An illegal immigrant can now practice law in California, and CNN marginalized the controversy on Friday's New Day by giving new lawyer Sergio Garcia a soft interview with little voice from his critics.
After reporting that the state's supreme court ruled in Garcia's favor, co-host John Berman congratulated Garcia and asked him to share "what this decision means to you, personally." CNN prodded him to expound on the importance of his victory.
John Berman
By Matt Hadro | January 3, 2014 | 10:55 AM EST
By Matt Hadro | November 14, 2013 | 4:54 PM EST
After President Obama's Thursday press conference on his ObamaCare "fix," CNN's John Berman declared the ObamaCare debate over and pushed Republicans to cooperate in fixing it.
"That was the debate from 2010 and the plan passed. Now it's about implementing this plan. Good or bad, at this point," he lectured GOP guest Rich Galen, who had criticized ObamaCare's "complex and top-down, top-heavy system."
By Matt Hadro | June 25, 2013 | 1:27 PM EDT
17 hours after CNN first reported that the IRS targeted liberal groups as well as conservative groups, it finally offered the Republican side of the story, that Tea Party groups received even more scrutiny than "progressive" and "Occupy" groups.
Correspondent Dana Bash first broke the story during Monday's 5 p.m. ET hour of The Situation Room that according to a document dump, the IRS included groups with the terms "progressive" and "Occupy" along with Tea Party groups in its "Be On the Lookout" watch list. What Bash failed to note is that, according to one 2010 list, information on Tea Party groups was still instructed to be sent to higher authorities in Washington D.C. for further scrutiny.
By Brent Bozell | April 20, 2013 | 8:17 AM EDT
President Obama suffered a large, embarrassing loss in the Senate on a slew of gun-control bills. If this were a Republican president, they’d be sounding the lame-duck alarms on the nightly newscasts. But most media outlets can’t do this. They were fully invested in this campaign alongside Obama, and to underscore his weakness is to acknowledge their own.
Since mid-December, the broadcast networks and cable news hosts like Piers Morgan and Joe Scarborough have relentlessly lobbied for gun control. On how many occasions did they completely shred the notion of objectivity -- of journalism itself -- and boldly engage in lobbying for gun control, using their networks as megaphones? Let’s consider a few recent moments.
By Matt Hadro | April 4, 2013 | 6:20 PM EDT
CNN joined the New York Times in hyping Ronald Reagan's liberal activist daughter saying her father would have approved of same-sex marriage. Thursday's Starting Point devoted a whole segment to Patti Davis' claims and hosted her openly-gay friend who gave credence to her argument.
"Patti said she never spoke to her father about gay marriage," reported anchor John Berman. Nevertheless, CNN deemed the post-mortem claims of Regan's liberal activist daughter, who dropped her last name while in college and carved her own liberal path, newsworthy.
By Matt Hadro | March 7, 2013 | 5:33 PM EST
CNN harped on the controversy over Fox News head Roger Ailes calling President Obama "lazy" and Vice President Biden "dumb as an ashtray." The network covered it on five shows on Wednesday and Thursday, but three of the shows ignored that Ailes used Obama's own words.
In making the "lazy" remark, Ailes cited a 2011 interview with Barbara Walters where Obama said that "deep down, underneath all the work that I do, I think there's a laziness in me." Erin Burnett was the only CNN anchor to promptly give that context in her report; on Thursday's Starting Point, conservative panel member Will Cain first brought it up, and co-host John Berman affirmed it.
By Matt Hadro | January 4, 2013 | 11:21 AM EST
Vice President Joe Biden can do little wrong in CNN's eyes. Friday's Starting Point whitewashed his telling the husband of an incoming U.S. Senator to "Spread your legs; you're going to be frisked" at Thursday's swearing-in ceremony on Capitol Hill.
Instead, the morning show touted Biden comforting the fretting young daughter of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). "He was a one-man comedy act yesterday, the Vice President was. Love it," gushed co-host John Berman.
By Matt Hadro | November 29, 2012 | 2:14 PM EST
Once again, CNN pressed a Republican to support income tax hikes. On Thursday, Starting Point co-hosts Brooke Baldwin and John Berman tried to paint GOP opposition to tax increases as at odds with the American people and a financial expert.
"So here is one of the biggest guys in finance on the planet saying that maybe a tax rate increase should be part of a deal. Does he have a point? Can't it be part of a deal?" pushed Berman. He cited the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, who said he "wouldn't preclude" the President's plan to raise tax rates.
By Brent Baker | October 23, 2012 | 8:56 AM EDT
“The high point of that debate for Romney is when he devastatingly leveled the charge of Obama going around the world on ‘an apology tour,’” Charles Krauthammer asserted on the Fox News Channel following Monday night’s third presidential debate. But what Krauthammer saw as so powerful for Mitt Romney, ABC and CNN tried to discredit based on the flimsy reasoning that Obama didn’t use the word “apologize.”
ABC’s Jonathan Karl insisted: “The President didn’t apologize for America...there’s no way you could really call it ‘an apology tour.’” With a big “False” on screen, CNN’s John Berman decided: “Our verdict here is it is false to call the President’s speeches ‘an apology tour’ even if he was critical of past U.S. foreign policy. He issued no apologies.”
By Matt Hadro | September 21, 2012 | 6:44 PM EDT
President Obama basically admitted failure when he said that Washington cannot be changed "from the inside," but CNN tried to explain his gaffe on Friday's Early Start while later dumping on Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks.
CNN's John Berman insisted "I know what he [Obama] is trying to say there" and political director Mark Preston argued that "What President Obama said was correct." In contrast, Berman later swung at Romney by saying "I think the 47 percent is more than just another gaffe or misspeak."
By Matt Hadro | August 28, 2012 | 8:44 PM EDT
CNN's John Berman, reporting live from the floor of the GOP convention, asked a Louisiana delegate if it wasn't "inappropriate" for the Republican Party to continue the convention on Tuesday night with Hurricane Isaac set to make landfall in Louisiana.
"There's been a lot of talk about whether it's appropriate at all for Republicans to be having this convention tonight, these festivities. Do you feel like there's any issue there?" he asked.
By Matt Hadro | August 14, 2012 | 4:08 PM EDT
Instead of fact-checking President Obama's dishonest attack on Paul Ryan for blocking a farm bill, CNN simply reported it three times on Tuesday morning. Correspondent Brianna Keilar actually repeated the false attack in her own words.
"[T]hey [the House] failed to pass a bill for drought relief, which as you know is huge right now because of all of the farmers, all of the cattle ranchers who are suffering through this terrible drought in the Midwest," Keilar said, ignoring that the House did pass a different drought relief bill and Ryan voted for it.