Supplemental: We caught a bit of Trump last night too!

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

Our Own Liberal Channel promotes him: Like Kevin Drum, we caught a bit of Candidate Trump last night too.

We were struck by the same part of Trump’s oration which Drum cites today. Here’s a slightly longer chunk of the hopeful's remarks:

TRUMP (9/14/15): I got a call from the writer from the New York Times. I have great respect for the New York Times. Called up—

I know. I hear that. It’s OK. It’s a good story, not a bad story.

And he said, “Could I can ask you a question?” I said, “What?” Very powerful writer, actually.

He said, “How does it feel?” I said, “How does what feel?”

He said, “What you’ve done has never ever been done before. You’ve dominated, taking over the polls.”

You know, on television, on Fox and CNN, they call it “all Trump all the time.” Can you believe it? “All Trump all the time.”

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

And by the way, their ratings are through the roof. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t put me on.

I’ll be honest with you. It’s a simple formula in entertainment and television. If you get good ratings—

If you get good ratings—and these aren’t good, these are monster—then you’ll be on all the time, even if you have nothing to say.

If you come up with a cure for a major, major, horrendous disease and if you don’t get ratings, they won’t bother even reporting it. It’s a very simple business—very simple.

So, we’ve gone on, we’ve had a lot of fun, and now it’s time to really start, because this is going to happen, I’m telling you...

“If you get good ratings, you’ll be on all the time, even if you have nothing to say?”

Every word seems to be true. We know that because we saw Trump giving his speech on MSNBC, live, on the Chris Hayes program.

Trump had pretty much nothing to say, but MSNBC aired his speech through the bulk of Hayes’ program. We assume the suits did that because Trump gives them good ratings. This lets them pay the massive salaries they funnel to Maddow and Hayes, in part for their obedience in the face of such decisions.

On and on and on and on Trump went on last night’s program. Based on the Hayes transcript, Trump’s speech ate more than half of last evening’s show. At that point, Hayes began discussing the speech with a succession of pundits.

“Well, that’s Donald Trump speaking in Dallas,” Hayes finally said as he broke in on the speech, more than halfway through his program.

“He is giving his fairly standard stump speech,” Hayes then said, failing to explain why the same old standard stump speech had been given more than half his program.

Candidate Trump commandeered the Hayes program last night. The final segment of the program made this decision even more striking and poignant.

With six minutes left to go in the hour, Hayes was finally allowed to discuss a second event, an event he described as “the most interesting campaign event of this season, all season.”

The event had happened that very same day! After Candidate Trump was given almost his entire program, Hayes was finally allowed to spend his final six minutes on it:

HAYES (9/14/15): Happening live right now, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaking in front of what would be considered for him a friendly crowd at the Prince William County Fairgrounds in Manassas, Virginia.

We’ll keep our eye on that.

But for my money, the most interesting campaign event of this season, all season, happened earlier today when Sanders, who spent most of his political career as a self-described socialist, went to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia...

We tend to agree with Hayes’ assessment of the Sanders event at Liberty. But his corporate owners had bills to pay, and they call the shots in the end.

Rarely are these corporate decisions so open and obvious at The One True Liberal Channel. But the things you hear on this channel, and the things you don’t get to hear, are presumably often decided by players behind the scenes.

It was “all Trump [almost] all the time” on the Hayes program last night! Essentially, Trump had nothing to say, but the corporate owners gave him oodles of time, presumably for the very reasons he described in Dallas.

To watch Hayes discuss the Sanders event, you can just click here. Despite Hayes’ judgment about this event, you’ll be watching the last six minutes of his hour-long program.

By the way:

If Candidate Sanders finds the cure for a major horrendous disease, will the suits at MSNBC put him on?

Not necessarily, no! The cable channel’s fiery hosts are likely to play along. On the brighter side, they’ll find some piddle to make us believe they’re very much On Our Side.