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Washington Examiner’s ‘Liberal Media Scream’ With the MRC’s Assessment
Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five).
This post contains the “Liberal Media Screams” starting in January 2023.
> For 2021 and 2022, for all of 2020. For all of 2019. For all of 2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.) “Mainstream Media Screams” for:
> July-December 2017 posts; January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013.)
Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week.
(For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables with compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)
■ New on November 25: Liberal Media Scream: Axios founder rants ‘Elon Musk is bulls**it’
See the posting on the Washington Examiner's site where you can watch the video and read Baker's assessment. A week later, Bedard's article will be posted here.
■ November 18: Liberal Media Scream: ABC’s Raddatz shows why it’s time to boycott networks
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features one example of the media lunacy that has followed the sweeping electoral and popular vote for President-elect Donald Trump despite years of warnings and smears from the resistance media.
While most in the Democratic Party are licking their wounds and trying to figure out how they did so poorly against Trump and why they picked the worst candidate around in Vice President Kamala Harris, many liberal TV anchors are still suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.”
Sunday showed them all still at work. On 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley opened with a rant against Trump’s Cabinet picks. And he was preceded by the frenzied Sunday public affairs shows trying to convince the nation that the president-elect was unfit for duty.
On Monday, two of those with the worst case of TDS, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, all but admitted their preelection anti-Trump hype on their MSNBC show Morning Joe was a lie when they revealed that they traveled to Mar-a-Lago last week to break bread with Trump.
The worst example of the ranting rage on network TV came from ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who opened Sunday’s This Week with a charge that Trump’s picks were “retribution” for those who have wronged him. “The retribution begins,” she declared.
From the top of Sunday’s This Week on ABC:
MARTHA RADDATZ: The retribution begins.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT: We’re going to clean out the corrupt, broken, and failing bureaucracies.
RADDATZ: The president-elect sparking alarm with controversial Cabinet nominees, including a firebrand Fox TV host to lead the Department of Defense.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY NOMINEE: I’m straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles.
RADDATZ: Noted vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary.
TRUMP: He wants to make people healthy. It’s driven him pretty wild over the last number of years.
RADDATZ: And ardent Trump loyalist, now former congressman, Matt Gaetz, to run the Justice Department.
SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): He’s got a really steep hill to climb to get lots of votes, including mine.
RADDATZ: Democratic Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin responds to the nominations. Plus, former CDC Director Richard Besser, former prosecutor Preet Bharara, and analysis from our powerhouse roundtable. Plus:
JOE DEL BOSQUE, CALIFORNIA FARMER: We pay some of the highest wages for farm workers in the nation right here in California, and they won’t come out.
RADDATZ: We traveled to California farmland to see what Trump’s massive deportation plans could mean for farmers and the nation’s food supply. Texas Republican Tony Gonzales joins us for reaction.
ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, it’s This Week. Here now, Martha Raddatz.
RADDATZ: Good morning, and welcome to This Week. Donald Trump is wasting no time naming the team he wants around him in a second term. In rapid-fire fashion, he announced a series of nominees this week to fill the White House and lead key Cabinet departments. Many of them were right by Trump’s side last night to attend a UFC fight at Madison Square Garden in New York. Among them, controversial picks like the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, an amorphous role aimed at slashing federal spending.
While that move raised a lot of intrigue, other picks have raised eyebrows to say the least, and some, outright opposition.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “Less than two weeks after the MAGA agenda won an electoral mandate and showed how the legacy media have lost their influence, Raddatz is still living in a preelection world. Instead of explaining to her viewers what the appeal of Trump’s picks could be, or presenting a balanced take with matching praise and criticism for them, she didn’t even try to hide her disdain for them. And Disney wonders why they’re losing viewers.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.
■ November 12: Liberal Media Scream: How dare Trump make demands on Senate, CNN whines
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN struggling to find new ways to attack President-elect Donald Trump.
This time, it’s Trump’s pressure on the Senate to OK his Cabinet picks, which are coming fast and furious, without the normal confirmation steps.
At CNN, they said it’s just Trump “again bucking norms.”
From Sunday’s CNN:
ALAYNA TREENE: [President-elect Donald Trump] said, quote: “Republican senators seeking the coveted leadership position in the United States Senate must agree to recess appointments in the Senate, without which, we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.”
The post goes on to describe other things. But I want to explain why this is so important. Essentially, Donald Trump is calling for the shattering of norms. Now what this means, a recess appointment, I know this sounds like we’re getting in the weeds a bit with the Hill lingo. But recesses are normally avoided in Congress. Normally, when they actually go on break, they do something called a pro forma session. Part of that is because if you go to a recess, you actually have to have a vote in the House and the Senate, and Democrats, in this case, giving Republicans control of the Senate come next year, would be able to filibuster.
But essentially, to get down to it, to really boil down to what this would mean, is that Donald Trump is trying to find a way and use whoever the next Senate leader — Republican leader — is to try and avoid the confirmation process for his top Cabinet officials. And I remind you, a lot of times when different presidential candidates or people are looking to make these hires and to appoint different people to these different Cabinet roles, a key thing that is always at the top of their minds is whether or not this person can get confirmed in the Senate, if they have a controversial background, if they are more conservative, in this case, if they were Democrats, they’d be maybe too liberal. But really, the Senate is kind of the last line of defense of who the president could put into office with him.
And so this would be a huge change. And I will also argue that really this process that Congress has now about avoiding recess appointments in their entirety started back with George W. Bush and has continued since then under the different presidents with Obama and Trump and now Biden. And so, this again would be a huge break from the norms that we currently have. Fred.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: And again, bucking norms.
