Bill Clinton: MSNBC 'Really Has Become Our Version of Fox

Former President Bill Clinton declared in a new interview that MSNBC has become "our version of Fox."

Speaking to Esquire magazine, the former president was weighing in on the current political culture, which he said is "more caustic" in part because of cable news, where fierce competition fuels a constant demand for content.

Having so many media outlets "has contributed to less actual reporting and a louder, more contentious, more divisive public discourse, highlighting conflict, sometimes falsely," Clinton said.

"I also think that the diffusion of the media has complicated things," he told the magazine. "For example, I was just watching — I don't know if you heard what I said in the other room — I was just watching MSNBC, and they had a woman that used to work for me and a couple of other people on there, and they were talking about the Republican primary. And I was laughing. I said, 'Boy, it really has become our version of Fox.'"

Chalking the comparison up to "the economics of running cable channels," Clinton said that in the days when NBC, CBS and ABC were the sole television networks, "Everybody had enough market share that they knew would guarantee some comfortable level of profit. And yet there was enough competition that everybody could keep each other honest."

"All that's changed now," he continued. "And so the good news is you can get a lot of information off the Internet for free and in a hurry. But I think the breaking up of the media, which is otherwise kind of healthy, has contributed to less actual reporting and a louder, more contentious, more divisive public discourse, highlighting conflict, sometimes falsely."