Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the liberal Daily Kos blog, on Tuesday claimed Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg isn't "acting like a team player" if he does a town hall on Fox News.
Moulitsas appeared on MSNBC's Meet the Press Daily, where he discussed Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I., Vt.) Fox News town hall on Monday. Host Chuck Todd read President Donald Trump's tweet about the Sanders town hall, prompting Moulitsas to attack Trump and Fox News, saying the news network is Trump's "propoganda arm."
"You talked about earlier in the shows about the hateful campaign, the anti-Muslim campaign against Representative [Ilhan] Omar and Fox News is right in the midst of it, the biggest megaphone promoting that whole nasty, demonization of an entire class of people, so by going on Fox News, basically what Bernie Sanders is saying is that is all okay and his undermined efforts to marginalize Fox to where it belongs, which is off in the margins," Moulitsas said.
Todd followed up by asking Moutlitsas whether he believes it is a "mistake" for Buttigieg to do a town hall on Fox News, prompting him to say he "absolutely think[s] it's a mistake."
"It's not a mistake for him personally, but if he wants to be a team player-- he's somebody who's not only surging in the field and has become a real contender, he ran for the Democratic Party chairmanship last time, so he's somebody who presumably wants to be a team player, but he's not acting as one if he's going to go on Fox," Moulitsas said. "Other networks would be happy to host him. There's no reason to go to Fox."
Todd followed up by asking whether Democratic candidates "breaking through" regular Fox News programming for a hour would be good to appeal to the network's audience, but Moulitsas batted down the suggestion saying that Fox News viewers are going to " live in their bubble" and "close shop" to outside views.
"They are not movable. Fox News viewers are the most reliably Republican constituency according to Pew Research," Moulitsas said. "This is about the biggest predictor of somebody who is going to vote Republican is a Fox News viewer. The idea that these people are reachable when we have an entire class of demographics that aren't voting that are truly friendly, liberal demographics. We have people of color, single women, young voters. Those are the people that we need to be reaching because if we get them to vote, there is nothing Fox News and Donald Trump and the Republican Party can do to win."
Moulitsas has repeatedly denigrated Fox News on Twitter, calling them "Trump state propoganda." Back in February, Daily Kos delivered a petition to the Democratic National Committee with over 100,000 signatures urging them not to let Fox News host a debate, the Daily Beast reported.
"The DNC is giving Fox News and the conservative movement a giant credibility boost by even considering granting them a debate," Moulitsas told the Daily Beast. "At a time when activists have worked so hard to convince advertisers to abandon that den of racism, bigotry and misogyny, here comes Tom Perez like a jackass undermining all that work."