Jorge Bonilla, a news analyst at NewsBusters, explained our weekly pick: “The Biden administration shattered many norms, whether it was the weaponization of state and federal governments against President-elect Donald Trump, the suppression of President Joe Biden’s physical and mental decline, or the government’s cooking of all sorts of data. Any one of these incidents occurring under a Trump administration would’ve garnered wall-to-wall ‘shattered norms’ coverage. On the contrary, the Biden parade of horribles drew nary a peep. Now, the media go nuts about norms the second a just-reelected Trump talks about staffing his administration via recess appointments.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ November 4: Liberal Media Scream: Gaslighting Politico calls Obama, Harris, and Biden ‘centrists’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the claim by Politico that Democratic leaders considered the most liberal in history are “centrists.”
In gaslighting voters, the outlet’s White House correspondent Eugene Daniels said President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Vice President Kamala Harris aren’t liberals. Ditto for the Democratic Party and the party’s “base” of black voters, he added.
“What it reminds us is that the Democratic Party continues to be a more centrist party, right? When you look at Obama, who, despite what people thought, kind of operated as a centrist, Biden, centrist, Kamala Harris, a centrist,” Daniels said on PBS.
Daniels from Friday’s Washington Week with the Atlantic:
“What it reminds us is that the Democratic Party continues to be a more centrist party, right? When you look at Obama, who, despite what people thought, kind of operated as a centrist, Biden, centrist, Kamala Harris, a centrist. The base of the Democratic Party continues to be black voters. They are still more centrist and more pragmatic as opposed to ideological. And so the takeover of the Democratic Party, as the Republican Party has found out, it hasn’t happened on the Democratic Party, the same with the Left.”
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “The party of letting high school boys play on girls sports teams and running an open border is ‘centrist’? Daniels needs to bring a little more skepticism to his journalism. Just because a politician spins themselves as ‘centrist’ does not make them one. Kamala Harris has a long record of far-left policy views that haven’t disappeared just because she is not touting them in this year’s campaign.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams.
■ October 28: Liberal Media Scream: CBS’s Brennan frets Cheney’s safety if Trump wins
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the Face the Nation host raising concerns that a Trump election will lead to violence against former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney for endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in her yearlong campaign to stop former President Donald Trump’s comeback.
Though it’s Trump who has been the target of two assassination attempts, CBS’s Margaret Brennan asked Cheney on her show on Sunday, “Given how outspoken you have been, are you concerned about your personal security if Donald Trump wins this election, as he well may do?”
Fed the softball pitch, Cheney hit it hard: “Trump has ushered violence into our politics in a way that we haven’t seen before.”
It was just the latest example of the anti-Trump bias network TV has wallowed in this election year. Earlier on Monday, the Media Research Center, which helps with this weekly feature, issued a report that showed a historic level of bias by CBS, ABC, and NBC.
From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Given how outspoken you have been, are you concerned about your personal security if Donald Trump wins this election, as he well may do?
LIZ CHENEY: Look, first of all, I am very confident that Vice President Harris is going to win this election. It’s what we’re seeing all across the country, the kind of absolutely unprecedented coalition that’s coming together to support her, you know, we’re going to run through the tape, and nobody is overconfident here, but I do believe she’s going to be the next president of the United States.
And I think that Donald Trump has ushered violence into our politics in a way that we haven’t seen before. And any violence is unacceptable. Certainly, the assassination attempt on the former president was completely unacceptable and obviously should never have happened. But when you have a situation where, you know, Donald Trump suggests that people who disagree with him ought to be put before military tribunals, that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be hanged for treason, and his running mate doubles down on it, that tells you that you’re dealing with a man who doesn’t have any conscience, and the people who worked most closely with him know that. So, I’m confident that he’s going to be defeated next week.
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “The reality of political violence in this year’s campaign came from the Left and opponents of Trump, not from him. Brennan seemed to have her own political agenda to try to generate an answer which would demonstrate another reason to vote for Harris: that a Trump win would physically endanger his critics. But not even Cheney, a Trump-hater, would go that far to presume Trump’s supporters are a bunch of violent fanatics who must be feared.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ October 21: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Swamp’ journalists admit cluelessness on Trump and MAGA
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features three of Washington’s prominent political correspondents finally admitting just how clueless they are about former President Donald Trump, whom at least half the nation sees as one of the easiest politicians to understand — and like.
We feature the puzzlement of Washington Post journalists Max Boot and Jonathan Capehart and the Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich as they mull Trump’s comeback.
“How can we have tens of millions of our fellow citizens think it’s OK to elect this delusional maniac as president of the United States? I, you know, I just don’t get it,” Boot told Capehart, who whined, “It is baffling to me as well.”
Mark Leibovich on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday:
“I think the larger stain on our history that we’re living through right now is Trump obviously and what he has stood for and what he has gotten away with.”
“The idea that Donald Trump has operated within a permission structure of one of our two major parties to a point where there is just a consequence-free environment for him to operate in is one of the most appalling, I think, takeaways from this era. Obviously, one that portends very, very ominously in case he wins because there’s not going to be a check and balance from his own party. They’ll operate from a platform where he can do whatever he wants. But, essentially, I mean, these are people who I think will, hopefully, you know, live under a very, very damning verdict of history.”
Max Boot during Friday’s “First Look” show for Washington Post Live
“To me, what’s dismaying is not that Trump is denying reality, that he is depicting the rioters and insurrectionists of Jan. 6 as people engaged in a day of love. It’s not that Trump is denying the results of the 2020 election, as is his running mate, J.D. Vance. All of that we’ve come to expect by now.
“What is dismaying to me, Jonathan, is that despite all of this, Trump is very close to winning the presidency again. It’s basically a coin-flip election. We don’t know how it’s going to go, but simply the fact that it’s as close as it is right now is, to me, a terrible commentary on America and a very dismaying, very dismaying augury of our future, that so many Americans seem to be so OK with this. I mean, how is this? How can we have tens of millions of our fellow citizens think it’s OK to elect this delusional maniac as president of the United States? I, you know, I just don’t get it.”
Jonathan Capehart: “Yeah, it is baffling to me as well.”
