January 29, 2021

MSNBC Trolls Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy With a Jerry Maguire Clip

Baratunde Thurston and Bill Kristol appear on The 11th Hour With Brian Williams on MSNBC.The 11th Hour With Brian Williams/MSNBC

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Video mix-up or intentional gag? MSNBC’s 11th Hour host Brian Williams announced last night that the station would be airing exclusive video from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Thursday meeting with former President Trump. But what rolled instead was a famous scene from Jerry Maguire.

“You complete me,” Tom Cruise says. Renee Zellweger’s character responds, “You had me at hello.”

“Obviously we have rolled the wrong clip,” Williams deadpanned, while his guests, Baratunde Thurston and Bill Kristol, each cracked a smile. “We were sold a bill of goods here. I thought this was going to be of the McCarthy and Trump meeting, and someone’s gonna be of course in big trouble.”

As far as I can tell, no such video of McCarthy and Trump actually exists. Thurston followed up on the segment with a statement from the “Office of the Not-President” lauding the joke:

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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