Let’s All Laugh at Dr. Phil for a Minute

It has been pretty impossible not to doomscroll this week. The potential passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, which will hurt millions of people, has been on my mind all week. When faced with so many people being hurt, even though they don’t deserve it, I’ve just wanted to see some bad people face consequences. However, it’s important not to jump at just any opportunity. For instance, Trump has talked about potentially deporting Elon Musk. While I want to see Musk face consequences, I don’t think the President should be able to deport anyone who disagrees with him. Tesla shares crashing and potentially lowering Musk’s wealth? That I am onboard for.

Seeing a grifter’s grift fall apart is the kind of schadenfreude I can get behind. For another example, imagine there’s a grifter who was platformed on national television. He has conned people into thinking he is a serious mental health professional when he is actually a fame-chasing loser who presents like an even more unlikeable version of a Jeffrey Tambor character (which is really saying something). Someone who profits on people’s pain, then speaks at a nazi rally at MSG while launching an “anti-woke” television network because racism is as profitable as ever, but then that network still tanks! That’s something to laugh at!

That’s what’s happening to Dr. Phil, a man Oprah should have to apologize for someday. Mr. McGraw has spent decades building his brand around being a psychologist to exploit people for his benefit. His employees have accused him of fostering a hostile and racist work environment. He once showed up at Britney Spears’ hospital room in an attempt to get her and her family to appear on his show. He’s been going on raids with ICE like some wannabe, jack-booted thug. The dude sucks sh** through a straw. So, of course, he launched his own network.

Merit Street Media is (was?) a cable news network founded by McGraw, and it has filed for bankruptcy. I’m not hip to a lot of right-wing media, but the fact that I hadn’t heard of this place until today should tell you something. While I’m not the target audience, that goes the same for NewsNation and OANN, but I know they exist. Merrit Street Media (which is a godawful f***ing name) was launched to combat the “cultural ‘woke’ assault” on this country, because that’s a nice shiny grift right now. Regardless, it went poorly for McGraw and crew, as they are now suing the Christian Trinity Broadcasting Network, saying they “abused its position as the controlling shareholder,” which required Merit Street Media to “pay or incur obligations to third parties in excess of $100 million.” Ha!

I don’t care who wins this. It’s a classic “let them fight” scenario. Still, this bit from the suit made me chuckle pretty hard. “These failures by TBN were neither unintended nor inadvertent,” the suit claims. “They were a conscious, intentional pattern of choices made with full awareness that the consequence of which was to sabotage and seal the fate of a new but already nationally acclaimed network.” Nationally acclaimed, Phil?! Be real, dude! I know you’re whole thing has been about pretending to be something you aren’t, but let’s be serious. This is just another extension of the grift. That’s all Dr. Phil has, and he deserves our scorn, derision, and pointed laughter.