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “What’s ‘dismaying,’ ‘appalling,’ and a ‘terrible commentary’ on the state of American journalism is that two veteran journalists with major media institutions have such disdain for half of their fellow citizens. It also portends a dangerous reaction from the media if Trump does indeed win. Instead of dispassionately reporting on how and why he won, they’ll be condemning as a ‘stain’ on the nation those who voted for him.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.
■ October 14: Liberal Media Scream: Vance and Johnson hit media TDS nitpickers
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the escalation of media whining and excuse-making for the problems Vice President Kamala Harris is encountering in her wobbly bid to become president.
We feature MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who worried on Meet the Press about black and white men and businesses favoring former President Donald Trump, though she expressed no similar concerns about women favoring Harris in the gender gap.
In one segment, she advised Harris to do more interviews to win over more men, though the vice president’s recent media blitz has brought mostly negative reviews. And she said Harris needs to push back on businesses’ view of her as a lightweight.
“I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell’s comments came during a discussion on NBC’s Meet the Press about how Harris needs to do more media interviews to let people know about her economic policies:
“They’ve got to double down on doing more interviews and serious interviews because what I’m hearing from Democratic and Republican businesspeople and a lot of men — and she’s got such a big problem with men. I think there’s an undercount of the Trump vote. I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious. They don’t think she’s a heavyweight. And a lot of this is gender, but she’s got to be more specific about her economic plans.”
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Of course, Andrea Mitchell attributes the worst of motives, misogyny, for why men favor Trump over Harris but expresses no concern for why women back Harris over Trump. Just like a partisan Democrat would see the world. Which is what the NBC News journalist is.”
Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams.
■ October 7: Liberal Media Scream: Andrea Mitchell whines men and business supporting Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the escalation of media whining and excuse-making for the problems Vice President Kamala Harris is encountering in her wobbly bid to become president.
We feature MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who worried on Meet the Press about black and white men and businesses favoring former President Donald Trump, though she expressed no similar concerns about women favoring Harris in the gender gap.
In one segment, she advised Harris to do more interviews to win over more men, though the vice president’s recent media blitz has brought mostly negative reviews. And she said Harris needs to push back on businesses’ view of her as a lightweight.
“I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell’s comments came during a discussion on NBC’s Meet the Press about how Harris needs to do more media interviews to let people know about her economic policies:
“They’ve got to double down on doing more interviews and serious interviews because what I’m hearing from Democratic and Republican businesspeople and a lot of men — and she’s got such a big problem with men. I think there’s an undercount of the Trump vote. I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious. They don’t think she’s a heavyweight. And a lot of this is gender, but she’s got to be more specific about her economic plans.”
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Of course, Andrea Mitchell attributes the worst of motives, misogyny, for why men favor Trump over Harris but expresses no concern for why women back Harris over Trump. Just like a partisan Democrat would see the world. Which is what the NBC News journalist is.”
Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams
■ September 30: Liberal Media Scream: Latinos like Trump because they ‘want to be white’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a key MSNBC Latina guest who smeared her fellow Latinos with a racist anti-Trump rant on Sunday.
On The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart, NPR’s Maria Hinojosa ripped Latinos for abandoning the Democratic Party.
Reacting to a new NBC News/Telemundo poll that found Vice President Kamala Harris losing support from Hispanic voters, Hinojosa said, “Latinos want to be white. They want to be with the cool kids.” The 63-year-old Hispanic journalist apparently isn’t up with what’s cool on social media.
From The Sunday Show With Jonathan Capehart on Sunday:
JONATHAN CAPEHART: So she has a 14-point lead, but it has been shrinking after each consecutive presidential election from 2016. Why is that? Why is the Democratic share of the Latino vote shrinking?
MARIA HINOJOSA: And what I said to you when we asked the question was, Latinos want to be white. They want to be with the cool kids. They want to be — I’m asking Latinos all the time, and they just say, ‘Well … he’s such a good businessman.’ It’s, like, no, he’s not. He had bankruptcies. But they don’t want to be identified with all of those other immigrants that Donald Trump speaks so badly of, including me, as a Mexican immigrant. So they’re, like, ‘We’d rather, let’s be with him.’
But those numbers? They could cost Kamala Harris the election. Everything that I’ve been saying that Latinos could push her over the top, these are the numbers that could also take her down.
Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Hinojosa reflects the very worst of identity politics. Vote only for liberal Democrats — or you are a race traitor. The fact a solid majority of Hispanics support Kamala Harris isn’t good enough for Hinojosa. Every Latino who dares stray from the party line must be shunned because such betrayal could cost the Democrat the election.”
Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams
■ September 23: Liberal Media Scream: PBS says Harris a ‘happy warrior’ ready to ‘slap’ Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest PBS effort to portray Vice President Kamala Harris as a joyful and happy warrior taking on evil in challenging former President Donald Trump for the presidency.
On PBS NewsHour, MSNBC and Washington Post lefty pundit Jonathan Capehart declared Harris as a part of the “culture” willing to fight Trump.
“She’s part of what’s driving this culture that I think you said will slap Donald Trump in the face. It’s slapping him in the face now,” Capehart said, adding, “She, in her entire career, has been the happy warrior about helping people and leaving aside the negativity. It just happens to hit at the right person at the right time.”
From Friday’s PBS NewsHour, picking up after anchor Geoff Bennett cited David Brooks’s column, “How a Cultural Shift Favors Harris.”
GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan, that word joy, Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, when she sat down with the three reporters from the National Association of Black Journalists today [actually on Tuesday], one of them asked her about how she views attacks on her joyful warrior approach. And she defended it. And she said people will try to sometimes use your best asset against you. What do you make of that and this notion that she’s benefitting from a cultural wave?
JONATHAN CAPEHART: I don’t think she’s benefitting from a cultural — yes, she is, and I read your column, David. It’s not so much that she’s riding — she’s — like see this wave coming and she’s riding. No, she is part of the culture. And that’s why I think when she became the top of the ticket, everyone marveled at how quickly the light switch flipped. That can — and it happened so organically in a very dramatic fashion.
