On Monday's New Day, several CNN regulars hurled attacks at GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee for his characterization of President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran as "marching" the Israelis "to the door of the oven." Words like "ugly," "dangerous," and "despicable and terrible," were thrown at Huckabee's comments across two segments.
Iran
By Tom Blumer | July 25, 2015 | 10:41 AM EDT
I'm virtually certain that he wouldn't dream of it, but the Associated Press's Josh Lederman seriously needs to consider correcting two extremely embarrassing paragraphs he wrote in his coverage of President Obama's appearance on Jon Stewart's Daily Show earlier this week.
At the 15:03 mark of the Comedy Central video following the jump, Obama treated Stewart as if he's a legitimate journalist, telling him that "It's not your job to focus on the three-quarters of a loaf or half a loaf that we get. Your job is to point out what we still haven't gotten." Actually, after enduring the video, it seems far more correct to say that Stewart's job was to make it look like he was challenging Obama by giving him a bit of grief several minutes earlier about the still-scandalous situation at the Veterans Administration, and then to give him a virtual open mic the rest of the way. But I digress.
By Kyle Drennen | July 24, 2015 | 4:49 PM EDT
While Matt Lauer pressed Secretary of State John Kerry on the Iran nuclear deal during an interview on Friday’s NBC Today, the co-host did allow Kerry to continue to make false claims about the policy without challenge.
By Scott Whitlock | July 24, 2015 | 11:02 AM EDT
The co-hosts of CBS This Morning on Friday ganged up on Marco Rubio and pushed the idea that the Senator should just give up opposing Barack Obama's deal with Iran. Co-host Norah O'Donnell lectured, "You heard Secretary Kerry say it's a fantasy to think you can just bomb away Iran's knowledge." She later reminded, "Senator, the deal now has the unanimous support of the UN Security Council. You heard the Saudi foreign minister as well say that they support this deal." O'Donnell pestered Rubio as to whether he had enough votes to override a presidential veto.
By Tim Graham | July 24, 2015 | 10:22 AM EDT
The New York Times has repeatedly demonstrated that protesters they like are far more newsworthy than protesters they don’t like. The number of protesters doesn’t really matter at all. Five years ago, they reported a whole story on four (count them on one hand) illegal-alien protesters for amnesty. A few months later, they repeated it with a whole story on five protesters.
But on Wednesday, thousands (as many as 12,000) flooded Times Square a few blocks north of the newspaper’s offices to protest President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, and the Times buried that in one paragraph -- paragraph 15 -- of a Thursday story headlined “Campaign for Congressional Backing of Iran Nuclear Deal Begins.”
By Curtis Houck | July 23, 2015 | 9:36 PM EDT
While English-networks ABC and NBC combined with Spanish-language networks MundoFox, Telemundo, and Univision on Thursday night to skip testimony from Secretary of State John Kerry in a Senate hearing on the Iran deal, CBS covered it in a news brief, but only summarized it and ignored false statements by Kerry as he faced criticism from both sides of the aisle. In contrast, the FNC's Special Report not only had a full segment on the hearing, but a takedown of three claims by Kerry.
By Kyle Drennen | July 23, 2015 | 11:19 AM EDT
Despite the revelation on Wednesday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made secret side deals with Iran over nuclear weapons inspections and refused to disclose the details to the U.S. Congress, NBC, ABC, and CBS all ignored the story. By contrast, FNC’s Special Report led with the news as anchor Bret Baier informed viewers “there is word tonight of a separate covert deal between the Islamic Republic and the U.N.’s nuclear team. Two of them, in fact, that are not going to be shared with members of Congress nor with you.”
By Mark Finkelstein | July 23, 2015 | 8:39 AM EDT
Ouch: this one's going to leave a mark. Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton has said that "John Kerry acted like Pontius Pilate, he washed his hands" on crucial issues in the Iran deal and left it to the IAEA to negotiate secret side deals with Iran on them.
Cotton made his remarks on today's Morning Joe. It might be a mark of the regard, or lack thereof, in which Kerry is held that no one on the panel rose to his defense. Harold Ford, Jr. was given the floor immediately after Cotton spoke, and blithely inquired only if Kerry would be asked about these issues in his Senate testimony. A bit later in the show, Dem Sen. Tim Kaine appeared. Kaine presumably either watched or was briefed on Cotton's statement, but made not a peep to push back on the Pontius Pilate analogy.
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 21, 2015 | 10:34 AM EDT
On Tuesday’s CBS This Morning, Senator Lindsey Graham blasted President Obama over the Iranian nuclear deal and called him “the Neville Chamberlain of our time,” which caused host Charlie Rose to sharply react: “Neville Chamberlain? Appeasement?”
By Connor Williams | July 20, 2015 | 3:39 PM EDT
Sunday on Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter brought Jay Carney and John King to the program to discuss CBS reporter Major Garrett’s controversial question to President Obama about Iran. Garrett asked the president whether he could be content with the Iran deal knowing that there were four hostages still in Iran.
Carney hit Garrett, calling him “pompous” and deeming his question “offensive.” The long time White House press secretary for the Obama administration said “he understood why the president took offense.” noting it was a “poorly chosen word” on Garrett’s part.
By Matthew Balan | July 17, 2015 | 1:40 PM EDT
On Friday's New Day, CNN's Alisyn Camerota set up Michael Douglas to sing the praises of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran. Camerota asked, "This week was the historic deal with Iran that...reportedly, will cut down on nuclear proliferation. Are you convinced by this deal?" Douglas replied by going after the critics of the deal: "I think it's just so presumptuous of everybody to jump on this...negatively. I see the positive aspects of it."
By Mark Finkelstein | July 17, 2015 | 8:29 AM EDT
Andrea Mitchell had the chance to ask John Kerry, on live national TV, any question she wanted about the Iran deal. She could, for example, have confronted him over the lifting of the conventional arms and ballistic missile embargoes that were included as a nice little parting gift to Iran.
Instead, in a moment of media malpractice, Mitchell lobbed up the mushiest of softballs on today's Morning Joe, asking Kerry "what that moment meant to you" when at the final negotiation meeting, he reminisced about going to Vietnam as a 22-year old "and that you never wanted to go to war without having exhausted the diplomacy." A shame Andrea and John weren't in the same room so they could have exchanged a heartfelt hug.