Foreign Policy
The communist government of Cuba held their sham election for a new leader on Wednesday after President Raul Castro stepped down to make way for Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel to take the reins. The news of the transition broke early that morning, but both ABC and NBC appeared too lazy to even give it a simple brief on their morning and evening broadcasts. CBS and Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo all ran reports on the transition.
In a remarks late Tuesday afternoon, President Trump revealed the United States was in high-level talks directly with the North Korean government and had given the okay for South Korea to negotiate an official end to the decades-long state of war. These were major developments on the world stage but the evening broadcasts of ABC, CBS and Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo flat out ignored them. Only NBC Nightly News thought it was important enough to inform their viewers about.
In Friday’s New York Times, Gardiner Harris and Eileen Sullivan went on the attack against Mike Pompeo, the current CIA Director and President Trump’s nominee to become Secretary of State with the title “Trading Snarl for Smile, Pompeo Makes Case to Lead State Department.”
Following hours of CIA Director Mike Pompeo testifying during his Senate confirmation hearing to become the next Secretary of State, MSNBC anchor Katy Tur decided to single out a particularly absurd exchange where Democratic Senator Cory Booker grilled the nominee on his views about gay marriage. Predictably, Tur tried to argue that the bizarre and irrelevant line of questioning was actually essential in determining Pompeo’s foreign policy credentials.
A top story Monday evening was the anticipation President Trump would announce a plan to strike back at Syria in retaliation for apparently using chemical weapons on civilian populations. While the President himself came out strong against the Assad regime by condemning them and their Russian and Iranian backers, both ABC and NBC pushed a smear by Senator John McCain (R-Ari.) blaming Trump for the attack. And CBS failed to report the President’s condemnation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Monday, NBC’s Today show had the audacity to bring on former Obama administration official Jeremy Bash to scold President Trump for not taking more action against the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. No mention was made of Bash’s former boss, President Obama, refusing to take action in the conflict even after Assad crossed the “red line” of using chemical weapons against his own people.
In recent days and weeks, President Trump has made broad and swift moves on policies ranging from immigration to tariffs to looking to pull out of Syria. All of these policy actions are popular with the President’s base, a.k.a blue collar working Americans. But during Wednesday night’s edition of Anderson Cooper 360, CNN ran a ridiculous report about what Trump was doing and who he was doing it for. With all the sober seriousness of a report about corruption, CNN reported on Trump playing to his base.
In a recent public statement at the White House this week, President Trump expressed his desire to pull U.S. troops out of war-torn Syria and bring them home. Of course, the hypocritical liberal media became enraged and threw up their arms in protest. During their Wednesday evening broadcasts, CBS and NBC were sure to voice their contempt for the idea by arguing there was so more to be done. CBS Evening News even declared it a “retreat” order by the President.
The broadcast news shows have been obsessed with all things Russia — well, almost all things. Russian social media agitation and propagandizing over energy sources, pipeline projects and climate change was ignored.
On Saturday's Fox & Friends, Geraldo Rivera contended that the Gaza strip is "the world's largest concentration camp." Thousands of Palestinians have recently massed along the Gaza border with Israel during a month-long protest. Fifteen have died in violent clashes with Israeli forces guarding the border. When show co-host Pete Hegseth reminded Rivera that Gaza is run by Hamas, a terrorist organization which has never recognized Israel's right to exist, Rivera deflected, saying "I'm not even going to argue it."
Both in its related tweet and the story's headline, CNN has promoted Sandra Gonzalez's Tuesday column about the movie Chappaquiddick as being about "one of Sen. Ted Kennedy's darkest hours." This begs two questions: "Wasn't Chappaquiddick far worse for Mary Jo Kopechne?" and "Did Ted Kennedy have other darker hours?"
Friday’s network morning shows were horrified to report that President Trump had decided to replace General H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser with former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton. Journalists on the NBC, ABC, and CBS broadcasts feared that the “controversial” pick would only add to Trump’s “very hardline” national security team.