Amidst their ongoing coverage Wednesday night of the terror attacks in Paris, the major broadcast networks failed to report on news that five Syrians had been arrested in the Central American country of Honduras with stolen Greek passports and intended to travel to the U.S.
Government & Press
By Michael McKinney | November 18, 2015 | 11:27 AM EST
Morning Joe on Wednesday discussed the recent remarks by President Obama on Republicans who are “afraid of orphans and widows.” When the discussion turned to David Ignatius for commentary, he gave a defense of Obama. Scarborough would press Ignatius with on using "the widows and orphans" to antagonize Republican governors. While Ignatius conceded there is always room to correct the words used, he thought the President was on point.
By Curtis Houck | November 18, 2015 | 7:35 AM EST
As the police shootout and standoff early Wednesday morning in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis, France was in its contentious moments, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and guest Julien Theron couldn’t help but fret about how the standoff was helping to “literally stok[e] the fires of the far right, anti-immigrant, anti-immigration, xenophobic parties” in Europe.
By Curtis Houck | November 18, 2015 | 7:17 AM EST
In a welcome change of pace for MSNBC programming on Tuesday night, liberal primetime host Rachel Maddow was given the night off in favor of NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, who anchored the network’s 9:00 p.m. Eastern coverage of the Paris Islamic terror attacks and closed with a brief but astute commentary on how it’s doubtful that Paris will change the global ISIS strategy.
By Curtis Houck | November 17, 2015 | 10:18 PM EST
In a combative exchange that aired on the Tuesday edition of ABC’s World News Tonight, chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl hinted to Republican Senator Ted Cruz (Tex.) that he was “un-American” for suggesting that only Syrian refugees who are Christian should be admitted the United States while a moratorium would be placed on those that are Muslim.
By Curtis Houck | November 17, 2015 | 8:52 PM EST
On Tuesday night, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC saw no reason to inform their viewers of Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion that he could recognize there having been a “rationale” and “particularized focus” for Islamic terrorists to carry out the January attacks in Paris on the offices of Charlie Hebdo but not for the “indiscriminate” attacks that occurred in the very same city on Friday.
By Michael McKinney | November 17, 2015 | 1:56 PM EST
Morning Joe featured on Tuesday, an interview with Congressman Peter King. Early into the segment, Mika Brzezinski began a war of words with Congressman King. After Brzezinski introduced the topic, King stated, “I'm extremely concerned because what the President is telling us is not true.” Brzezinski interrupted the Congressman, saying that “there is vetting,” and arguing that he was wrong. What followed was a tense segment where the Morning Joe crew questioned King on his statements and his argument’s credibility.
By Michael McKinney | November 16, 2015 | 4:38 PM EST
Monday’s The View featured a segment with Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant and former Clinton and Bush national security staffer. Clarke iterated that “We are a country of refugees. The people we're allowing in are the victims of terrorism. We shouldn't punish victims of terrorism.” When Paula Faris brought up that Marco Rubio said “you can't do a background check on a lot of these refugees. You just can't call someone up in Syria because it's hard to track them down,” Clarke got personal against Rubio.
By Michael McKinney | November 16, 2015 | 12:17 PM EST
Monday’s Morning Joe began with an evaluation of the actions of the White House prior to and after the attack on Paris Friday night. Joe Scarborough began by demanding to know if the roundtable thought the President actually looked involved and engaged in understanding “the level of threat.” When Mike Barnicle tried to claim the President “looks fully engaged,” Scarborough felt it necessary to confront him on it.
By Curtis Houck | November 14, 2015 | 10:53 PM EST
After being pushed by The Des Moines Register’s Kathie Obradovich during Saturday’s Democratic debate about his flip-flopping on Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal, socialist Bernie Sanders denied the idea that he had backtracked from his “damn e-mails” comment in the October 13 debate. Instead, Sanders attacked the notion as “media stuff” and emphasized that he’s “still sick and tired of Hillary Clinton's e-mails.”
By Curtis Houck | November 14, 2015 | 9:29 PM EST
A special Saturday edition of Fox News Channel’s Special Report aired due to the terror attacks 24 hours earlier in Paris with a panel of The Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes, U.S. News & World Report’s David Catanese, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. Collectively, the panel had a variety of takes, ranging from slamming the Democratic presidential candidates for seeming “very small” after the attacks to observing that the U.S. has not “done whatever it takes” to stop ISIS.
By Curtis Houck | November 14, 2015 | 6:58 PM EST
Opining on HBO’s Real Time on Friday’s Islamic terror attacks in Paris, former MSNBC host and liberal activist Dylan Ratigan explained that the reason Islamist extremists despise the United States and Western Civilization (and thus carry out attacks) is due to U.S. “financ[ing] the capital flow into Saudi Arabia” that cause poor Muslims to commit such atrocities against innocent people in the West.