Nicholas Fondacaro
Latest from Nicholas Fondacaro
In a statement to the press on Tuesday, President Trump declared that the United states would fight and win the battle against opioid addiction. Despite the fact that opioid overdoses killed tens of thousands last year, with 2017 on track to set a grim record, ABC and CBS skipped over Trump’s latest statement and new recommendations from his opioid commission. NBC was the only network in the Big Three to even mention them.
Come Monday, technology company Google was still reeling after an internal and controversial memo circulated by an employee went viral. The 10-page memo, which questioned the company’s diversity efforts, was the work of one person, but for CBS it meant a setback for all. “Tech-giant Google’s efforts to improve its image as a company that promotes diversity have been dealt a major setback, in the form of a memo from a male employee,” announced Anchor Anthony Mason during CBS Evening News.
Over the weekend, The New York Times claimed in an article that Vice President Mike Pence was running a “shadow campaign for 2020,” which brought a scathing rebuke from Pence and President Trump. But despite the denials from the White House, on Monday, ABC’s World News Tonight ran an entire segment about the idea, laying out the evidence and only briefly mentioning the Vice President’s reaction. And they were the only network evening newscast in the Big Three (ABC, CBS, and NBC) to give the non-story any significant time.
The theme of NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday was all about complaining how “broken” U.S. politics have become under President Trump. According to the stacked anti-Trump panel, most of the blame belongs to the “anti-intellectual” attitude of “the extreme of the right-wing.” In the mix, Hillary Clinton super-fan Andrea Mitchell couldn’t help but smear the Republicans who were critical of the failed Democratic nominee. Yet she found herself thanking Republican Senator Jeff Flake for standing up to those who chanted “lock her up.”
On Wednesday, two GOP Senators, with help from the White House, rolled out a new legal immigration proposal that put emphasis on certain merits to receive a green card. And as the Media Research Center reported later that night, the liberal media were up in arms. But CNN’s Fareed Zakaria took a different approach during his show Global Public Square on Sunday. According to him, the Democrats were the ones “out of touch” with the feelings of many Americans.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes invited former Vice President and climate alarmist Al Gore onto All In on Wednesday to promote his new climate change propaganda film. While on the show, Hayes invited Gore to hammer and smear the current White House. Gore went to an extremely dark place when he compared the administration was run to a bloody and brutal mass murder in the popular HBO series Game of Thrones.
Early Thursday morning, President Trump teased a big announcement that would be made at his campaign rally in West Virginia later in the day. The announcement leaked early and it was one liberals couldn’t stand: Jim Justice, the governor of the state, was changing his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. It’s rare for sitting governors to change their party affiliation, but that didn’t matter to ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News who ignored the news altogether.
MSNBC’s Chuck Todd spent the first 20 minutes on Wednesday’s MTP Daily complaining about the White House and its “credibility crisis.” “If it's Wednesday, we've come a long way from George Washington and that cherry tree. Tonight, the White House credibility crisis deepens,” he mocked, as he started his show after the administration was found to have misled on several occasions. “I would be fired for lying,” he lamented, noting how people are skeptical of the press.
At the White House on Wednesday the President rolled out a new legislative proposal to reform the current legal immigration system by having it focused on skilled labor and other merits. And as would be expected, the liberal media were foaming at the mouth over the new policy. Their disgust was obvious during ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News, where they smeared the move and touted irate outbursts from CNN’s Jim Acosta.
The highlight of CNN’s primetime lineup Tuesday was their Climate Change Crisis town hall where they teamed up with former Vice President and climate alarmist Al Gore to push his propaganda. “Consensus in the scientific community is clear. Sea levels are rising. The oceans are warming,” moderator Anderson Cooper declared as he started the program. The event became even more ridiculous when Gore equated getting people to believe him was like the Civil Rights movement, in that “it's just really a question of right and wrong.”
During Tuesday’s Special Report, Fox News Channel confirmed that the Pentagon had suspended their program that allowed certain immigrants hastened U.S. citizenship, the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI). “Lawmakers tell us the program has been, quote, "compromised." With reports that some enrollees are unaccounted for tonight and fears of foreign infiltration spreading across Capitol Hill,” announced Anchor Bret Baier at the top of the show.
At roughly nine o’clock Eastern Time Fox News Channel’s Ed Henry broke in with breaking news from the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. At the forum, CIA Director Mike Pompeo took to the stage slammed The New York Times for putting the life of an officer at risk. “We had a publication, you work for Bret, that published the name of an undercover officer at the Central Intelligence Agency. I find that unconscionable,” he angrily declared to the applause of the audience.
In the wake of President Trump’s interview with The New York Times, where he hammered his Attorney General and pressed on the Russia investigation, MSNBC’s Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber demonstrated that NBC can’t get its story straight. “And with regard to [Special Counsel] Mueller … just to be clear, neither the new FBI director nor the president has any ability to remove the special counsel,” Melber told colleague Katy Tur during Thursday’s MTP Daily. But just over a month earlier, their colleagues were freaking out about just that.
In a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, the United States Postal Service felt the heat of bipartisan scorn for decades of violations of federal election laws. “A new report tonight states that Postal Service employees were allowed to take leave from their jobs and still get paid as they campaigned for Hillary Clinton last year,” announced Fox News Channel Anchor Bret Baier during Special Report. Even in light of the report by the Postal Service’s oversight office, ABC, CBS, and NBC failed to inform their viewers.
On Wednesday, President Trump’s bipartisan Commission on Election Integrity, led by Vice President Mike Pence, assembled for the first time. The commission’s responsibility was to investigate possible election fraud and other election related criminal behavior. Despite the importance of this commission, ABC and NBC failed to give the commission any time at all during their evening broadcasts. CBS was the only network in the Big Three to mention it, but they were skeptical and mislead on its intentions.
The broadcast networks' obsession with all things Russia continues: Over the last ten days (July 9 to July 18, including weekends), the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts have devoted nearly two hours (114 minutes) to the ongoing probe of potential 2016 collusion -- far more airtime than they devoted to any other political topic.
Early Tuesday morning, the Trump administration issued new sanctions against well over a dozen Iranian citizens and organizations in retaliation for the county’s recent destabilizing and hostile actions in the region. CBS Evening News was the only network news outlet to report the new sanctions to their viewers. But in addition, they struck a skeptical tone on the administration’s claims against Iran as White House and Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent Margaret Brennan sat down to chat with Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Javad Zarif.
Republican hopes of repealing and replacing ObamaCare hit yet another brick wall in the Senate on Tuesday, effectively killing current efforts. While the other networks in the Big Three (ABC and NBC) remarked on the failure of action after seven years of promises, the reporting on CBS Evening News took on a mocking tone filled with glee. “They control the White House and the Congress, but Republicans could not deliver on the promise they've been making since the day ObamaCare became law: to repeal and replace it,” quipped Anchor Anthony Mason at the top of the program.
The Trump administration took swift action against two high ranking officials at the Manchester VA Medical Center in New Hampshire on Sunday. The firings came one day after The Boston Globe published a scathing expose on the atrocious conditions present at the VA hospital. But despite the horrendous conditions and the Trump administration’s decisive action, the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) ignored everything.
On Monday, the Iranian government handed down its twisted form of justice when they sentenced an American graduate student to 10 years in prison on spying allegations. “That sentence comes on the day President Trump is supposed to decide on a key matter concerning the nuclear deal with the Islamic republic,” announced Anchor Bret Baier on Fox News Channel’s Special Report. The Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) completely ignored the story, but they went gaga for a dog and a baby deer.