Rachel Maddow criticized Fox News Wednesday for their coverage of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy -- what she called a "dead" story that could potentially lead to violence.
Nearly 1,000 armed states' rights protesters faced off with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Nevada last weekend. At issue was Bundy's refusal to pay government fees for his cattle, which had been illegally grazing on federal land.
The standoff ended Saturday and the government called off its roundup of Bundy's cattle. Maddow said the drama seems to be "over," but elements of the right are still "hyping this as a fight almost to the point of hysteria."
One of those elements, according to Maddow, was Fox News. She alleged that the network has gone into "overdrive" since the end of the standoff to try to gin up more conflict. Maddow pointed to "The Five's" discussion of the story and Sean Hannity, who recently interviewed Bundy about a World Net Daily story that warned of a federal raid on his ranch.
She characterized Fox News' approach to the story as "hilarious and pitiful," but also warned that the network is trying to stoke a conflict that has resulted in violence in the past.
While numerous right-wing outlets have focused on the story, the MSNBC host said "it becomes something else when a media institution called the Fox News channel decides to promote the worst of this stuff, when they drag this stuff up out of the far right, pitiful fringe and turn it into a national conservative cause celeb."
Watch the segment in the clip above.
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