That, to me, says you can’t manufacture that. And she was able to do that because she is the culture. She is part of the culture. She’s part of what’s driving this culture that I think you said will slap Donald Trump in the face. It’s slapping him in the face now, which is why I think he’s so discombobulated.
He doesn’t know how to deal with her. I think it’s why the polls are — the momentum is moving in her direction. And to your point about happy warrior, and David is right, this is the way the vice president has always been, which sort of reinforces what you’re saying. It’s not that she has met up with the culture. She, in her entire career, has been the happy warrior about helping people and leaving aside the negativity.
It just happens to hit at the right person, at the right time.
Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “What a joke. Harris ‘is the culture’ and has been the embodiment of ‘the happy warrior about helping people’ for her ‘entire career’? She changes her culture and accent with every crowd she addresses. It must be nice to be a liberal Democrat, where supposed journalists not only endorse the glowingly upbeat imagery you want but celebrate it without any critical thinking over whether it is phony and then promote it as a genuine compelling life story.”
Rating: Five out of FIVE screams
■ September 15: No Liberal Media Scream this week
■ September 9: Liberal Media Scream: Team Harris calls US ‘incredibly backwards’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a key Team Harris supporter decrying America as “incredibly backwards” for electing only men as president.
Trump traitor Alyssa Farah Griffin, the “conservative” on The View, was discussing the debate between her ex-boss, former President Donald Trump, and Vice President Kamala Harris on CNN’s State of the Union when she blasted America.
“We’re incredibly backwards as a country that we’ve never had a female president,” she said.
The comment clashed with one of the key themes of the Harris campaign: criticizing Trump for claiming that America is in a shambles and spinning backward under the leadership of Harris and President Joe Biden.
From Sunday’s State of the Union:
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: And the reality is, you shouldn’t underestimate Donald Trump. He has now done more presidential race — debates, I should say — than anyone in history, and he’s somebody who came up on television. He’s a communicator. He’s somebody who is used to speaking to a mass audience. If he can stay focused and he stays to the core issues: economy, border, it’s a good night for him. But we’ve also seen the world in which he shouts out the Proud Boys, or he talks about Hannibal Lecter, or he gets into name calling. That could go against him. To Kamala Harris, she needs to look presidential. We’re incredibly backwards as a country that we’ve never had a female president. So, for a lot of people seeing somebody up there who’s a woman who might be our first female president, she needs to seem commanding. She cannot get too in the weeds on policy. She needs to talk about it but can’t get sidetracked. Big picture. How will you demonstrably make people’s lives better? How will you turn the economy around? If she can do that and not get rattled by Donald Trump, it’ll be a good night for her.
Jorge Bonilla, a news analyst with the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “One can very easily imagine Griffin uttering this same nonsensical hot take on ABC’s The View, with great care so as not to get yelled at by Sunny Hostin and before whatever box-wine-fueled nonsense sputtered by Ana Navarro. Given when a major party first nominated a woman to the top of the ballot, Griffin is calling America ‘backwards’ for committing the sin of electing Donald Trump to the presidency — a presidency that she served. This Trump-deranged nonsense is what passes for ‘analysis’ at CNN.”
Rating: Four out of Five SCREAMS.
■ September 2: No Liberal Media Scream this week
■ August 26: Liberal Media Scream: ‘CNN’ has become a laugh line
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features talker Bill Maher mocking CNN and its hosts for viewing the lefty cable network as politically centrist, citing unending “gushing” over Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential nomination acceptance speech the night before.
“I watched from 8:09 to 8:23. There was just gushing about how great a speech it was,” the talk show host and comedian told CNN host Kaitlan Collins. He said it wasn’t for 15 minutes until “Lonely Scott” Jennings, one of the few conservatives paid by CNN, got a word in.
“It was like 5-to-1. It always looks like 5-to-1,” Maher said of how CNN stacks liberals against conservatives.
Collins, who a week ago faced laughter from Stephen Colbert’s audience when he called CNN fair, tried to defend the network, but Maher wasn’t hearing it. “It’s, kind of, like, the same as The View. It’s like, it’s almost better to have nobody there like MSNBC,” he dissed.
From Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO on Friday:
BILL MAHER: You made press because you were on Stephen Colbert’s show, and he said something like you guys at CNN just report the news straight, and the crowd burst into laughter.
That tells you a lot, doesn’t it? How do you guys think you are doing in that arena of, like, this is a terribly divided country. We are not only politicized, a lot of people hate the other side. And CNN, in my view, should be the place where both sides can watch. How do you think you’re doing with that?
COLLINS: CNN is the place where both sides can watch. And I think, you know, my show is evidence of that. We have lawmakers on from both parties.
MAHER: I’m talking about the people on CNN, and I know what the conservative side of America thinks, and I don’t blame them. I watched Kamala’s speech last night. It ended at 8:09, or, I guess, 11:09 in the East. It wasn’t until 11:23 ‘till the one conservative guy, what’s his name?
COLLINS: Scott Jennings.
MAHER: ‘Lonely Scott,’ I call him.
COLLINS: David Urban was there too.
MAHER: Wait a second. Wait a second. I watched from 8:09 to 8:23. There was just gushing about how great a speech it was — and I think she did fine. I didn’t think it was as good as they were making it out to be, but if I’m a conservative in America, and I’m watching CNN, just for the straight middle-of-the-road, that’s what I hear for 15 minutes is “it’s great” and then Lonely Scott. When you see — it does look like tokenism. It’s, kind of, like, the same as The View, it’s like, it’s almost better to have nobody there like MSNBC.
COLLINS: I think it was a Democratic convention. They turned to Democrats, people like David Axelrod, who ran successful presidential Democratic campaigns first, for their analysis of this, and I don’t think that you can say that CNN is anything but fair.
