See more in the cross-post on the NewsBusters blog.
Seeking to join in on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens hype, MSNBC’s Hardball kicked off Monday’s show with a spoof of the famous franchise’s opening credits that told of a “period of civil war within the Republican party [sic]” and “President Obama, Hillary Clinton, & the Republican establishment appear to have formed a coalition rejecting [Donald] Trump’s appeal to the DARK SIDE.”
At the conclusion of the 6:00 p.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC Live, the screen went black and suddenly the title of Matthews’s program appeared in the famous, yellow Star Wars-type font as two words (instead of one) as the title rapidly shrank to nothing on the black screen.