Lefty journalists freaked out over “cult leader” Donald Trump’s “repugnant” Republican National Convention full of “lies” that was going to “get people killed” and lead to the “end of America.”
This stood in sharp contrast to their coverage of the Democratic National Convention or as they hailed it: Joe Biden’s “finest hour.”
The following is a top 15 countdown of the most crass and desperate attacks on Donald Trump and Republicans from network and cable journalists in their coverage of the 2020 Republican National Convention:
15. Should Networks Even Air GOP Convention Full of Trump’s “Lies?”
“What we are going to see in the next few days is a truth imbalance. Because if we’ve learned anything from the Trump years, it’s that there’s a real likelihood, there’s a real forecast of lies coming fast and furious from the President and, sadly, from many of his allies, in these speeches, in these videos, in these events that we are about to witness….Which is going to put news outlets in tough positions about when to interrupt, when to fact check and how?...There are discussions in newsrooms about how to handle what is likely to be a stream of lying.”
— Host Brian Stelter on CNN’s Reliable Sources, August 23.
14. Despondent Norah
“This is an extraordinary thing to — to see this in Washington as the fireworks that spell out ‘Trump’ on government land. There are some things the President said tonight that deserve some clarification. John Dickerson, it took more than half an hour before the President addressed the pandemic that has claimed 180,000 lives and infected more than five million Americans.”
— CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell on CBS News: 2020 America Decides: Republican Convention, August 27.
13. Saving the Fact Checks for the RNC, Because Nobody Lies As Much as Trump
“We could fact check this convention all night. People are saying, ‘you didn’t fact-check the Democrats.’ They are not lying, the way Trump does.”
— Host Chris Cuomo on CNN’s America’s Choice 2020: Republican National Convention, August 25 .
12. Didn’t Care About Riots When Stores Were Looted and Burned Down But Now That Democrats Are Hurt...
“The rioting has to stop. Chris [Cuomo], as you know and I know, it’s showing up in the polling. It’s showing up in focus groups. It is the only thing — it is the only thing right now that is sticking.”
— Host Don Lemon on CNN’s America’s Choice 2020: Republican National Convention, August 26.
11. “Danger” That Wisconsin Riots Will Help Trump
Host Tom Llamas: “I saw a video that struck me today. It was a white business owner of a pizzeria that was destroyed and all the glass was broken and he was pleading at the protesters, the demonstrators, screaming at them: ‘Do you want to re-elect Trump?’ Essentially saying, ‘You are going to fire up the other side.’ Do you think that's the case? Could it happen? Is there a danger here?”
Correspondent Terry Moran: “I saw that video, and I think there’s a danger. It’s natural.”
— ABC’s The Republican National Convention — Your Voice/Your Vote 2020, August 26.
10. It’s Trump’s Fault Democratic Mayors Can’t Do Their Job?
“They were talking about, ‘In Biden’s America there will be no law and order.’ But here we sit in the Trump administration’s law and order, and people could say there’s no law and order in the streets, too – now. How can they make the argument when some people believe that the President has contributed to the chaos that we’re seeing in the streets?”
— Co-host Gayle King to GOP Senator Tim Scott on CBS This Morning, August 27.
9. Where’s the Optimism?
“A lot of people saw a very dark picture painted last night about the Democrats, that there were going to be vengeful mobs storming the suburbs. That doesn’t sound very optimistic.”
— Co-host Anthony Mason to first night speaker and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley as aired on CBS This Morning, August 25.
8. Look Away From the “Dark” and “Dire” Messaging of the RNC!
“Republicans here tried to make good on the President’s promise of positive programming but that upbeat message was undercut at every turn by dark appeals to the base and apocalyptic predictions of what could come if Trump is not re-elected….The positive messaging all but disappearing, replaced with dire warnings of a bleak future.”
— Correspondent Mary Bruce on ABC’s Good Morning America, August 25.
7. What’s With All the “Grim” “End of Days” Talk?
“Heading into this convention, the President and his allies promised four days of hope and optimism. But many of those speakers on night one painted a grim picture of the country if Donald Trump loses and warned that Joe Biden is, in effect, an existential threat….The opening night of the Republican convention, where the message was part praise....and part end of days....With a line-up of speakers, many delivering an apocalyptic portrait of America if Joe Biden wins the election.”