I mean, look at, we covered President Biden’s exit from the race very closely, the pressure on him to get out, and I feel like I could speak with authority on this — I’m from Alabama. I’m from a very red state. I have very conservative family, a lot of them are Trump voters. They watch my show every night, and I think they know that they can trust me, that we call bulls*** on every side, not just whatever leaning our audience may be, and I think that’s something that people want more of is to hear from that.
I think Scott’s voice is really important, but I think other voices are important to hear from, and everyone who was speaking last night, it’s not like they were all Democrats. I mean, Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, Abby Philip, all my amazing colleagues giving analysis.
MAHER: They come across that way. They came across that way in a moment like that. It was like 5-to-1. It always looks like 5-to-1.
Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “It’s hard to believe Kaitlan Collins is really that clueless about the ingrained left-wing, anti-conservative agenda of CNN. That a traditionally left-of-center comedian recognizes that reality, to say nothing of an audience in Manhattan laughing at calling CNN objective, should give Collins pause. The fact that it doesn’t shows just how ideologically blind are Collins and her CNN colleagues are. To them, nothing is more important than keeping Donald Trump out of the White House.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams
■ August 19: Liberal Media Scream: Media now correcting MAGA, not just Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the media’s latest line of attack on former President Donald Trump, MAGA, and anybody who voices support for the GOP presidential nominee.
It comes from the weekend public affairs show hosts who apparently feel compelled to have the last word when featuring Trump or a Trump supporter. One offensive pick came from Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan, who is also co-moderating the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate.
She gratuitously hit Trump after he called Vice President Kamala Harris’s plan for price controls “communist.” Brennan promised: “We’ll tell you why that is wrong.” But after a break, she never told her viewers what was false or wrong about the Trump quote or even prompted any guest to correct Trump.
Then there was Martha Raddatz, hosting ABC’s This Week. Not only did she open the show with a cheer for Harris, but in reporting shown later, she featured a black woman who said she was leaning toward voting for Trump. “Trump’s rhetoric has clearly had an effect on her in an astonishing way,” said Raddatz, whose fact-checking about race didn’t sit well with the black woman. “There was no convincing her otherwise,” she said.
From the top of Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS:
MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m Margaret Brennan in Washington, and this week on Face the Nation, Democrats head to their convention in Chicago as inflation cools and the political back-and-forth over economic policies intensifies. With the presidential contest lineup set to be formally locked in this week, both sides turn their attention to issue No. 1 on the minds of the voters: the economy and inflation.
KAMALA HARRIS: I will go after the bad actors, and I will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price-gauging [sic] on food.
DONALD TRUMP: A lot of people are very devastated by what’s happened with inflation and all of the other things. But they say it’s the most important subject. I’m not sure it is. But they say it’s the most important — inflation is the most important, but that’s part of economy.
BRENNAN: The former president’s prescription is twofold.
TRUMP: Vote Trump and your incomes will soar.
BRENNAN: And a new line of false attack on Vice President Harris.
TRUMP: Kamala went full communist. You heard that? She went full communist. She wants to destroy our country after causing catastrophic inflation.
BRENNAN: We’ll tell you why that’s wrong and how the voters see the candidates’ handling of the economy in our new CBS News poll.
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Welcome to the world of establishment media playing speech police, deciding whose rhetoric is so over the line that their delicate viewers must be warned that it is ‘false’ and/or ‘wrong’ without any subsequent justification offered for the effort to discredit the candidate. I await her equal vigilance with Kamala Harris or Tim Walz claims about how the ‘fascist’ Trump will ‘end democracy,’ ‘destroy NATO’ or ‘cut’ Social Security.”
Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams
■ August 12: Liberal Media Scream: PBS anchor falsely claims ‘no evidence’ of Walz’s stolen valor
(Washington Examiner post)
Imagine if a Republican military hero, say, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), lied about the high points of his career in the U.S. Marine Corps while running for vice president.
The media would be looking at every word he spoke on his career and displaying his misstatements and lies on the front pages of every newspaper.
But with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), the Democratic vice presidential pick, the media have decided to look past his long list of fake claims about serving in “war” and Afghanistan while in the National Guard.
What’s more, some even claim that there is no evidence of his fabrications.
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features PBS New Hour anchor Amna Nawaz in the no-evidence camp. On Friday, for example, she said Vance has “no evidence” of his claims against Walz despite nonstop postings by amateur fact-checkers on social media.
She said, “This is so reminiscent of that swiftboating attack on John Kerry back in 2004,” noting that former President Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, was behind the swiftboat attacks. She asked, “Why run with these attacks when there’s no evidence for what they’re saying right now?”
Guest Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, countered, “There’s no question Tim Walz has padded and inflated his resume.” To which Nawaz demanded: “In what way specifically?”
From Friday’s PBS News Hour, in which Johnson was joined by Jonathan Capehart, associate editor of the Washington Post:
AMNA NAWAZ: While we’ve seen Mr. Trump continue with personal attacks and kind of veering way off message, we’ve also seen from Sen. Vance focusing now on Tim Walz’s military career. This is a new line of attack we’ve seen open up from Republicans. We know Mr. Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years before retiring. And we’ve heard Vance attack him in this way from time to time.
SEN. J.D. VANCE: I did it honorably, and I’m very proud of my service. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him.
AMNA NAWAZ: Eliana, this is so reminiscent of that swiftboating attack on John Kerry back in 2004. We know the same man is behind it. He’s running the Trump campaign now, Chris LaCivita. Why run with these attacks when there’s no evidence for what they’re saying right now?
ELIANA JOHNSON: Well, I do think there’s some evidence for what they’re saying, but let’s look at it in two parts. One is the issue on the merits, where I think there’s no question Tim Walz has padded and inflated his resume. And the second is his military resume.
NAWAZ: In what way specifically?
JOHNSON: Well, J.D. Vance mentioned that the timing of his retirement is suspect, and I think it would take a little bit longer to talk about the timeline of that. But the —
NAWAZ: He’s alleging that he retired because his unit was being deployed.
