleep through that, as is widely believed; they learned instead not to trust what they were being told.

Primarily affecting low-information voters and members of the mainstream media, Obama Worship Syndrome attributes impossible capabilities to Obama's political opponents, finds excuses for every Obama failure in everyone around him and praises the president as the finest politician - nay, human being - of our time.

I watch some CNN and a lot of Fox, because it helps me get irritated.

The two parties are still more polarized than ever before and the rise of partisan media is an important reason for it.

Maybe it is the media that has us divided.

'Political junkies' and liberals will watch MSNBC, and angry, old right-wingers will watch Fox.

But instead, Democrats are so bent on seeing Republicans as a bunch of angry, right wing, intolerant, unreliable extremists that they have a track record of missing the mood of the country, especially the sentiment of people who don't wake up to 'The New York Times.'

I think the 24-hour news cycle has helped exaggerate the differences between the parties. You can always find someone on TV somewhere carping about something. That didn't happen 20 years ago.

Republicans tend to be more steadfast in their allegiance, and Democrats read one headline in the 'New York Times,' and the sky is suddenly falling.

Conservatives watch Fox News and read 'Breitbart.' Liberals watch MSNBC and read 'HuffPost.' When we agree, it's the truth; when we differ, it's fake news.

I wish the American public wasn't so stupid if they realized that half the people on television make a living just to insult the other party.

Trump has taken it to a new level. He is now viewing the media as the 'opposition party,' in his own words. Consequently, media coverage of Trump has become that much more significant.

If Democrats don't go on Fox News, it doesn't mean that people stop watching.

There is no news media. There's simply a bunch of people on television and in newspapers who are ranking members of the Democrat Party.