October 13, 2015

Fox’s Shepard Smith Just Tore NBC Apart for Inviting Donald Trump to Host SNL


On Tuesday morning, NBC announced that Donald Trump would be the host of Saturday Night Live on November 7. Shortly afterward, Trump confirmed the announcement on his Twitter account and expressed his excitement.

Trump seemed an odd choice, if only because in June NBCUniversal, responsible for Trump’s hit show The Apprentice and a stakeholder in the Miss Universe Organization, announced with much fanfare that it was cutting ties with the real state mogul and GOP candidate, following his  controversial comments describing Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals.

“At NBC, respect and dignity for all people are cornerstones of our values,” the network said in a press release. “Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump.”

Trump retorted that NBC was “weak” and “foolish” for not understanding the “serious illegal immigration problem” facing the United States. 

This afternoon, Fox News’ Shepard Smith weighed in on Trump’s SNL invite, tearing into the network for cutting business ties to Trump but inviting him to host the popular show. “Nice job, NBC,” Smith said. “You made a stand, you stood for your values, you did what you must, forget the money, no more Trump! Except, more Trump. Dumb, dumb, dumb.”

Neither the Trump campaign nor NBC Universal responded to a request for comment. We’ll update the post if we hear back.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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