JOHNSON: Right. He knew that they were going to be called up. He had gotten a warning that they were going to be called up, and he said in a press release for his campaign, if called up, I have a duty to serve. He didn’t do that.
It’s clear he has — he’s inflated this, and he’s made it a part of his biography. By the way, this has been an issue in every single one of Walz’s campaigns. But, separately, I think there’s a question of how significant is this going to be down the road? You mentioned the swiftboat veterans. Those attacks were effective, but they were levied against the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, John Kerry, back in 2004 —
NAWAZ: They were also discredited.
JOHNSON: — which is, which is different.
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Nawaz illustrates what is so wrong with the modern media in how they reflexively take sides at the very moment they think they are acting as tough journalists getting at the truth. Instead of pursuing those in the Harris-Walz camp to determine the truth about Walz’s military record, she presumes the Republicans are in the wrong and so their supposedly false claims must be discredited. It proves which side of the political divide she sits.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams
■ August 5: Liberal Media Scream: ABC’s Rachel Scott doubles down on Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features ABC’s Rachel Scott, fresh from zinging former President Donald Trump at a black media convention, whacking him again while discussing campaign debates on the network’s Sunday public affairs show, This Week.
Participating in a panel discussion, Scott praised Vice President Kamala Harris’s “nuance” on her mixed-race heritage. “It has been really notable for us reporters who have picked up on the nuance about how she has responded to some of these attacks questioning her racial identity,” she said.
Scott was criticized by Trump when she opened a Q&A at the National Association of Black Journalists convention by questioning his past comments on black people and why they should support him. An irked Trump shot back, “I think it’s a very nasty question.”
On This Week, she channeled a Harris campaign talking point as she fancied a Harris-Trump debate: “And imagine that on the debate stage where you have a prosecutor possibly facing off against someone who has just been convicted.”
From Sunday’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I was struck, Rachel, in the vice president’s response to what happened at your interview. She seemed to be aware of what Jonathan Martin is talking about. Don’t make this back about her after he gives those comments.
RACHEL SCOTT: And it has been really notable for us reporters who have picked up on the nuance about how she has responded to some of these attacks questioning her racial identity. She is not going there, and Democrats say, “Look, she knows who she is.” She identifies as a black and Asian woman. Why does she have to go out there and respond in that sort of way? What she is doing is putting it back on Donald Trump and Republicans, saying they’re dividing, and then pivoting back to the issues.
….
SUSAN PAGE, USA TODAY: I moderated the last debate she did in 2020, the vice presidential debate. She is a good debater. She is confident. She uses a little humor. She made Mike Pence be quiet, which is something I struggled to do, and she came across as a prosecutor, and that is a good message for her.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That seems to be her sweet spot.
SCOTT: And imagine that on the debate stage where you have a prosecutor possibly facing off against someone who has just been convicted, right? And that’s the sort of image that, of course, Democrats are hoping that they can actually have on the debate stage. But yes, and thinking back to her taking on President Biden when they were running against each other in the Democratic primary, Democrats see her as someone who can thrive potentially on the debate stage. The question is, does it actually happen?
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Scott seems near-giddy over Harris, acting more as a Kamala Whisperer than as any kind of independent journalist. She may couch her ‘reporting’ by citing ‘what Democrats are hoping,’ but it’s clear she’s hoping for the same thing: eagerly anticipating ‘the prosecutor versus the felon’ debate followed by a Harris election victory.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS
■ July 29: Liberal Media Scream: CNN spins Biden as martyr for stopping Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest spin from CNN that President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of his reelection race guarantees the end of President Donald Trump too.
Fareed Zakaria offered this Sunday on his “My Take” commentary:
“The final legacy of Biden is that he has returned the presidency to an office of sanity, decency, and dignity, ushering out the dangerous demagoguery and anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior that preceded him. But for that legacy to endure, and for Biden’s term not to simply be a moment in time, he needed to ensure that the United States actually closes the chapter on Donald Trump.”
Perspective didn’t matter. In fact, Biden’s “friends” pushed him out because of his poor polling, and while Vice President Kamala Harris has seen a jump in interest in her, she is leading Trump in only two of eight national polls taken after Biden’s July 21 announcement, and those leads are of 1% and 2%.
Zakaria on Sunday’s Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN:
“The final legacy of Biden is that he has returned the presidency to an office of sanity, decency, and dignity, ushering out the dangerous demagoguery and anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior that preceded him. But for that legacy to endure, and for Biden’s term not to simply be a moment in time, he needed to ensure that the United States actually closes the chapter on Donald Trump.
“And to help make this more likely, he made the painful decision not to run for the presidency, which will also earn him a special place in the history books. Joe Biden has felt that he has been underestimated all his life. Judging by his tenure in the White House, he’s right.”
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “So much for jaded journalists holding to account those in power. When it comes to keeping Trump from returning to the White House, much of the media eagerly buy into advancing the party line on how Biden made a ‘painful decision’ to put the nation ahead of himself when, in fact, a skeptical journalist would realize it was nothing more than Biden applying grandiose spin, which Zakaria ate up, to cover for an impending humiliating defeat.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.
■ July 22: Liberal Media Scream: NBC insider says Biden as ‘great’ as Washington
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the race among Washington journalists to erase their coverage of President Joe Biden as a senile loser and raise him to sainthood status.
The best example came from a former Newsweek reporter and NBC News contributor who not only compared Biden to former President George Washington but also to the Roman statesman Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, considered the figure of virtue for leaving his position of power to return to farming.
“I also was thinking of Joe Biden’s legacy,” Jonathan Alter said. “He will be remembered as a great president. He will be mentioned in the same sentence as George Washington. Why? Because selflessly leaving power, and the circumstances of him clinging to it in the last three weeks will be forgotten, the basic decision to leave power, which started with Cincinnatus in 439 B.C.,” he added.
