It’s often been said that riding a bicycle is a skill that, once learned, you never forget. If that is true, then Greta Van Susteren is proof that hosting a cable news show is nothing like riding a bicycle. The lawyer-turned-TV personality returned to the airwaves this week after a five-year absence to debut her latest show, The Record with Greta van Susteren, on (gulp!) Newsmax. To say it was an utter sh*tshow would be an insult to sh*tshows everywhere. Or, as The Daily Beast described it: “pure cringe.”
Newsmax’s new primetime lineup had an…awkward start – “If you’re still trying to interview me, I can’t make out what you’re saying” pic.twitter.com/wBUelbDSz0
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) June 15, 2022
Case in point: Her interview with Chuck Grassley, which turned out to be more hard-of-hearing than hard-hitting when the senator just kept smiling at the camera and telling a prattling-on Greta that her audio sucked. “It sounds like you’re talking in a cave,” the 88-year-old—who is old enough to have possibly been born in a cave—told her. “I just can’t hear anything you’ve asked me.”
Van Susteren said she understood and explained it was their first night on air and that they must have had some “gremlins in the system,” which we can only assume was a reference to her new colleague Greg Kelly—as it’s not like it was Newsmax’s first time running a broadcast.
Yet Van Susteren persisted, somehow assuming that it was the length or complexity of her original question that was giving Grassley trouble. So she lobbed a softball his way: “Do you have any sort of thought on food prices? I know you’re from a farm state.” Grassley spoke for everyone watching from between their fingers when he flatly replied: “If you’re still trying to interview me, I can’t make out what you’re saying.”
(Via The Daily Beast)