All this week, NewsBusters is recounting the most obnoxious liberal bias of 2017. Monday, we presented some of the most outrageous examples of journalists fawning over liberal or left-wing icons, and yesterday we showcased some of this year’s nastiest attacks on Republicans or conservatives.
Today, it’s a look at all of the over-the-top attacks on President Donald Trump, who was called a “crazy” “basket case” of a “sociopath” by the likes of CNN’s Don Lemon and the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin.
Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were terrified that “madman” Trump’s tweets were going to get us into a “nuclear showdown.” ABC’s The View co-host Joy Behar wanted him “impeached” before he got us all nuked.
Trump was also labeled “anti-Semitic” by ABC’s Terry Moran and called America’s “first neo-Nazi president” by The New Republic editor Bob Moser. And the press was still fuming over Trump’s charges of “fake news” as CNN’s Brian Stelter and Carl Bernstein compared his administration to dictatorships around the world.
[LANGUAGE WARNING]
TRUMP IS MENTALLY UNSTABLE
Psychoanalyzing “Crazy” “Sociopath” “Basket Case” Trump
“He’s unhinged, it’s embarrassing and I don’t mean for us, the media because he went after us, but for the country. This is who we elected President of the United States....There was no gravitas. There was no sanity....If you watch that speech as an American, you had to be thinking what in the world is going on? This is the person we elected as President of the United States? This petty, this small, a person who who’s supposed to pull the country together?”
— Host Don Lemon reacting to Trump speech in Arizona, on CNN Tonight, August 22.
“[Republican] members publicly, privately are acknowledging that guy is a basket case, that he cannot serve, he cannot lead the party. My regret is they’ve all been so cowardly for so long and did nothing to stop him and it took this long to whisper on background that he was unfit. Where were the folks seven months ago, ten months ago, two years ago?”
— Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, August 22.
“Dangerous” “Psychologically Troubled” Trump an “Embarrassment to America”
“I think people are finally starting to come to grips – as we must come to grips – with the notion that we have a dangerous individual in the Oval Office who is a national security threat, and he needs to be removed from office....He’s unfit, and he needs to be removed.”
— MSNBC political analyst Ron Reagan Jr. on MSNBC’s Hardball, May 22.
“We haven’t had a president this psychologically troubled – I’m trying to use my language real carefully. We haven’t had a president this psychologically troubled in this way since at least Richard Nixon.”
— Disgraced former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, June 1.
“This piece of shit is not just an embarrassment to America and a stain on the presidency. He’s an embarrassment to humankind.”
— June 3 tweet by former CNN host Reza Aslan about Donald Trump’s post-London attack tweet.
“Sociopathic” Trump is “Stain” that Needs Removing, “Unfit to Be Human”
“Donald Trump is a deeply damaged human being. He is a sociopathic, malignant narcissist, and he happens to be the – you know, the electoral system, not the American people, but the Electoral College has sort of vomited this thing up and it landed in the Oval Office and it needs to be removed. It’s a stain. It’s a big glob on the carpet there. It needs to be removed and that means impeachment or the 25th Amendment. This man is a danger to the world.”
— Former MSNBC host Ron Reagan Jr. on MSNBC’s Hardball, October 25.
“He [Donald Trump] was a coward. He didn’t have the spine to stand-up as leader of the United States and I feel that to be shameful. I’m glad Republicans are calling him out on it. I’m glad elected leaders in the Republican Party are finally, finally stopping looking the other way and confronting the fact that he’s not only not fit to be president. In my book, his lack of empathy, his lack of leadership, his lack of courage, he’s unfit to be human.”
— Political commentator Ana Navarro, in response to Trump’s Charlottesville, VA speech as aired on CNN Newsroom with John Berman and Poppy Harlow, August 14.
TRUMP IS GOING TO GET ALL OF US KILLED
Impeach Trump Before He Gets Us Nuked
“The thing about Trump is, the things he has said seriously about nuclear weapons is quite frightening. I’ll give you a couple. To Chris Matthews, he asked, ‘Why do we make them, he said, if we wouldn’t use them?’ Ok. The possibility of nuclear war between Japan and North Korea: ‘It would be a terrible thing. If they do, they do.’ Good luck. Enjoy yourselves, folks. He said he was open to nuking Europe because ‘it’s a big place.’...Why doesn’t everybody face it? He needs to be taken out of office. He needs to be impeached. He is a menace. You say Kim Jong Yum-yum is crazy? So is he. So is he. Get real. Come on. He is nuts and we’re in the middle of it!”
— Co-host Joy Behar on ABC’s The View, April 3.
“We are headed towards a nuclear showdown....We heard this months ago, that we are going to have a ground war in Korea. They’ve believed that inside the White House for a very long time. And yet, he [Donald Trump] is completely detached from reality....You have somebody inside the White House that the New York Daily News says is mentally unfit, that people close to him say is mentally unfit, that people close to him during the campaign told me had early stages of dementia.”
