Scott Whitlock
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CBS This Morning co-hosts scored an exclusive interview with the newly chosen House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy. But the network journalists chose to spend the entire interview demanding he answer for a lack of diversity within the Republican Party.
CNN’s New Day and MSNBC’s Morning Joe, two programs with a combined six hours of air time, on Thursday managed a total of 67 seconds on the felony abuse arrest charges against Michael Avenatti. This is despite their previous fascination with the porn lawyer and Democratic antagonist to President Trump.
Civility. Journalists would have you believe that such a virtue died when Donald Trump became president and coarsened the national discourse. But a look back at what happened five years ago today tells you this simply isn’t so. On November 15, 2013, then-host Martin Bashir unleashed a shocking, vulgar attack on Sarah Palin, suggesting that someone needed to “S-H-I-T” in her mouth.
Despite promising that correspondent Oprah Winfrey was “stepping away” from the network due to her active campaigning for Democrats, CBS allowed Winfrey back on This Morning, Wednesday, to promote Michelle Obama’s new book. In total, Democrat Winfrey and Democratic donor/co-host Gayle King have devoted 22 minutes and 44 seconds to the former First Lady’s new book, Becoming.
Given how tough CNN has been on Donald Trump wielding power during the first two years of his presidency, one should assume that the network will hammer the new Democratic majority in the House, right? No, of course not. In a preview of things to come, the network on Tuesday gushed over incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “the original Badass Woman of Washington.”
Just 12 days after CBS correspondent Oprah Winfrey “stepped away” to campaign for Democrat Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Winfrey is back on the network and you’ll never guess what she’s doing: Praising a Democrat. Winfrey’s best friend, Gayle King, introduced Oprah on Monday, to reveal the next book club selection: Michelle Obama’s new autobiography.
CBS This Morning co-hosts on Monday fawned over the new president of Planned Parenthood, cheering “yay!” that she appeared on the show. The hosts also lamented that the organization, responsible for three million abortions, had been “politicized.” The journalists also allowed Dr. Leana Wen to repeat the mostly bogus claim that the abortion provider offers “cancer screenings.”
It’s been eight years since Barack Obama was elected. So, you may be forgiven forgetting just how effusive journalists were towards the Democrat on election night. On the November 5, 2008 Good Morning America (the day after), Bill Weir gushed over Obama’s election: “Last night was transcendent.... Voices from around the world shouted the greatness of America.”
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle and one of her guests on Friday jumped into conspiracy theory territory while discussing the post-election gubernatorial fight in Georgia. At one point, she lectured Republican Brian Kemp, who appears to have emerged victorious, “Please win fair and square, Brian Kemp.”
It’s a classic liberal media move to have sudden new respect for a Republican president…who is no longer in office. And that’s what happened on Thursday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports as journalists longed for the days of “gentleman” Ronald Reagan and the way he treated the press. Reacting to Donald Trump revoking the press credentials of CNN journalist Jim Acosta, the New York Times’s Peter Baker got nostalgic: “Ronald Reagan never threw out Sam Donaldson. George W. Bush never threw out Helen Thomas.”
It appears that journalists at CBS have forgotten how Barack Obama treated the press. On Thursday, This Morning reporters recounted Donald Trump’s latest battle with the media as proof that “freedom of the press is under assault” from the president. Regarding Trump’s verbal battle with Jim Acosta and the White House’s subsequent suspension of his press credentials, Norah O’Donnell wondered, “Is that unprecedented?”
Donald Trump and CNN battled in an incredible post-Election Day press conference on Wednesday. The President slammed Jim Acosta as a “rude” and “terrible person.” At one point, Trump told Acosta to sit down as a White House aide tried to take the microphone away from him. More, including a transcript will be posted shortly. For now, see the video below.
Is it any wonder half the country doesn’t bother with late night “comedy” shows anymore? On CBS’s Election Night Late Show, Stephen Colbert and his guests smeared Republicans as racist three times and compared GOPers to the KKK. On NBC’s Late Night, liberal host Seth Meyers brought on comedian Billy Eichner to bash bigoted Texans.
The live, election night Late Show With Stephen Colbert substituted comedy for smearing Republicans as KKK-loving racists. This included one of Colbert's guests insisting that Donald Trump would wake up on Wednesday thinking that racism and hate work.
Ted Cruz has been reelected. The moment was greeted on MSNBC with a somber tone, extended moments of silence and a bizarre analogy from liberal host Chris Hayes. Reporting live from the Beto O’Rouke “victory” party, Hayes repeated this ugly comparison: “Someone earlier tonight, a Texas Democrat who is elected, described the math in Texas like being in a prison and trying to get over a wall.”
ABC journalists on election night gushed over Beto O’Rourke as the second coming of Bobby Kennedy, and as a Democrat who had “electrified” Texas. Meanwhile, as Republicans pulled ahead in Florida, Tennessee and Indiana Senate races, former Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos admitted this has been a “disappointing night” for Democrats “so far.”
The first midterm election results had just started trickling in, Tuesday, and MSNBC was already jumping to the conclusion of “voter suppression” and “nefarious intent” in Georgia. Even though the polls weren’t even closed, reporter Trymaine Lee worried, “This race has been controversial from the very beginning. Concerns about voter suppression efforts, especially coming down from Brian Kemp, the Secretary of State, who is also running for governor.”
The three networks in September deluged viewers with incessant coverage of unproven sexual abuse accusations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. But when some of those claims fell apart, ABC and NBC went silent on the crumbling assertions. As reported in the USA Today, Friday, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley referred Judy Munro-Leighton to the FBI to be investigated for taking “responsibility for authoring an anonymous letter that made allegations that Kavanaugh and a friend raped her..”
Journalists have been bashing conservative Supreme Court judges for decades. Even after Clarence Thomas was confirmed, reporters never liked him much. On November 2, 2007, Jeffrey Toobin sneered that Thomas is “angry,” “bitter,” and “isolated.”
Aggressively liberal Late Show host Stephen Colbert isn’t used to having his ideology challenged. But that’s what happened on Thursday night as Fox News host Chris Wallace pushed back on immigration, the President’s accomplishments and the very simple idea that one shouldn’t be reflexively anti-Trump.