Nicholas Fondacaro
Latest from Nicholas Fondacaro
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews came out swinging, during Monday’s Hardball, against conservative radio host Mark Levin for being the source of President’s Donald Trump’s claim of having his tower wiretapped by the previous administration. The 71-year-old Matthews postured like a schoolyard bully, towards the top of his program, as he mocked Levin for the sound of his voice. “Well, that's a voice to be believed,” Matthews declared after playing an audio clip of Levin talking about Obama.
In a very ‘where have you been for the last month’ moment during MSNBC’s Meet the Press Daily on Monday, reporter Katy Tur actually argued with a guest that the media was not connecting the Trump campaign to Russian intelligence. “I don't think any news organization actually claimed that there were direct ties between the Trump campaign and Russian spies,” she snapped at Congressman Chris Stewart when he mentioned that fact.
NBC’s Chuck Todd took a firm stand during Sunday’s Meet the Press as he pushed accusations that Trump’s campaign was colluding with the Russian government. “Connecting the dots between the Trump campaign and Russia,” he declared during his opening tease, “The growing evidence of the Trump-Russia connection threatens to consume the opening months of Donald Trump's presidency.” Through all of his hyperbole, Todd failed to mention that there is no evidence of such collusion.
Things got super-heated on Sunday during ABC’s This Week, as the White House’s Principal Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders locked horns with Martha Raddatz over the media hypocrisy with selectively picking which anonymous sources they’ll run with. “Why does he believe these articles that you say you cite, and I'm saying, ‘they are not definitive.’” Raddatz chided, seemingly in disgust, “And Heat Street, they have two sources with links to the counterintelligence community. That's it. Anonymous sources.”
Appearing to be torn between declaring President Donald Trump a liar and wanting to peg the administration as Russian conspirators, NBC’s Sunday Today decided to mischaracterize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. “We're throwing around the term FISA court, FISA warrant. Let’s explain a little bit Jeremy, what that means,” explained anchor Willie Geist, “The Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, 1978, as you suggested in response to Nixonian domestic spying.”
While Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he would be recusing himself from having any hand in the FBI’s investigation into Russian election meddling Thursday afternoon, Congressional Democrats were calling for his resignation with claims he committed perjury in lying to the Senate. During CNN’s The Lead, host Jake Tapper appeared to presume Sessions’ guilt, stating, “This is in many ways a brand-new breaking news story, in other ways, it is the oldest story in Washington.”
It appeared that two of the Big Three networks smelled blood in the water Thursday evening as both ABC and NBC lent their aid to Congressional Democrats in their push to oust Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “Many lawmakers on both sides have been calling for Jeff sessions to recuse himself when the news of these meetings broke,” hyped ABC anchor David Muir during World News Tonight, “But tonight, Democratic leaders are going even further saying he should step down.” All because Democrats accuse Sessions of lying to the Senate about meetings with the Russian Ambassador.
In what seemed like an encore presentation of his praise for President Donald Trump’s new tone, CNN commentator Van Jones rang the alarm bells for his fellow liberals to warn them that they needed to take Trump seriously now. During Wednesday’s Anderson Cooper 360, he explained that so far the Democrats plan is “to put him on trial about protocol about politeness,” but cautioned that “He has run a movement based on pride and prosperity. It's a completely different appeal.”
CBS appeared to be short on negative stuff to complain about with President Donald Trump’s address to Congress, so during Wednesday’s CBS Evening News they whined that he didn’t talk about US foreign policy. “As poignant as his salute the Ryan Owens was, Mr. Trump did not mention other Americans fighting overseas, nor very much about foreign policy at all,” announced anchor Scott Pelley before handing it over to reporter Margaret Brennan.
From the man who infamously declared, on Election Night 2016, that Donald Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton was “whitelash” to a black president, CNN commentator Van Jones had a vastly different tone Tuesday night. The President’s address to a joint session of Congress was applauded by many for the emotional tone struck while speaking to the wife of slain Navy SEAL Ryan Owens; to which Jones declared “He became President of the United States in that moment. Period.”
