MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough mocked the recent ratings slide at Fox News early Thursday while discussing the death of its former chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes.

“Right now, Fox News is an absolute mess,” Scarborough said. “We talked about this earlier in passing. Roger Ailes gone for, what, maybe six months, a year — and for first time this century, they aren’t in first place. In fact, for the first time this century, they are in third place.”

Fox News has lost the past few nights to MSNBC and CNN in the wake of the bombshell report of a James Comey memo that said President Trump's hoped that the then-FBI director would drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

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“Rachel [Maddow] beats them every night,” Matthews, who was on "Morning Joe" as a guest, added on Thursday.

Fox News as a whole is still leading the month of May in total audience and the key 25-54 demographic, however, after winning the first three months of 2017 in both categories. Fox News had the highest-rated quarter in cable news history in the first quarter of this year in 24-hour viewership.

Scarborough also compared Ailes to former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who was forced out after 50 years amid a sexual abuse scandal surrounding assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

“You look at Roger Ailes’s life, and you look at all of his successes, and I’m reminded of Joe Paterno,” Scarborough said. "A man that America loved and respected and looked up to for years. And I know, certainly, not all of America loved Roger Ailes.

"He was a very divisive figure. But I can tell you, conservatives were thankful for him.”