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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Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

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