CNN's Chris Cuomo again acted as a liberal activist on Wednesday's New Day during a panel discussion on Donald Trump's controversial plan to ban Muslim immigration to the U.S. Cuomo asserted that it was the Republican presidential candidates' "moment to step up and say how they are different on this particular issue," because, in his view, "Republicans are reaping what they've sown. You know, they went heavy on opposition, heavy on negativity...And now, you have somebody who really embodies that in Donald Trump."
Islam
By Brad Wilmouth | December 9, 2015 | 1:19 PM EST
Appearing on Wednesday's New Day on CNN to discuss reaction in other countries to Donald Trump's proposal to ban immigration into the U.S. by Muslims, CNN Senior International Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh described Trump supporters as being a "radical part of a wing" that is similar to "the same radical ideology ISIS is to the Muslim faith."
By Scott Whitlock | December 9, 2015 | 12:01 PM EST
Good Morning America’s Matt Gutman on Wednesday feared that angry Americans will lash out with violence in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting and Donald Trump’s comments about Muslims. The segment also highlighted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Just as with CBS on Monday, the group’s extremist views weren’t mentioned.
By Tom Blumer | December 9, 2015 | 11:58 AM EST
In an announcement which deservedly carries far less weight than it has in the past, Time Magazine (1997 circulation, 4.2 million; current circuation, 3.3 million) has named German chancellor Angela Merkel its 2015 Person of the Year.
The stated reason for her selection: "Not once or twice but three times this year there has been reason to wonder whether Europe could continue to exist, not culturally or geographically but as a historic experiment in ambitious statecraft." Time believes that Merkel saved the day each time. It seems highly unlikely that she would have risen to the top of the pack without the third item the magazine's Nancy Gibbs cited, namely Merkel's open-borders acceptance of migrants erroneously described as "refugees" dozens of times in its various supporting articles.
Blogger Josh Marshall: Fox News a Major Reason Why Much of the GOP Base Is ‘Awash in Racism and Xenophobic Hysteria’
By Tom Johnson | December 9, 2015 | 11:56 AM EST A lot of people (not all of them liberals) consider Donald Trump a demagogue, but Talking Points Memo editor and publisher Marshall thinks Trump is as much of a collaborator as he is a leader. In Marshall’s telling, Trump’s invective derives in large part from an audience that’s been primed by Fox News’s nonstop emission of “hate, lies, nonsense and febrile fear.”
By Curtis Houck | December 9, 2015 | 3:14 AM EST
As part of NBC Nightly News’s five segments on Tuesday obsessing over Donald Trump’s proposed ban on all Muslims entering the United States, the program turned to former anchor Tom Brokaw to end the show with a commentary comparing Trump to Nazism, McCarthyism, and opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. In the three teases proceeding Brokaw’s editorial, current anchor Lester Holt promised that Brokaw would discuss “the politics of fear” and the “harsh,” “ugly lessons about fear and marginalizing groups of people.”
By Curtis Houck | December 9, 2015 | 2:15 AM EST
Seeking to crack a few jokes and draw a moral equivalency and lump together Islamophobia and liberal stereotypes of conservatives, Tuesday’s Daily Show featured host Trevor Noah and correspondent Hasan Minhaj quipping that “Donald Trump is white ISIS” and, because of that, we "should not allow any conservatives into the White House."
By Curtis Houck | December 8, 2015 | 10:16 PM EST
Acting as though the latest news the war against ISIS, new developments in the Hillary Clinton scandal or any other story barely existed, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC devoted a whopping 24 minutes and three seconds of their Tuesday evening newscasts to obsessing over Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States. Not surprisingly, NBC Nightly News led the way by spending nearly half its newscast on Trump with five segments adding up to 12 minutes and 34 seconds.
By Mark Finkelstein | December 8, 2015 | 8:50 PM EST
Call Ayman Mohyeldin "the Duke Ellington Reporter" in homage to the jazz great's "Don't Get Around Much Anymore." Or perhaps you could say that Mohyeldin had his Pauline Kael moment, after the New York Times movie critic who, as legend has it, averred she couldn't understand how Nixon won since she didn't know anyone who voted for him.
Isn't a reporter supposed to, you know, get around and speak with people with a range of views? Not Ayman. On this evening's Hardball, Mohyeldin said that "every single person I've spoke to" said [Trump's Muslim immigration plan] would be "disastrous." But just a bit earlier in the show, Michael Steele cited a poll showing that 56% of Americans believe that Islam is incompatible with American values. Mohyeldin apparently didn't have a chance to chat with any of the majority of Americans. Not surprising, coming from the man who called American Sniper Chris Kyle a "racist" who went on "killing sprees."
By Brad Wilmouth | December 8, 2015 | 8:23 PM EST
Appearing as a guest on MSNBC Live with Kate Snow, NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd tried to explain away a poll showing that most Americans have a negative view of Islam by chalking it up largely to a "lack of familiarity" with the religion, and declared that "unfamiliarity breeds the fear."
By Scott Whitlock | December 8, 2015 | 4:24 PM EST
In a segment attacking Donald Trump’s call to ban all Muslims from the United States, CBS This Morning’s Major Garrett on Tuesday hyped the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as an objective source on the subject who is hateful. Garrett began by saying of the businessman: “Trump cited polling data from the Center for Security Policy that he said indicated dangerous levels of anti–American sentiment among Muslims in the United States." With no mention of SPLC’s ideology, Garrett lectured, “The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups nationwide, described the head of the center, Frank Gaffney as, quote, "one of America's most notorious Islamophobes."
By Matthew Balan | December 8, 2015 | 1:49 PM EST
CNN, ABC, and CBS's morning newscasts on Tuesday all touted the Philadelphia Daily News's thinly-veiled comparison of Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler on their front page. On Good Morning America, George Stephanopoulos pointed out to Trump himself that the headline "says, 'The New Furor Over Donald Trump,' showing you raising your hand in a pretty demonstrative gesture." On New Day, CNN's Chris Cuomo held a picture of the front page on-camera: "You wound up on the Philadelphia Inquirer (sic) front page like Hitler! They got you in a personage of Hitler right now!"