— Correspondent Peter Alexander on NBC’s Today, August 25.
6. Trump Used “Black and Brown People” as “Props” To Prove He’s Not Racist
“That [naturalization] ceremony has such deep meaning for the people who become Americans. Donald Trump made that ceremony about him. He made that ceremony about celebrating Donald Trump….He uses those people as props. He used people that would be from the s-hole countries he would not let into this country. People who look like those people who have the religions perhaps of those people, people that are brown like those people are barred from getting into the United States….Donald Trump used a color collection, a sort of crayon box of colors tonight to try to paint a false image of himself as welcoming to immigrants and welcoming to black people and brown people. It was offensive to see that done in the people’s house.”
— Host Joy Reid on MSNBC’s Decision 2020: Republican National Convention, August 25.
5. GOP Convention Is Out to “Frighten Voters”
“Well, it’s a total disconnect…We heard nothing about racial justice and the reckoning with — with 400 years of systemic racism that a majority of Americans, according to polls, are ready to undertake, are ready to talk about and grapple with. This convention is not ready to grapple with any of that. This convention is ready to frighten voters.”
— Washington Post columnist and NBC News political analyst Eugene Robinson on NBC News’s live coverage of the Republican National Convention, August 26.
4. ABC Buzzkills Trump’s Long, Low Energy “Illegal” Speech of “Darkness”
“The staging, you can hear the fireworks right here, was really quite incredible, possibly illegal in terms of the use of government property for such an overt political event….But darkness, George. He said China would own the United States if Biden is elected. That Biden would abolish the suburbs….That he would destroy the American dream….It’s also one of the longest and lowest energy speeches that I have seen the President give.”
— ABC Chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl on ABC’s The Republican National Convention — Your Voice/Your Vote 2020, August 27.
3. CNN’s First Take: “Shattering” Norms and Laws, “Preposterous” Claims
Co-host Jake Tapper: “It was thought to be inappropriate, a violation, perhaps even, of the Hatch Act to have White House individuals working on such an event clearly marked for a political event, but once again, President Trump shattering norms, standards, perhaps even laws by holding such an event.”...
Co-host Wolf Blitzer: “[Trump is] suggesting that if Biden is elected this country will turn into a disaster. It will be a socialist, if not a Marxist, country. The economy will collapse and everything we know about America will go away.”
Tapper: “Right. It’s kind of preposterous.”
Correspondent Abby Phillip: “This is the President putting on a big show for the country in a way that a lot of people will say, and we should acknowledge, is unethical, the use of the White House in this way for a completely political event….I don’t know that we’ll ever — as Jake likes to say, I don’t know that we’ll ever come back from this.”
— CNN’s America’s Choice 2020: Republican National Convention, August 27.
2. Dictator Trump’s Speech a “Repugnant” “Crime” Heralding “End of America”
“As I’m watching this [Donald Trump’s acceptance speech], I’m thinking Fidel Castro, Julius Caesar, Mobutu Sese Seko. That was not an American President giving an acceptance speech. That was a monarch....It was very much like what Castro used to do….He made the White House into the Trump palace. If democracy in America ever falls and we become a complete autocracy with a decrepit leader and his corrupt family moving their trunks into the White House and never leaving….If we just fall as a democracy, tonight is what it will look like. This is what it will look like to have a decrepit, corrupt monarch. This was a crime. Every cabinet member that was sitting there was violating the Hatch Act….This would be the end of America.”
— Host Joy Reid on MSNBC’s Decision 2020: Republican National Convention, August 27.
1. “Cult Leader” Trump Going to Get People Killed!
Co-host Joy Reid: “Does Donald Trump actually care?...Do you think that he cares that some of his own people could get sick and maybe die by being at this event in the White House?...
Co-host Nicolle Wallace: “He’s going to get people killed. He’s going to get people sick and they just might be his own voters.”...
Reid: “What [former CNN host] Reza Aslan said to me is that the difference between religion and a cult is that in a religion your savior dies for you. In a cult, you are asked to die for your savior. This is a cult of personality and I asked him at that meeting, do you fear that the cult of Trump could be a death cult….that people would be willing to risk death? I have literally seen interviews where people would say, ‘I don’t care if I get sick. I have to see him.’”
— MSNBC’s Decision 2020: Republican National Convention, August 27.
