Both before and after Donald Trump’s Tuesday rally in Arizona, an event in which he again slammed partisan journalists, guests on CNN and MSNBC hailed the “brave” reporters who act as “referees” for the American people.
As hard-left protesters rioted in the streets of Phoenix on Tuesday night, CNN commentator Kurt Bardella praised, “I think we should point out that there are right now at this second, reporters in the media, who are putting themselves in the middle of this confrontation to chronicle what is happening, to inform the American people and that is a very brave and courageous thing to do.”
As though he was talking about the American military, he continued, “That we have right now at this moment in history men and women that are willing to put themselves in harm's way, in volatile situations to tell the truth, show the truth and let the American people make the decision for themselves.”
Bardella then whined about the President daring to criticize the press, huffing that Trump “completely attacks one of the major pillars of our democracy, the free press, one of the things keeps our country different from all the other ones in the world who are subjected to tyranny and dictatorships.”
Over on MSNBC before Tuesday's rally, Heidi Przybyla, the senior politics reporter for USA Today, responded to Chris Matthews’ assertion that Donald Trump can’t get away with all his lies. She self importantly described the role of reporters: “I think that we as the referees for the American people need to really prioritize what we go to town on. We have to go to town on those things can have the most potential to impact public policy.”
In other words, this amounts to attacking conservative claims:
For example, like the claim about fraudulent voters. That has led to an entire government commission that is now going to come up with recommendations that may be based on a wholly false premise about millions of illegal people voting.
Where were these “brave” “referees” during Barack Obama’s presidency? They certainly weren’t challenging the Democrat’s falsehoods.
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A partial transcript is below:
CNN Tonight with Don Lemon
08/23/17
12:55:55 a.m.
1 minute and 38 secondsKURT BARDELLA (CNN commentator): You know, first of all, I think we should point out that there are right now at this second, reporters in the media, who are putting themselves in the middle of this confrontation to chronicle what is happening, to inform the American people and that is a very brave and courageous thing to do, that we have right now at this moment in history men and women that are willing to put themselves in harm's way, in volatile situations to tell the truth, show the truth and let the American people make the decision for themselves. Secondly, we have a president who right now thinks it's okay to give a shoutout to a man who believes it is all right to racially profile Hispanics in his state, who committed a crime. We have a president right now who say he wants America to be great for everybody but if you are a transgender who serves in the military, if you're an immigrant who came here for a better way of life, if you're a female who doesn't want to be sexually harassed, that America doesn't apply to you and when you have a president who goes on this 20-minute riff in the middle of a so-called speech to just completely attack one of the major pillars of our democracy, the free press, one of the things keeps our country different from all the other ones in the world who are subjected to tyranny and dictatorships, when he goes after it that way, that shows that he doesn't care about the very fabric of this country. It shows that he is not mentally stable enough to be the leader of the free world. And the longer that Republicans go without calling this out, just standing passively by and maybe expressing the occasional disgust or they don't agree with, the longer they allow this to happen, they are complicit in it. They are allowing it to happen. They are directly responsible for whatever damage Donald Trump does to this country.
Hardball
8/22/177:42
CHRIS MATTHEWS: In the old days, it was one of the Long brothers, Huey or Earl Long, who would go to Louisiana saying in one part, and then talk about my Baptist grandmother. Then in the other part, it would be my Catholic grandmother. They just changed it whenever they felt like it, and nobody caught it because we didn’t of the Internet then. We didn’t have fact checks. We didn’t have any way to do it. But, today, all facts are checkable immediately.
HEIDI PRZYBYLA (Senior politics reporter, USA Today): They are.
MATTHEWS: They still (INAUDIBLE).
PRZYBYLA: There’s an important distinction, Chris, that pace, five a day, is not checkable. A lot of things go by and they don’t get checked.
MATTHEWS: Really?
PRZYBYLA: The reason why is because it’s just too much. And I think that we as the referees for the American people need to really prioritize what we go to town on. We have to go to town on those things can have the most potential to impact public policy. For example, like the claim about fraudulent voters. That has led to an entire government commission that is now going to come up with recommendations that may be based on a wholly false premise about millions of illegal people voting. For example, the bogus crime statistics. That could have an effect, for example, on Justice Department policy. So, we as the refs I think have to really zero in on those things which threaten to change our public discourse and our public policy.
