There was a lot of news to report on Friday morning. Non-election related topics included a gasoline spill of 250,000 gallons which will likely cause an outage in nearby Alabama communities, a recall on exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7s, the crumbling “ceasefire” in Syria, and a suicide attack at a mosque in Pakistan killing 14. More than enough topics to broadcast as viewers get ready for the work day.

Instead, viewers got CNN’s red carpet treatment of Trump’s ground-breaking, earth-shattering, yuuge statement about the ultra-racist “Birther Movement” he played an integral role in spreading to the masses. With the banner “BREAKING NEWS: TRUMP SET TO ADDRESS ‘BIRTHER’ ISSUE,” Trump used the spotlight to shine on veterans issues for a solid 30 minutes on live television.

The event concluded with Trump quickly admitting the President of the United States is an American sandwiched between a couple more lies.

“We got Rickrolled and played.” — Jake Tapper “We got played, again, by the Trump campaign, because that’s what they do.” — John King

According to a September Gallup poll, only 32 percent of Americans have trust and confidence in the media. Trump is single-handedly exposing the worst side of the media and the worst side of the American electorate. He ties the two together with the perfect ribbon when decrying the “dishonest media.”

“The media has openly been dishonest, and I looked at that poll and I said, ‘wow,’” Trump said in an interview with Fred Dicker. “Because every speech I talk about it, and I have tens of thousands of people showing up to these speeches and they are on television… and I will tell you that everybody is talking about the dishonesty, the total dishonesty of some of the papers and the media generally.”

To use a Trumpian phrase —a lot of people are also saying that the media handing Trump his megaphone to announce his ban on Muslim immigration, if elected, only worsens the fact that Muslims are the most disliked group in America. It’s true, you can read more about that here (I promise, this is not a Rickroll).

On the bright side, maybe Trump’s candidacy will reform how the media covers future presidential elections. We just learned that Jill Stein and Gary Johnson will not qualify for the debates, and a lot of people are saying the media is to blame for that too since the most coverage Johnson received was after his “Where is Aleppo” gaffe. It’s clear that a majority of news consumers don’t appreciate how CNN and its competitors have covered this election, but all it takes is one network to make the first move to improve their coverage, and if it pays off, others will be forced to follow.

Update: The saga continues.