Frank Bruni
In a live edition of The Daily Show, host Trevor Noah brought on New York Times columnist Frank Bruni to freak out over the “blood-soaked and lawless” State of the Union. Just like Brian Williams on MSNBC, Bruni fumed over the President daring to bring up abortion: “[Trump was] baiting the Democrats with descriptions of abortion laws that were highly exaggerated.”
The most absurd and improbable New York Times headline was published on Sunday, over a magnum opus by columnist Frank Bruni. “Will the Media Be Trump’s Accomplice Again in 2020?” You read that correctly. The real collusion in the 2016 election was between Donald Trump and his enablers in the press.
On the front of the New York Times Sunday Review, Frank Bruni warned his media colleagues not to fall for the old fairness ploy when it came to helping the Democrats defeat Donald Trump in 2020: “Will the Media Be Trump’s Accomplice Again” -- We have a second chance in 2020. Let’s not blow it.” Bruni more or less argued (as his colleague Jim Rutenberg had done in August 2016 on the front page) that it was the mainstream media’s solemn duty to defeat Trump:
During Sunday’s Reliable Sources, host Brian Stelter and his panel discussed a book by former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson that argues that the paper has become too anti-Trump. New York Times columnist Frank Bruni did his best to justify the paper’s coverage of the President, describing the negative coverage as “the only honest way to cover this President.”
MSNBC's Morning Joe and CNN's New Day heap praise on Republican Martha McSally for quickly and "gracefully" conceding to Dem Kyrsten Sinema in their Senate race in Arizona. In contrast, the two shows castigated Republican Rick Scott for fighting it out in Florida. Neither network calls on Dems Gillum, Nelson or Abrams to emulate McSally's example.
The hype started way back in February when the New York Times’s Michael Tackett fantasized about Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke’s campaign embodying “a sense of the possible.” The “Turning Texas Blue” dream continued with Late Show host Stephen Colbert, in March, proclaiming: “Texas might be feeling the Beto-mentum, because so far this year, O’Rourke out-raised Ted Cruz by $1.5 million.” The following is just a sampling of the out-of-control media love for Beto O’Rourke and his Quixotic attempt to turn Texas blue.
It’s evidently going to take some time for the post-Kavanaugh confirmation healing to begin at the New York Times. With near unanimity the paper’s columnists, some of them former reporters, are reacting with anger and contempt over Trump’s victory against the Democrat’s Supreme Court smear campaign. Columnist Paul Krugman rehashed his tired old line about “The Paranoid Style in G.O.P. Politics.” The text box read “Republicans are an authoritarian regime in waiting.” Not to be outflanked, columnist Michelle Goldberg claimed “Trump Gives Dictators the Green Light.”
New York Times columnist (and former White House reporter) Frank Bruni again took up the Democratic cause as the mid-terms approach, coauthor of “The Faces That Tell The Story of 2018,” flattering 13 lucky first-time Democratic candidates. The text box: “Remarkable first-timers spurred by Trump to help Democrats retake the House.” The unbearable sappiness starts right at the top, with a candidate who is running out of emotional trauma: "Usually you only get to dream about a candidate like Chrissy Houlahan. People in the Philadelphia suburbs actually get to vote for her."
On Monday, the transcript of a February interview with CNN host Anthony Bourdain surfaced, and most accounts reported his comments on Bill Clinton: "Entitled, rapey, gropey, grabby, disgusting." But he also said "I read the op-ed page of the New York Times and I wanna f---ing kill myself." Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and Nicholas Kristof were singled out for mockery.
A panel of guests on Monday's CNN Tonight With Don Lemon took turns trying to deflect from the public backlash against former President Bill Clinton after he refused to take responsibility for the Monica Lewinsky scandal during a contentious interview with NBC reporter Craig Melvin on the Today show that morning. Anchor Don Lemon and his pundits instead tried to turn the focus against President Trump.
As expected during this era of Trump Derangement Syndrome, several media members and outlets have had a tough time maturely handling President Donald Trump's pardon of early 20th-century boxer Jack Johnson, the sport's first black heavyweight champion. Likely topping them all were the reactions of Frank Bruni of the New York Times and former Barack Obama adviser and current CNN Senior Political Commentator David Axelrod.
The New York Times devoted the latest edition of its fashion mag, T Magazine, to marking the early 1980s in New York City, but used prominent pieces to bash President Ronald Reagan as a "terrifying" Christian-right ogre. From the introduction: "...with the inauguration of a conservative president who was no great friend to the arts, or to marginalized groups, including immigrants, the poor and those who fell outside of the conventional all-American family unit."