From Monday’s Morning News NOW on the NBC News NOW streaming channel:
CO-ANCHOR JOE FRYER: You love history so much. What was going through your mind yesterday when this decision came down? How do you rank this in the 21st century as far as important stories?
JONATHAN ALTER: Extremely important, extremely unusual in American politics. The last time it happened was in 1968 when incumbent President Lyndon Johnson stepped away.
I also was thinking of Joe Biden’s legacy. He will be remembered as a great president. He will be mentioned in the same sentence as George Washington. Why? Because selflessly leaving power, and the circumstances of him clinging to it in the last three weeks will be forgotten, the basic decision to leave power, which started with Cincinnatus in 439 B.C.
And then George Washington picks up from Cincinnatus. The city, of course, is named for this. Why Cincinnatus? Why is he still so well known? Because this selfless act — of leaving power, which in human history is an extremely rare thing to do — elevates you. And in combination with a record of genuine achievement, it will put Joe Biden in very, very good stead in terms of history.”
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “What’s next? Comparing Biden to Jesus? Only a matter of time, I suspect, at least in the world of MSNBC and NBC News. Apparently, Alter is so enthralled with Biden that he can’t see a difference between the widely admired George Washington, who rejected the public groundswell urging him to become the king, and the unpopular Biden who only stepped away when faced with the near certainty of an embarrassing defeat bringing down him and much of his party.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.
■ July 15: Liberal Media Scream: Anger over blood-splattered ‘fight, fight, fight’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the immediately iconic photos of a blood-splattered former President Donald Trump urging supporters to “fight, fight, fight” to restore him to the White House and the media’s queasiness with and misinterpretation of his message.
For the president and his supporters, the message was clear: Stand up to the attacks and build a unified base to win. But to many in the media, they saw it as a disturbing, angry message of revenge.
At CNN, for example, Jamie Gangel took offense to Trump, who survived the assassination attempt by millimeters. “I think what we’re hearing from people is that’s not the message that we want to be sending right now. We want to tamp it down,” she said.
This is what Gangel said on CNN Saturday night, about four hours after the shooting:
“I do want to say there was one thing that, when I watched the tape, I found odd because of all of the heated rhetoric. And that is that after he was hit, former President Trump got up and said, ‘Fight, fight, fight.’ I think what we’re hearing from people is that’s not the message that we want to be sending right now. We want to tamp it down.”
Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “I’m sorry, not, that Trump didn’t display the correct decorum to satisfy Gangel a minute after getting shot and barely escaping alive in an assassination attempt. That Gangel’s first instinct was to attack the words of the victim shows the distorted worldview of CNN, where Trump and MAGA are the threats to democracy which must be suppressed.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.
■ July 8: Liberal Media Scream: Welker pushes Meet the Press even further left
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest demonstration that NBC Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, in the anchor seat for less than a year, has pushed the show further left than Chuck Todd left it.
This Sunday, it was Welker using her trademark practice of beating her point into the ground in demanding another Republican to “accept the election results,” which she obviously believes will show President Joe Biden reelected.
Her target was Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), on former President Donald Trump’s short list of running mates.
“Can you say unequivocally, unequivocally here and now, that you will accept the results of the 2024 election no matter what they are?” she asked, ignoring warnings from the FBI about election hanky panky and some of the problems found in the 2020 ballot casting.
When Vance said he’s hoping for a clean election, Welker said he was signaling that the election won’t be fair. He fired back that it is the media’s blindness to problems that is the threat to the election outcome, not a candidate’s hope for problem-free elections.
“What I think actually undermines people’s confidence in the electoral system is when the media is incurious about obvious examples of problems in our electoral system,” Vance said.
From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC:
KRISTEN WELKER: Well, here we are about a week before the Republican convention. Before I let you go, can you say unequivocally, unequivocally here and now, that you will accept the results of the 2024 election no matter what they are?
SEN. J.D. VANCE [R-OH]: So long as it’s a free and fair election, Kristen, of course we will. We will use constitutional processes to challenge issues if we think there are issues. But if it’s a free and fair election, we will do what the Constitution requires. We will respect the results. And I expect those results are going to be to reelect Donald Trump.
WELKER: It was a free and fair election in 2020. Donald Trump took his concerns to court. He lost in court. But he still has not conceded. Do you understand that when you refuse to commit unequivocally, that feeds into people’s concerns, skepticism about the nation’s electoral process?
VANCE: Well, Kristen, I don’t agree with that actually. I think that feeding into people’s concerns about our electoral process is that one-half of America’s political segment, they won’t support legislation that makes it harder for illegal aliens to vote. They won’t support universal voter ID in our elections even though you have to present ID to do almost anything in this country. I think taking people’s concerns seriously about election fraud is the way to reinforce security and confidence in our elections.
WELKER: Yes, senator, it’s already against the law for noncitizens to vote. But just on that very point, when you, when others refuse to say, “Yes, we will accept the election results,” do you understand how that undermines people’s confidence in the electoral system?
VANCE: But, Kristen, what I just said is I don’t agree with that. What I think actually undermines people’s confidence in the electoral system is when the media is incurious about obvious examples of problems in our electoral system. I think we’ve got great elections, but a lot of things could be better in certain states. I want to work to make that happen so the American people have greater confidence in their elections. That’s what I’ll keep doing.
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Welker has managed to make Meet the Press more of a vehicle for the agenda of liberals than it was under Chuck Todd. Every week, it seems, she acts as a thought police operative, demanding Republican guests pay fealty to the Democratic media party line on how elections cannot be questioned, trying to undermine their very legitimacy as elected officials. In Vance’s case, she distorted his answer to appear the opposite of what it was so she could lecture him about his improper thinking.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.
■ July 1: Liberal Media Scream: NBC’s Welker lies about ‘lies,’ can’t stand truthful Republicans
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features President Joe Biden’s media cheerleading squad trying to find some way to divert the public’s attention away from the fact that the president was out of it during last week’s debate with former President Donald Trump.