— Co-host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, November 30.
Save the World, Delete the Tweets
“If something like that [Trump typo] can stay on Twitter for six hours, what does that say about who controls the information coming out of the White House? And what if somebody hacked into Twitter and posted a message that could have global implications? Saying something like...‘I’m going to launch nuclear weapons’....This kept me up last night! I was up until two in the morning wondering when this tweet was going to go away.”
— Correspondent Katy Tur reacting to Donald Trump accidentally typing “covfefe” in a tweet, as aired on MSNBC Live, May 31.
“We have become desensitized to these tweets and that they are dangerous...It’s not the madman [North Korean dictator Kim Jon Un] with his hand on the button, it’s his, it’s the madman [Donald Trump] with his finger on his Blackberry or whatever iPhone that could tweet.”
— Co-host Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, September 18.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA
Stunned by Trump’s Anti-Semitic “Neo-Nazi” Ways
Anchor George Stephanopoulos: “Students of history will take note of that slogan, America first.”
Correspondent Terry Moran: “It’s a loaded term in American history. Now, he defined it here as total allegiance to the United States of America, and it is something, as Cecilia said, this is why he was sent here by people who want to hear that message of America first. However, it carries with it overtones from the 1930s when an anti-Semitic movement saying, ‘We don’t want to get involved in Europe’s war. It’s the Jews’ fault in Germany!’ Charles Lindbergh led them. It is a term, as he defined it his way, but the words themselves carry very ugly echos in our history.”
— ABC News live coverage of Trump inauguration, January 20.
“If facts still mean anything in America, Trump will also be recognized henceforth for what he is: the chief recruiter and Dear Leader of a gang of domestic terrorists....The president is the most powerful hate-monger in America. He is the imperial wizard of the new white supremacy....To his supporters, and to himself, Donald Trump is the living embodiment of Hitler’s concept of Aryan Herrenvolk (‘Aryan Master Race’). He is our first neo-Nazi president. And until we acknowledge that unthinkable truth, and treat Trump’s presidency as the anti-democratic crisis that it is, he will not be the last.”
— The New Republic Editor-at-Large Bob Moser in August 14 article “‘Donald Trump, Neo-Nazi Recruiter-in-Chief.”
“Donald Trump is a racist. He isn’t just a white supremacist – he’s a flat-out, full racist, and unless your definition of a racist is you hung somebody from a tree, he is a racist.”
— Former New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston about ESPN’s Jemele Hill calling Trump a “white supremacist, as aired on MSNBC’s AM Joy, September 16.
Trump Transforming Democracy Into Something Evil
“We can imagine a future of jackboots crashing through our doors at 2 a.m., trucks in the streets to take people to the internment camps, bright lights and barking dogs – and worse. Does this make me sound hysterical? Maybe. But this is my last chance to be. In its first week, the Trump administration demonstrated its contempt for Mexicans, for Muslims and for Jews. I imagine the true list is longer. Much longer. Should we keep quiet as we watch this? Is this why America was created?...Our long national nightmare may have just begun.”
— Former White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report Roger Simon in his February 1 farewell Politico column announcing his retirement.
STILL FUMING OVER “FAKE NEWS”
Dictator Trump
“Will President Trump deny reality on a daily basis? Will he make up his own false facts and fake stats? What will the consequences be? Will reporters give up trying to fact check? Is that the goal? To wear us down, to wear us out...Do citizens in dictatorships recognize what’s happening right here right now? Are they looking at the first two days of the Trump administration and saying, ‘Oh, that’s what my leader does?’ What should we learn from them today?”
— Host Brian Stelter on CNN’s Reliable Sources, January 22.
“Trump’s attacks on the American press as ‘enemies of the American people’ are more treacherous than Richard Nixon’s attacks on the press. Nixon’s attacks on the press were largely in private. There’s a history of what ‘enemy of the people,’ that phrase means as used by dictators and authoritarians including Stalin including Hitler....We’ve never seen in an American president such open authoritarian moves and rhetoric. This is a terrible time we’re living in..”
— CNN political analyst and former Washington Post editor Carl Bernstein on CNN’s Reliable Sources, February 19.
Trump vs. The First Amendment
“I was out on the campaign trail time and again when he [Donald Trump] referred to the news media as the dishonest news media, the disgusting news media. He called us liars and crooks and thieves and I can’t think of all of the other names that he called us....I think that the President has to understand that he is doing real damage to what we do. He is doing real damage to the First Amendment in this country when he refers to the news media as the enemies of the people.”
— CNN correspondent Jim Acosta at April 12 Newseum event “Trump and the Press.”
