On Friday night during a discussion of the Nunes memo's release, CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley complained that -- unlike when Richard Nixon was President -- there now exist outlets like Fox News and Breitbart that act as an "echo chamber," theorizing that President Donald Trump could not survive "without the oxygen that's being pumped in to him on Fox."
A few minutes before midnight, Brinkley lamented that there are no "profiles in courage" to undermine a Republican President unlike during Watergate as he recalled:
Back during the Saturday Night Massacre days, you had Republican Senators in power like Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott telling Nixon that "You lied." You don't see these profiles in courage in the Republicans on Capitol Hill, with the exception of John McCain, who wrote a very powerful comment today.
He then fretted over the existence of right-leaning media as he added:
But, look, in the 1970s, there was no Fox News -- there was no Breitbart. They didn't have that kind of echo chamber. They'd simply, you know, we had network television and New York Times and Washington Post. But, of course, things have changed, and I don't think Donald Trump would be able to survive like he is now without the oxygen that's being pumped in to him on Fox. And if you put on Fox right now -- I'm not suggesting viewers do -- it is 180 degrees opposite of what's being said on CNN.
And for anyone wondering what viewers would have found on Fox News at about the time Brinkley was theorizing that it was "180 degrees opposite of what's being said on CNN," FNC host Shannon Bream was holding an actual debate between two guests with differing views over whether former Trump campaign member Carter Page has a case to sue Yahoo News over an article it published.
