‘Queen Of Denial’: Rainn Wilson Refutes Stephanie Ruhle’s Rosy Rationale For Why ‘Media Has Lost Trust’

“The Office” co-star Rainn Wilson on Thursday refuted MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle’s claim that Americans’ plummeting trust in the mass media stems largely from external forces.

Americans’ trust in the mass media has plunged to a record low, with around 36% saying that they possess “no trust at all” in the institution, according to an October Gallup survey. When Wilson, on his podcast “Soul Boom,” asked why, Ruhle attributed the trust deficit primarily to President Donald Trump, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and X owner Elon Musk — rather than media missteps.

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“Listen, we are seeing a huge loss in trust of all of our institutions … And sort of losing that trust is not by accident, it’s by design,” Ruhle said. “If you remember when President Trump was running the first time, Steve Bannon once said, ‘The goal is to blow the whole thing up.’ And so I think that you’ve got mistakes made or things starting to slip, while at the same time there’s a concerted effort to destroy the media, because the media — the news media is, in my opinion, the last line of defense of holding power accountable. Right?”

“And you had a bit of a perfect storm. Right? President Trump won and tons of people were shocked or angry or frustrated and they’re tuning out,” she continued. “And at the same time, you have the Elon Musk media machine because they want you to leave traditional media, and they want you to go to X, which is a bastion of misinformation where there is no fact-checking. So it’s a perfect storm of people saying, ‘I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I’m tuning out, I’m disconnecting.’ And then you have a force pushing it.”

Ruhle then asserted that the media must merely “cover what’s happening in America” and thereby slowly earn its “trust” back. Wilson expressed his disagreement.

“This is where I would push back: when I see this kind of insight and passion being directed at the current administration and the lack of this kind of insight and passion being directed at the previous administration — where again, I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about left-leaning news media organizations — were kind of like, ‘La la la la, everything’s fine. Look, the economy is great, la la la, immigration’s not that much of a problem,’ and really being Cleopatra, queen of denial,” he said. “Thank you. Boom.”

Ruhle did not accept Wilson’s characterization, arguing the media did consistently and critically cover former President Joe Biden when it came to the issue of immigration.

“The media regularly talked about the fact that Biden was not doing enough in his first two and a half years on immigration, even though in the last year and a half you’re seeing the numbers go down,” she said. “He just wasn’t doing enough … I do think that was covered.”

Corporate media also faced criticism for spending years downplaying voters’ and Republicans’ concerns about Biden’s mental fitness. 

Former NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd said on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” on April 9 that legacy media members withheld blatant coverage of Biden’s age-related problem to avoid the appearance of “helping Trump.”

Ruhle publicly disclosed for the first time in December that Biden’s team attempted to shut down an interview over her question about how a possible indictment of his son Hunter would affect his presidency.

She also defended former Vice President Kamala Harris in September for her failure to provide detailed answers on policy queries. Ruhle cited the “threat” that she claimed Trump posed to democracy.