In a video interview, anti-Obama filmmaker and author Dinesh D’Souza told The Hollywood Reporter that MSNBC and other media outlets were “cowards” because they would not acknowledge his new documentary 2016: Obama’s America, despite the film’s emergence this last week in the Top Ten.
D’Souza said: “Look at MSNBC. You could watch that channel and not even know we have a film out – unless you saw a commercial that we’re running for our film. You look at Lawrence O’Donnell, you look at Rachel Maddow, you look at Chris Matthews. I mean, look at those cowards!”
A database search shows MSNBC (unlike Fox News) hasn’t mentioned D’Souza’s film.
He continued: “I mean, they’re trying to pretend there is no film. There’s no argument. There’s no incriminating information. There’s no Obama talking. There’s no George Obama, who’s living in the slums of Hiruma [Kenya] in a hut while his millionaire brother in the White House won’t help him. So they’re just hoping all of this will go away. But it’s not going to...I would love to cross swords with those guys, but I think they’re all hiding under the desk.”
D’Souza also criticized The New York Times: “Look at The New York Times. This was once a newspaper, but in some ways now its news pages are indistinguishable from its editorial pages. If there’s embarrassing information about Obama, they won’t cover it. They try to suppress it. They will pooh-pooh it.”
The Times ran a tiny review of the film on August 13. “Mr. D'Souza stumbles when interviewing George Obama, the president's half-brother, an activist who voluntarily lives amid squalor in Nairobi, Kenya. ‘Obama has not done anything to help you,'’ Mr. D'Souza says. ‘He's taking care of me; I'm part of the world,’ George Obama replies.”
On Monday, the Times reported on the film’s good weekend at the box office. Michael Cieply wrote:
Love it or loathe it, 2016: Obama's America - the director Dinesh D'Souza's documentary critique of Barack Obama's policies and ideological roots - has arrived as a box-office event.
As it expanded from a more limited run to about 1,100 theaters across the country, the film took in an estimated $6.2 million over the weekend for a total of more than $9 million in domestic ticket sales since its release by Rocky Mountain Pictures on July 13.
As documentaries go, that makes it a hit. According to a weekly listing provided by Hollywood.com, it ranked No. 8 at the box office over the weekend, just behind Sony's Premium Rush, a new release, and just ahead of Sony's Hope Springs, which has been on screens since Aug. 8.
Separately, Boxofficemojo.com's figures now show 2016: Obama's America to be the year's third-ranked documentary, behind Paramount's Katy Perry: Part of Me and Disney's Chimpanzee.
Online, the Times Opinionator blog also published a long review of the film on Monday by liberal academic Stanley Fish.
