Tom Hanks — Hollywood's favorite liberal, America's most beloved nice guy, the voice of Woody — just roasted MS NOW's ratings directly to a network reporter's face during a live broadcast. On their own air. While they were filming. You genuinely cannot make this stuff up.
When even Tom Hanks thinks your audience is a joke, it's time to update the résumé.
The moment happened on June 18 during coverage of the Obama Presidential Center dedication ceremony at John Lewis Plaza in Chicago. Hanks, attending the event honoring former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, was approached by an MS NOW reporter for a live interview. His response was pure gold.
"What can I do for the 800 people watching MS Now?" Hanks said.
Eight hundred. He didn't say it behind closed doors. He didn't whisper it to a friend. He said it on their own broadcast, to their own reporter, while their own cameras were rolling.
Then, apparently feeling generous, he followed up: "Alright, add a zero to it if you need to."
So his charitable estimate was 8,000 viewers. For an entire cable news network. During a major live event featuring a former president.
For context, as Breitbart noted, Fox News pulls roughly 2.1 million viewers in the 9 a.m. time slot alone. MS NOW — the network formerly known as MSNBC before its summer 2025 rebrand — can't even crack four digits according to its own allies.
This is a network that spent years telling us they were the voice of the resistance, the truth-tellers, the ones holding power accountable. Turns out nobody was listening. And not "nobody" in the rhetorical sense. Nobody in the "your audience could fit in a middle school auditorium" sense.
The beautiful irony here is that Hanks isn't some right-wing provocateur. He's as Hollywood liberal as they come. He was literally at the Obama Center dedication to celebrate Barack Obama's legacy. This wasn't a hit job. It was friendly fire — and that makes it so much more devastating.
When your enemies call your ratings garbage, you can dismiss it as partisan attacks. When Tom Hanks does it while smiling at your camera? That's a diagnosis.
And speaking of the Obama Center, the whole event comes with its own baggage. As Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer and others have reported, cost overruns at the Obama Presidential Center left dozens of black-owned small businesses unpaid, with subcontractors owed anywhere from tens of thousands to multiple millions in construction fees. Several black-owned businesses reportedly face potential bankruptcy over the unpaid bills. But sure, let's have a big ceremony.
Back to Hanks and those 800 viewers. The rebrand from MSNBC to MS NOW was supposed to signal a fresh start, a new era. Instead, it's the same sinking ship with a new coat of paint and Tom Hanks poking holes in the hull on live television.
Eight hundred people. That's fewer viewers than a local car dealership's Facebook Live. And the guy who told everyone was on their side.