CBS Evening News was steeped in mystery Tuesday as they hyped anonymous sources that suggested President Donald Trump was playing up the threat from the Middle East. “There is a controversy tonight inside U.S. intelligence over whether the Trump administration is exaggerating the threat from Muslim countries,” announced anchor Scott Pelley as he noted debate is encouraged, “But Jeff Pegues reports that this is different because some analysts believe they're being pressured to report the results that the White House wants to hear.”
Things got bizarre during NBC Nightly News on Monday when reporter Hallie Jackson seemed to suggest that President’s Donald Trump wealth somehow precluded him from increasing military spending. “The President who's talked plenty about his money now spending the taxpayers',” she chided while a clip of Trump talking about his money played, “In a new budget blueprint that's as much a political document as a financial one.”
Both ABC and NBC were desperately backing calls from partisan Democrats, Monday night, to have a special prosecutor investigate the Donald Trump’s campaign for evidence of collusion with Russia. But, took a liking to call from one particular Republican. “In Washington tonight, pressure is intensifying for an independent investigation on Russia, including a call from a leading Republican,” announced anchor Lester Holt during NBC Nightly News, “There's also new resistance to those calls by the White House.”
Things arguably got a little embarrassing for NBC moderator Chuck Todd during Sunday’s Meet the Press, after Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton had to explain to him that the claims of anonymous sources should be taken with a grain of salt. “Anonymous sources said Steve Bannon drove from the White House to the Department of Homeland Security to confront John Kelly, which we now know is not the truth,” Cotton reminded Todd, “That’s not like the tone of a conversation, that’s someone’s physical whereabouts.”
Things got painfully real for the liberal media during CNN’s New Day Sunday after Nick Adams, Founder of the Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness, called out the White House Correspondent’s Dinner for being “a Democratic Party worship center.” “But, I think that there's no reason for the President to go on this particular occasion,” Adams explained, after being asked if Trump should attend the lavish liberal event, “I know that it's a long-standing tradition, but in recent years it’s become a blight on the republic.”
White House Political Adviser Steve Bannon appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday where he discussed the importance of American culture, among other things. But that didn’t sit well with some of CNN’s political analysts; particularly with David Gregory, who condemned Bannon on Anderson Cooper 360 claiming that “The language of the uniqueness of American culture is this kind of white nationalist language to me that harkens back to the kind of language we've heard before.”
President Donald Trump sent ABC and CBS off the rails Thursday when he made public statements about the efficiency of this deportation operations. Trump described the program as running like a “military operation,” which any normal person would understand was a figure of speech. But to ABC anchor David Muir it gave him license to fly off the handle and falsely claim, during the opening tease of World News Tonight, “Tonight, President Trump calls it ‘a military operation on the border.’ The immigration crackdown.”
To close out CBS Evening News Wednesday night, the network acted as though the White House’s rewrite of the President’s travel restrictions were to cut America off from the world. “What this refugee wants the president to know before he closes the door to America,” announced sit-in anchor Anthony Mason during the opening tease. CBS’s Mark Strassmann sat down with four teenage Somali refugees and used them as props as he pushed them to talk about how America was changing for the worse.
The liberal Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) continued to revel in the throngs of agitated leftists descending on the town hall meetings of GOP lawmakers Wednesday. “We begin tonight with Americans across this country determined to have their voices heard, and their target, members of Congress home for break,” hyped anchor David Muir, kicking off World News Tonight, “What they are getting instead is an earful.” They all pushed back on claims that the rabble-rousers were not organized protesters, but that’s not what one network was glorifying just last week.
After spending literally days mocking President Donald Trump for inventing a “Sweden Incident” involving Middle East immigrants, the liberal Big Three networks were hanging their heads in shame Tuesday morning in the wake a violent immigrant riot that broke out in Stockholm the night before. “Police in Sweden are investigating a riot that broke out overnight in a predominantly immigrant suburb of Stockholm,” announced Fox News anchor Bret Baier during Special Report, yet it went unreported by the nets all day.