North Korea
On Monday's The Situation Room, liberal CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin went over the top into hyperbole by claiming that President Donald Trump's dismissal of both Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and his brother from their jobs at the White House amounted to "North Korean-style punishment of the whole family." They were executed?
While anchoring MSNBC's pre-impeachment trial coverage on Monday, Chris Matthews continued his ignoble history with analogies as he resurrected his comparison of Republicans to North Korean soldiers. This time, it came in the aftermath of revelations about former National Security Advisor John Bolton's memoir.
Liberal cable hosts have found an unlikely new cudgel with which to attack President Trump: former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who recently panned the President’s North Korea policy as having “failed.” TV journalists on Monday treated this critique from Bolton as lucid and credible — yet these same networks back in 2018 described Bolton as a “dangerous” advocate for “war with North Korea.”
CNN, the network that likes to brag about being all about “facts first,” doesn’t always have a great track record when it comes to reality. Fourteen years ago this week, on September 19, 2005, the network’s founder appeared on his own network to credulously insist that despotic dictator Kim Jong-il “didn't look" evil. Ted Turner proclaimed, “...He didn’t look too much different than most other people.”
When it comes to the liberal media and President Trump, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. MSNBC gave a classic example of the phenomenon this morning. In the days leading up to the Salute to America parade, the liberal media had savaged it, and in particular the prospect of tanks rolling down the streets of DC. But when the event actually unfolded, and instead of tanks rolling down the streets, armored vehicles were parked rather inconspicuously on display, that was no good, either. To the contrary, during this morning's 6 am EDT hour, the MSNBC crew kvetched that the parade didn't live up to the ostentatious standards of North Korea or France!
Wish that President Trump would not have inserted himself into Washington, D.C.’s Fourth of July celebrations, allowing A Capitol Fourth to remain on its own? Fine. But to declare the President’s plans “un-American” and a sign he wants to make America like North Korea or the former Soviet Union? That’s nonsense, folks. And as evidenced by those hot takes on Tuesday’s Hardball with MSNBC host Chris Matthews and his three panelists, we have yet another example of what Trump Derangement Syndrome can do to your well-being.
Echoing many of their colleagues on MSNBC, the panel on Deadline: White House Monday had hysterical analysis of President Trump’s impromptu meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. At one point, one of the guests went so far as to compare the President’s meeting with Kim to a “diplomatic booty call.”
It’s no secret that Fox News is a right-leaning media organization when it comes to political commentary. Fox has several conservative hosts in primetime who are clearly identified as such. That fact often draws the ire of the liberal media, which was on full display on CNN’s New Day Monday morning. Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter continued the segment by saying that he believes that the media need to be firmer in their attacks on the President.
On Monday, NBC’s Today show turned to national security analyst and former Obama administration official Jeremy Bash to slam President Trump’s DMZ meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un as “dangerous.” Bash, who worked for a president that eagerly negotiated with Iran and Cuba, complained about Trump’s trip being “symbolism over substance.”
On Morning Joe, MSNBC "Republican" Elise Jordan says the meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un "makes me want to puke." Other panelists provided more nuanced takes. Richard Haass of the Council of Foreign Relations, and David Ignatius of the Washington Post, suggested that the meeting could lead to negotiations in which the North Koreans, in return for the lifting of some sanctions, would give up more of their nuclear capabilities than they had offered at the failed meeting in February.
Despite the fact that there were four North Korean nuclear tests under President Obama and only one under President Trump (none in almost 2 years) and gave everything away to Cuba for nothing, Sunday’s editions of ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Sunday Today rushed to declare Trump’s historic meeting with Kim Jong-un at the DMZ to be nothing more than just a photo op.
On Tuesday’s Hardball, MSNBC host Chris Matthews and MSNBC contributor/Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan openly speculated whether President Trump has told the CIA to not carry out covert operations or compile intelligence against North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and that he would willfully accept help from the Russians to get him reelected.