The panel on Reliable Sources Sunday was thrilled that in the new age of social media, a “pipeline” exists between “progressive ideas and mainstream journalists” that is moving the Democrats to the left. Host Brian Stelter asked Irin Carmon of New York magazine about the “media backstory” to 2020 Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden’s flip-flop on the Hyde Amendment.
Brian Stelter said “in many ways, this race is revolving around Biden right now. Take a look at these headlines from The [Wall Street] Journal, from Fox, from elsewhere, about Biden flipping over abortion funding.” Carmon, who’s a fervent abortion advocate, offered her hot take.
STELTER: Irin, what’s the media back story here?
CARMON: Well, I think it’s really interesting because even since Biden was Vice President, there has been ground level activism and online activism that has increasingly gotten the ears of mainstream media criticizing the Hyde Amendment. Now, the Hyde Amendment has been in place for decades. It’s been the status quo. Barack Obama called it the tradition, right? This is something that has generally not been in the center of Democratic politics but because of Twitter, Facebook, online organizing and grassroots organizing, I think mainstream media now is more aware that there is an internal debate among progressives…
STELTER: Interesting.
CARMON: …about whether things like the Hyde Amendment throw low-income women under the bus. And that increasingly, that pipeline has gotten shorter and shorter between progressive ideas and mainstream journalists like NBC News asking Biden about it.
STELTER: And it’s helping shift the party, right? It’s helping shift the party…
CARMON: It’s shifting the party to the left, absolutely, it’s changing what the center is.
The panel continued to discuss the Biden campaign for a little bit; specifically focusing on the candidate’s lack of media appearances. “Conservative” S.E. Cupp pleaded with Biden to change his strategy: “give us some more face time, Joe…we want to hear from you.”
The segment concluded with a look back at President Trump’s announcement speech in honor of its fourth anniversary. Stelter described the speech as “entertaining, it was shocking, there was some racism involved involving Mexicans.”
Cupp recalled she had an advance copy of the speech. “Within the first sentence, that script was abandoned and I’m watching along with everyone else; mouth agape, you know, eyes wide open, none of the script, I mean, the script was tossed, in what would become his hallmark, going off script. And I, I just remember thinking this is bizarre. Not, not taking it seriously. To my discredit, not taking it very seriously because he didn’t appear to be taking it as seriously as I expected him to.”
Brent Bozell and Tim Graham’s new book Unmasked includes Cupp proclaiming that day on CNN “it was a rambling mess of a speech....I was howling. Howling!”
Ironically, Stelter proved Carmon’s point that there is a “pipeline” between “progressive ideas and mainstream journalists.” After all, it’s a “progressive idea” that President Trump’s announcement speech was unquestionably racist and most people consider Stelter a “mainstream journalist.” Other examples of this “pipeline” include the media repeating the Democratic talking point about a “constitutional crisis” nearly 400 times.