The top tactic of the liberal press was to say that Trump told more “lies” than the comatose president. And when Republicans pushed back, the media just ignored and pressed on.
Case in point was NBC’s Kristen Welker, the Meet the Press anchor. One of her featured guests was Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), who is on Trump’s short list of running mate candidates. Not only did she press him on whether he was a liar, she told lies about debate statements Trump made that have been fact-checked as truthful.
“As someone who is on Donald Trump’s short list to be his vice presidential nominee, do you think he should stop saying things that are not true?” She then recited his supposed lies: “Just to say a few: He said that Democrats want to kill infants after birth. That’s not true. He again lied about widespread fraud. Not true. He lied about his comments after Charlottesville. Should he be truthful with the American people if he wants to lead this country? Especially given what you just said that you never lie. That’s your standard, governor.”
But Democrats certainly do support allowing abortion up until birth and even death to newborns. That was clearly stated by former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, himself a pediatric neurologist. And liberal reporters love misquoting Trump’s “good people on both sides” comment about the demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, but it has been debunked, and he was not referring to Nazis as one of the “both” sides.
From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC:
GOV. DOUG BURGUM: Four years ago, when we ended up with the current ticket on the Democrat side, that was this grand devil’s bargain of “everybody drop out, we’re going with these two.” Then, the biggest lie that has been foisted on the American public was seen on Thursday night. People can’t un-see what they saw. What they saw was, we’ve been told by the White House, two weeks ago, the White House was attacking journalists, including your friends, saying that no, you can’t say these stories about that Joe Biden isn’t capable of serving right now. And then, all of America saw it. And you know who else saw it? Our adversaries saw it. Putin saw it. Xi saw it. The ayatollah saw it. I mean, the nation — we keep talking about elections. We are at a greater national security risk today than we were on Thursday because the commander in chief showed that he’s not capable of serving.
KRISTEN WELKER: Well, there’s not proof of that, but governor, let me just ask you about the debate and a little bit more of what we saw. By one count, Donald Trump made more than 30 false claims during that debate. I want to play something you told my colleague Chuck Todd on this broadcast last year. Take a look.
CHUCK TODD: You ever lied in politics?
BURGUM: No.
TODD: That you know of? You don’t believe you’ve ever lied?
BURGUM: No.
TODD: You feel like you’ve always told the truth as you understood it?
BURGUM: Absolutely. That’s how I was raised and how I’ve gone forward.
WELKER: As someone who is on Donald Trump’s short list to be his vice presidential nominee, do you think he should stop saying things that are not true?
BURGUM: I think the whole manufactured thing this morning of, that Donald Trump has said something that he hasn’t said before, I mean, everything that he said on Thursday night he’s been saying before. I mean, so this isn’t, this is not news.
WELKER: This is not manufactured. But this is not manufactured, governor. I mean, just to say a few: He said that Democrats want to kill infants after birth. That’s not true. He again lied about widespread fraud. Not true. He lied about his comments after Charlottesville. Should he be truthful with the American people if he wants to lead this country? Especially given what you just said that you never lie. That’s your standard, governor.
Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Welker is so sure of herself, so smugly superior that she can rattle off a list of supposed lies from Donald Trump without any self-awareness that she is passing on distortions of what Trump said while she demands Gov. Burgum criticize Trump for not being truthful. And then, when Burgum makes a perfectly reasonable observation, she corrects him with the ‘there’s not proof of that’ bromide. Pot, meet kettle.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.
■ June 24: Liberal Media Scream: CNN proves anti-Trump bias days before debate
(Washington Examiner post)
And just like that, CNN showed its anti-Trump bias on Monday, just three days before hosting the first debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, proving Republicans correct in complaining that the debate would be an ambush.
It came early Monday morning when anchor Kasie Hunt was hosting Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt. At the time, Secrets was considering the week’s choices for the Liberal Media Scream feature with Brent Baker of the Media Research Center.
Stories about the strong anti-Trump bias of co-debate moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper started to appear over the weekend, so it wasn’t unexpected that Leavitt would criticize them. Readers may recall that CNN and Trump have an antagonistic relationship, highlighted when CNN host Jim Acosta tussled with Trump during a press conference five years ago.
When Leavitt hit CNN’s bias, Hunt, who often includes Republicans on her show, wouldn’t hear of it, shut off her guest’s microphone, and kicked Trump’s spokeswoman off the air. The two traded tweets afterward, but the damage was done and led to a piling on by those upset with Hunt’s liberal bias, including Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) wife, who noted that Hunt called the story about an attack on the senator one of her “favorite stories.”
So, for her actions, Hunt wins our Liberal Media Scream of the week with a rating of five out of five screams.
From Monday’s CNN This Morning:
KAROLINE LEAVITT: Well, President Trump is well prepared ahead of Thursday’s debates. Unlike Joe Biden, he doesn’t have to hide away and have his advisers tell him what to say. President Trump knows what he wants to say, and he’s going to relay his vision to the American people to make this country strong, safe, secure, and wealthy again. He’s been doing that across this great nation, to all corners of this country.
That’s why he was in Detroit, Michigan, last week. He was in Philadelphia for a big rally on Saturday night, and that’s why President Trump is knowingly going into a hostile environment on this very network, on CNN, with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known over the past eight years in their biased coverage of him. So President Trump is willing to bring his message to every corner of this country, to voters, to ensure that he wins this election in November. He looks forward to doing that, and I know the American public looks forward to hearing from him.
KASIE HUNT: So, I’ll just say my colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, have acquitted themselves as professional as they have covered campaigns and interviewed candidates from all sides of the aisle. I’ll also say that if you talk to analysts at debates previous, that if you’re attacking the moderators, you’re usually losing. So, I really want to focus on what these two men are going to do and say when they stand on the stage. Now, we have a little bit of what Donald Trump, your boss, has said in t
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