While the liberal media continues to slip in a post-Trump era, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow just got served some brutal honesty. In an effort to stay relevant the liberal host previously claimed conservative network One America News Network was connected to Russia and it wasn’t long before OANN hit Maddow with a massive lawsuit. However, the only way to get her out of shelling out millions was for her lawyers to say of course she was joking because what reasonable person could ever believe she’s dispelling facts.

Well, it worked.

According to The Daily Wire:

A gleeful Maddow reported that a journalist for the conservative One America News Network, Kristian Rouz, also worked as a freelance writer for Russia’s Sputnik News. Maddow said that the revelation — which came in July 2019, shortly after the Mueller Report dispelled notions that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election —  proved that pro-Trump OANN “really, literally is paid Russian propaganda.”

OANN hit Maddow with a $10 million defamation lawsuit, noting that the network does “not receive any money from the Russian government, OAN does not get paid by Russia, and OAN has absolutely no relationship with Russia.” Maddow’s attorneys made a similar argument, which became a part of the official ruling when U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant dismissed OANN’s case.

“Maddow does not keep her political views a secret, and therefore, audiences could expect her to use subjective language that comports with her political opinions,” the ruling held. “A reasonable viewer would not conclude that the contested statement implies an assertion of objective fact.”

Maddow’s “statements cannot reasonably be interpreted as allegations of fact,” decided Bashant, an Obama appointee. (Vyskocil was also a Trump appointee.) She then ordered OANN to pay MSNBC $250,000 in legal fees; OANN has taken the case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal.