Rachel Maddow has theory about Trump’s latest outburst

President Donald Trump's latest outburst was reportedly inspired by anger at one particular news network, and one of its top anchors has a theory about why he decided to go after three outlets instead of just the one.

The White House this week enacted Trump's demand to ban MS NOW, CNN and Politico from the White House, with the president accusing the networks of "constantly" reporting "fake news" about him. The move was widely condemned as a blatant attack on the First Amendment, prompting a lawsuit from the targeted networks and a boycott by the entire White House press pool.

Despite also banning CNN and Politico, subsequent reports revealed that Trump's outburst was inspired by a montage of only MS NOW anchors saying negative things about him, which was shown to him by close aide Natalie Harp. In a Wednesday interview with Pod Save America co-host Jon Lovett, Rachel Maddow, the veteran correspondent and top anchor at MS NOW, said that the press ban lined up with a theory she has developed for why the president has not targeted her network more often, despite how often they report stories that are critical of him.

"I have always had this theory that Trump doesn't come after MS NOW more than he does other news organizations — even though I think of all the mainstream media organizations, we're probably the most critical of him," Maddow explained. "I've always thought that he maybe doesn't come after us in a more concerted way because he's talked himself into the idea that that will help us, right? That that will elevate us, and so he shouldn't pay us attention because we're always going to be, you know, who we are and that it'll only help us, and therefore hurt him to give us too much attention."

She continued: "So he decides to sort of diffuse the attention on us by bringing in these other news organizations. But in so doing, he ends up taking this swipe that just seems sort of weird and inchoate and also very clarifying to the news business that this is the kind of thing that we ought to all stand up against together."

Elsewhere in the interview, Lovett pressed Maddow about what her immediate reaction was upon hearing about Trump's ban on MS NOW and other networks. As she explained, after it became clear that it was a real thing and not just a threat, the ban made it clear to her how desperate Trump has become.

"Oh, he's playing the hits," Maddow said. "Like. this is him doing the YMCA two-fisted dance. This is him doing a thing that he knows he can get the kind of reaction that he wants from the people who love him the most or the people who share his authoritarian, you know, dreams with him. And he's just hoping to return to safer ground. He wants the kind of attention that he wants, and he's getting attention for all sorts of stuff that he doesn't want. For having this record-low approval rating, and for the economy being in the toilet, and the Iran war, and the impending midterms, and all of his, like, falling asleep in public, and like, it's all bad news about him right now. So he wants to go back to playing the hits, getting the kind of attention that he wants on the terms that he wants it, and I think that's why he did it."