Just like their cable news peers at MSNBC did this morning, CNN went after Fox News on Friday for daring to call out their politicized reporting on the coronavirus. Despite a NewsBusters study showing Trump-bashing takes center stage on CNN's coronavirus reporting, CNN Newsroom host Brooke Baldwin and media reporter Oliver Darcy raged that Fox was putting the public in danger by sowing skepticism over their anti-Trump reporting on the coronavirus.
Baldwin opened the segment by hyping President Trump’s “media allies” in “full attack mode,” before playing a clip of just three people on Fox calling out the media and Democrats fear mongering over the Trump administration being responsible for the virus becoming a pandemic in this country:
“Some of the president's most prominent media allies are in full attack mode in a bid to downplay this growing outbreak as media hysteria or that familiar phrase,” Baldwin said with an eye roll, “fake news.”
Turning to senior media reporter Oliver Darcy, Baldwin griped, “I’m sorry it’s like, you got to be kidding.” Darcy was equally disgusted, bashing the competitor network as uninterested in a “serious public health threat.” An offended Darcy claimed it was a “reprehensible lie” that the media was hoping the virus would affect President Trump’s re-election campaign negatively.
He went on to commiserate with Baldwin that Fox personalities calling out their politicized coverage, was “dangerous” and “appalling” because the public “relied” on the liberal media to provide them with information in times of danger:
DARCY: [P]eople rely on organizations like this one, like the "New York Times," "The Wall Street Journal." They rely on news organizations to provide credible information and to let them know what precautions they should be taking, what is going on? What is the government saying? And so for Fox hosts, and even the President of the United States, to be undermining the credibility --
BALDWIN: It's dangerous.
DARCY: Of media organizations right now at a time like this, it's appalling.
That’s when Darcy and Baldwin got nasty. Baldwin played a clip of Donald Trump Jr. accusing the media of having Trump Derangement Syndrome in their reporting on the virus.
Fuming, Darcy claimed the president’s son had a “sickness” for spreading “horrendous lies” about the liberal media, as Baldwin cheered him on:
BALDWIN: Call him out!
DARCY: The person there that seems to have the sickness is Donald Trump Jr., to spread that horrendous lie, again, that the media wants to see people die by the millions, according to Trump Jr. If it hurts his father's re-election chances. That's not true. ... One final note is that Fox ironically has been attacking all these other media organizations for supposedly politicizing this crisis, this public health crisis when if you actually watch the channel, the only people politicizing this happen to be on that network. I think you just saw that with Donald Trump Jr.
BALDWIN: Call him out. Call him out!
Read the full transcript, below:
CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin
2/28/20
BROOKE BALDWIN: Despite the fact that Vice President Mike Pence is calling for by bipartisanship in preventing the spread of the coronavirus, some of the president's most prominent media allies are in full attack mode in a bid to downplay this growing outbreak as media hysteria or that familiar phrase, ‘fake news.’
[Plays clips from Fox News personalities and contributors]
LAURA INGRAHAM: Democrats and their media cronies have decided to weaponize fear and also weaponize suffering to improve their chances against Trump in November.
PETE HEGSETH: They're rooting for the problem to get worse. They're rooting for mysteries, unknown cases, quarantines, towns for it to become an absolute national crisis for one reason and one reason alone. They have yet to find a reason to try to drag down the presidency of Donald Trump.
MIKE HUCKABEE: I think the president's done exactly right. Let me tell you something, Laura, he could personally suck the virus out of every one of the 60,000 people in the world and suck it out of their lungs, swim to the bottom of the ocean and spit it out, and he would be accused of pollution for messing up the ocean.
BALDWIN: CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy is with me, and I'm sorry, it's like you got to kidding .
OLIVER DARCY: Right it seems like these hosts on some of the big shows over on Fox don't actually want to cover the serious public health threat that the coronavirus poses --
BALDWIN: That exists.
DARCY: And the Trump's own CDC has told Americans about. They don't want to cover that, it seems like. They don't seem to care for covering the fact that the Dow Jones is tanking and stocks are having one of the worst weeks on Wall Street since 2008. What you see them doing is resorting back to the cliche thing that they do every single time is, attacking the media saying that the media is spreading hysteria, and even going further than that.You're seeing some hosts say things like -- or you just heard him say that they want this virus to spread, that the media and Democrats want people to get sick. They want people to be infected. They want people to die because it will tank the stock market and possibly hurt Donald Trump's re-election chances. Obviously that's a lie. It's reprehensible, but that's the kind of message that people over on Fox are saying. I'll make one more point, during public emergencies, whether it's a health crisis, whether it's a terror attack, a storm, like a hurricane coming, people rely on organizations like this one, like the "New York Times," "The Wall Street Journal." They rely on news organizations to provide credible information and to let them know what precautions they should be taking, what is going on? What is the government saying? And so for Fox hosts, and even the President of the United States, to be undermining the credibility --
BALDWIN: It's dangerous.
DARCY: Of media organizations right now at a time like this, it's appalling.
BALDWIN: Speaking of this messaging, let me just get to this clip. I want you to listen to Don Jr. And what he said just this morning on "Fox and Friends".
BRIAN KILMEADE: Are you surprised the way they've been handling the coronavirus situation, meaning Democrats?
DONALD TRUMP JR.: Not at all. I mean, we've -- like you said, we've seen this play out for four years. Anything that they can use to try to hurt Trump they will. Anything he does in a positive sense like you heard from the reporter that was just suspended from ABC [David Wright], they will not give him credit for. The playbook is old at this point, but for them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump's streak of winning is a new level of sickness. You know, I don't know if this is coronavirus or Trump Derangement Syndrome but these people are infected badly.
DARCY: The person --
BALDWIN: Call him out!
DARCY: The person there that seems to have the sickness is Donald Trump Jr., to spread that horrendous lie, again, that the media wants to see people die by the millions, according to Trump Jr. If it hurts his father's re-election chances. That's not true. No one's trying to do that. The media folks that I speak with are trying to get the message out there to the public from the government officials so people can take the proper precautions. One final note is that Fox ironically has been attacking all these other media organizations for supposedly politicizing this crisis, this public health crisis when if you actually watch the channel, the only people politicizing this happen to be on that network. I think you just saw that with Donald Trump Jr.
BALDWIN: Oliver Darcy, thank you for all that. Call him out. Call him out!
