NB Podcast

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.

After Joe Biden's mentally feeble performance in the CNN debate, it's obvious that no one in the pro-Biden media more aggressively defended Biden as mentally sharp than MSNBC's Joe Scarborough. Maybe his friends need to tell him he needs to quit. The show's embarrassing. 

While it was obvious to all that President Biden’s debate performance Thursday night was an unmitigated disaster that had Democrats scrambling behind the scenes for a new candidate, it wasn’t for CNN’s lack of skewing the debate questions in Biden’s favor. According to a NewsBusters analysis of the questions, there were 11 from the left, seven neutral questions, and only three from the right…

We've been clear that our expectations for Jake Tapper and Dana Bash in this CNN debate are low, considering their years of Trump-trashing antics. It's a little amazing that they are pledging in advance that they don't plan to "fact check" the candidates, because the moderators aren't "participating" in the debate. Don't buy it. 

Nick Fondacaro broke a story on how debate moderate Jake Tapper's show aired a nasty hit piece that spurred a defamation lawsuit from a man working to evacuate people out of Afghanistan. Internal messages show profane malice from reporter Alex Marquardt and others. It's no one's idea of idealistic investigative journalism. It sounds like Gotcha journalism.

On The Reidout (or Freakout), Joy Reid ripped into Louisiana for requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. The "Christian nationalists" are upsetting the "freedom from religion" crowd and they're clueless about Moses to boot.

Brian Stelter is back on CNN again, claiming that somehow the videos showing Joe Biden bumbling are somehow sometimes “made up.” CNN host Abby Phillip asked Stelter on Monday about what's being "deceptively characterized" in Biden's public appearances. Stelter claimed: "This is a real problem. This is not some made-up fiction. The videos are oftentimes made up, but the problem is real."