Mike Francesa Mike Francesa throws a free hat into the audience at th start of his radio show. People attend the WFAN’s Mike Francesa Summer Send-Off show at Bar Anticipation in Lake Como, NJ on August 23, 2019. Bara190823e

The first Republican presidential primary debate took place Wednesday night, and while Mike Francesa may not have been thrilled with the candidates, he was even more disappointed with cable news.

On the latest episode of The Mike Francesa Podcast, the former WFAN host was asked whether he watched Wednesday night’s GOP debate. Francesa, a Republican who recently called Donald Trump “unelectable,” obviously has a keen interest in the debate. But more than walking away from the debate impressed by any of the candidates, Francesa’s biggest takeaway was how biased cable news networks are.


“If you turn on TV after the debate, tell me where you can go on television and get an objective analysis? Don’t even try,” Francesa ranted. “If you go to MSNBC, you wouldn’t even know there was a debate. If you get them on CNN to mention it, you know it’s skewed, and then Fox is so much the other way. The three of them are a joke. Fox, CNN, MSNBC, they’re all so biased, one way or the other. And they all criticize each other for being so biased, and they’re all so biased it is almost disgraceful. It’s a joke.”

Early Thursday morning, Francesa foreshadowed the topic on his podcast by tweeting about the resentment he has for the cable news options.


“Try to find objective analysis of anything political on television,” Francesa wrote. “MSNBC, FOX and CNN are all jokes.”

Ironically, Francesa received an email from a podcast listener who asked a question that allowed him to dive deeper on his tweet railing against cable news networks.

“There is no place to go for objective news anymore,” Francesa continued. “You might as well make your decisions because every bit of news you get on cable is so rigidly slanted. It is a joke.

“You know on Fox that everything Biden does is the worst thing that ever happened. And you know on MSNBC that everything Trump has ever done is the worst thing that could ever be done and he should be thrown into the jail and throw away the key…It’s amazing how poor and how biased the coverage is.”

Francesa’s not wrong. All cable news offerings are unapologetically biased, fueled by the toxic and futile nature of political discourse in the country. But while all cable news networks are biased, there is one that has been more dangerously averse to facts, which led to Fox News paying Dominion Voting Systems more than $787 million to avoid a defamation trial after promoting 2020 election conspiracies.

[The Mike Francesa Podcast]

About Brandon Contes

Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com