CNN did a 180 in its coverage of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter attacking Donald Trump as an "asshole" on Tuesday over the presidential candidate's controversial proposal to ban Muslim immigration to the U.S. On Tuesday's OutFront, Erin Burnett spotlighted how the Democratic mayor "spoke out" against Trump with his crass term Burnett's program ran the soundbite of Nutter uncensored, and an on-screen graphic trumpeted, "Philadelphia Mayor: Trump's An 'Asshole'". Just over 24 hours later, Anderson Cooper confronted the outgoing mayor on his CNN program on Wednesday over the crude retort.
Anderson Cooper
By Matthew Balan | December 1, 2015 | 4:23 PM EST
CNN's Gary Tuchman, on Monday's Anderson Cooper 360, played up that to "the perpetual sadness of the employees" of a New Jersey abortion facility, "their building is a target." He also let the center's executive director and communications director smear all pro-lifers as potential terrorists. Cooper set the tone of the report with a graphic that ran during his lead-in, which showed pictures of pro-life demonstrators with the caption: "Threats, Violence, And Security."
By Matthew Balan | December 1, 2015 | 1:18 PM EST
On Monday's AC360, CNN's Randi Kaye played up how the hidden camera videos from the Center for Medical Progress triggered "anger-filled rhetoric" from the Republican presidential candidates in the months before the Colorado shootings. Kaye touted that CMP's David Daleiden "told CNN that...he did get creative with the video — admitting that it was edited — a critical detail that seemed to be lost on all the GOP candidates." This, of course, ignores the hours of footage that does show Planned Parenthood officials "bargaining, negotiating, pricing, and arranging the sales of body parts," according to her network's own reporting.
By Brad Wilmouth | November 30, 2015 | 11:47 PM EST
As Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards appeared as a guest on Monday's Anderson Cooper 360, host Cooper prodded her to "directly link the rhetoric" coming from GOP presidential candidates to the Colorado Spring shooting spree after she complained about "hateful rhetoric" being aimed at the abortion provider.
When she declined to make such a direct accusation, Cooper pressed her a second time, wondering if she believes "some of the language" has "led to violence."
By Matthew Balan | November 16, 2015 | 5:15 PM EST
On Monday, CNN's Christiane Amanpour and two of her network's analysts blasted President Obama moments after he ended a press conference where he defended his anti-ISIS strategy. Amanpour underlined that Obama "something that was pretty incredible...that our strategy is working. People do not believe that to be the case. The only strategy that's working is the strategy that he tends to dismiss — and that's the ground troop strategy. Sinjar, Tikrit, Kobani — those are the only ISIS strongholds that have been taken back by a combination of American intelligence and air power, and local ground forces."
By Brad Wilmouth | October 30, 2015 | 12:39 AM EDT
Appearing as a guest on Thursday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen admitted that GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio "had a point" during the debate in calling out the media for ignoring Hillary Clinton's "clear inconsistency" in her Benghazi story, conceding that he had also joined in the media chorus focusing on "praising her performance."
But the CNN analyst then absurdly excused the media's behavior by blaming Republicans who "told us that this was a rigged process" for causing the media "naturally" to "look at it through that lens." Gergen did not mention that neither of the two Republicans who hinted at politics in the Benghazi investigation was even on the Benghazi committee.
By Brad Wilmouth | October 29, 2015 | 12:54 AM EDT
On Wednesday's Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, host Anderson Cooper and Senior Investigative Correspondent Drew Griffin called out Hillary Clinton for claiming that the VA's backlog problems have "not been as widespread as it has been made out to be," as Griffin asserted that her words "stunned a lot of people," and that veterans he spoke to, on both sides of the political divide, "None of them, I should say, Anderson, are happy that she's tried to make this a political issue."
By Matthew Balan | October 22, 2015 | 12:34 PM EDT
Tuesday's Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN revealed that "wait times inside many V.A. health facilities are growing longer, not shorter. Right now, a half million veterans are...waiting, in many cases, more than 90 days to see a doctor." Drew Griffin uncovered documents that "just this past August in Phoenix, there were more than 8,000 appointments waiting more than 90 days." Griffin pointed out that this is "the same Phoenix V.A. where last year, CNN uncovered the fact that veterans were dying while waiting for care."
By Curtis Houck | October 22, 2015 | 12:59 AM EDT
Previewing Hillary Clinton’s testimony Thursday morning before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 did their best on Wednesday to paint the most flattering picture possible of Clinton being “battle tested” with “steady nerves” despite “withering attacks” and the ability to turn “even a hot seat, if not comfortable, at least cooler.”
By Matthew Balan | October 20, 2015 | 3:41 PM EDT
On Monday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN's Drew Griffin hounded David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress over his insertion of outside footage into his undercover videos that targeted Planned Parenthood's sale of aborted babies' organs and tissue. Griffin underlined to Daleiden that "the problem people are having is, that this is not an aborted child...that does seem very deceptive to me." He also played up that "the confusion of David Daleiden's sloppy edits has made its way into the Republican presidential race."
By Randy Hall | October 14, 2015 | 6:49 PM EDT
After the Tuesday night debate of five Democratic presidential candidates in the 2016 campaign, Jorge Ramos -- a Mexican-American journalist with the Fusion multi-platform media company -- interviewed Debbie Wasserman Schultz and in the process asked the the Democratic National Committee chairwoman why her party “lacked diversity” in the candidates on the stage.
“When I was watching the debate, what I was thinking was the Democratic Party lacked diversity,” Ramos said. “I didn’t see a Latino, or an African-American, or an Asian on that stage.”
By Mark Finkelstein | October 14, 2015 | 7:30 AM EDT
Wow: an MSMer who not only has "many" conservative friends, but is willing to admit it on live national TV?
On today's Morning Joe, in the course of praising Anderson Cooper's performance as debate moderator, Geist let drop that prior to the debate "many of my conservative friends" thought CNN would go easy on the Dems, but that five minutes in, they told him "oh, I guess he's not going to go easy."