NB Podcast

Kamala Harris is treating reporters like a of troop of Typhoid Marys. Hello and welcome to the NewsBusters Podcast. Settle in. I’m Tim Graham. The Republicans, especially J.D. Vance are making a campaign issue of how Harris has been avoiding the press since July 21, when President Biden announced he was forced out of the race. So far, it’s another basement campaign, and why not?

It's now time for the promotional progressive press to lean into how cool Kamala is, so they tout endorsements by pop stars and gush over Maya Rudolph playing (not mocking) Harris on Saturday Night Live. CNN's Dana Bash said she was 'very, very, excited.' 

Who would have thought Donald Trump would accept a tough gig at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, and Kamala Harris would not? Trump was hounded with vicious questions and yet the NABJ is erupting internally because Team Harris just couldn’t find any time for journalists, and Trump said sure, I’ll take you on.

On Monday morning, NBC's Hallie Jackson aired a story on the presidential race with these themes. Kamala's campaign is loaded with dough; Kamala thinks the Republicans are all "weird"; and Trump is "on defense" because he made a lame joke about Americans not needing to vote in four years.

The networks cover a plane crash, but they don’t cover the planes that land safely. So in politics, did anyone think it was shocking that the Obamas were going to endorse Kamala? They loved that, and they love celebrity endorsers like Beyonce...when they endorse Democrats.

Joe Biden is finally dragged out of the race, kicking and screaming, and then he’s suddenly praised for a graceful exit and compared to George Washington. Biden should be compared to less-than-great presidents like Millard Fillmore.

The party’s over in Milwaukee, but the Democrat crisis is ongoing.  This was a pretty unusual Republican convention, at least in the way it was mediated. The shooting of Donald Trump muted the media to some degree, and the convention itself had a serious message discipline.

Donald Trump was shot in the ear on Saturday night, and the networks tried to be calm. But a spin did emerge. Republicans can't blame Democrats for inspiring violence based on all their talk of Trump being Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Covid killer, or any of that rhetoric. That's quite a flip from what they've done to Republicans in the past.

President Biden may have avoided a 'total collapse' without 'drooling,' but his evening press conference was not a "big boy" event. The questions were soft, and the list of reporters guaranteed lighter questioning. Still, some bizarrely claim the media are pro-Trump.

Filling in for moderator Whoopi Goldberg because she had COVID again, ABC co-host Joy Behar was close to flying the American flag upside down on Thursday’s edition of The View. She was distressed by the growing list of Democrats speaking out against President Joe Biden by revealing their experiences with his mental decline and calling for him to exit the race.

Just weeks after headlining a lucrative Hollywood fundraiser for Joe Biden, movie star George Clooney wrote in The New York Times that Biden has got to go and let someone else "save democracy" from Donald Trump.

Did George Stephanopoulos do an interview with Joe Biden, or an intervention? The New York Post said it was an intervention. The New York Times hailed the ABC host "respectfully but firmly" channeling the questions of all Americans. He did not. He was channeling the panic among Democrats. He wasn't interested in fact-checking or following up. 

CNN media reporter Hadas Gold found some less-than-courageous journalists to admit (anonymously) that they could have done a much better job of reporting on President Biden's cognitive decline before the disastrous debate. But they worried about the "blowback" from Team Biden and from the "liberal Twittersphere."

As the media face a crisis of confidence, should they throw that accusation at someone else? After the Supreme Court ruled on presidential immunity, they found a "crisis," but it feels more like it's a "crisis" because the liberals are not in charge. CNN and MSNBC engaged in wild talk about Trump assassinating rivals.