‘The Office’ Alum Rainn Wilson Pushes Back On MSNBC Host For Claims Donald Trump & Elon Musk Fueled Mistrust In Traditional Media

Rainn Wilson had MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle on his Soul Boom podcast, where they discussed why people distrusted traditional media.

The host of The 11th Hour noted that people “losing trust is not by accident” and it was “by design.” Ruhle said Donald Trump’s administration is making a “concerted effort to destroy the media because the media is the last line of defense holding power accountable.”

Ruhle also mentioned Elon Musk’s tactics, which aim to encourage people to “leave traditional media” and move to X, describing it as “a bastion of misinformation where there is no fact-checking.”

The Office alum added, “This is where I push back.”

“In a lot of ways, I’m as lefty as they come, but 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…,” he said.

Wilson explained that he wasn’t directly talking about Ruhle but the “left-leaning news media organizations” who he says “were kind of like, ‘La, la, la, la, Everything’s fine. Look, the economy’s great. La, la, la. Immigration’s not that much of a problem,’ and really being Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.”

Ruhle pushed back, saying that she experienced the media pressuring the Biden administration for “not doing enough” on immigration during his first two years.

The news anchor acknowledged that Republicans were “willing to talk about some of the unpleasant things that people feel” about immigration, adding, “When people say those things out loud, they’re immediately called xenophobic or racist and we have to make space for how people feel.”

Wilson said that most people who have issues with immigration “are not racist, but are often kind of tarred as racist by the liberal left.”

The actor told Ruhle that his podcast guests have cited their “toxic relationship to social media” and turning off the news for their mental health benefit, saying, “I don’t go on social media, and I don’t read news articles, and I’m raising bees and growing poppies and washing my dishes and meditating and my life is so much better and richer for it.’”

Ruhle added, “I think you said the most important thing: ‘richer.’ That’s a very rich thing to say, because people of privilege can afford to tune out.”

Watch the full debate in the video below.