President Trump gave a prime-time address on the economy on Wednesday night, and the networks felt it was necessary to attack it, especially ABC. Jon Karl claimed: "In fact, I cannot recall a primetime presidential address that was as defensive and hyperpartisan as this one." He certainly forgot Joe Biden's 2022 Philadelphia speech denouncing "MAGA Republicans" as endangering democracy.
Managing Editor Curtis Houck and Associate Editor Nick Fondacaro joined me to break down the aftermath of the Trump speech and the first surprise was that the speech was short. But the networks still attacked it like they were providing an unofficial DNC response.
George Stephanopoulos cited "the backdrop for all of this is the President’s declining poll numbers on the economy and his overall approval," and Karl agreed: "Yeah, if the President was addressing a crisis last night, it seemed to be a crisis of confidence in his handling of the economy. Americans are overwhelmingly unhappy with the state of the economy, and a clear majority in many recent polls are blaming Donald Trump."
CBS News hasn't changed much so far under new Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. Scott Pelley recently boasted at the Walter Cronkite Awards that no one's been messing with 60 Minutes as it continues to rail against Trump. But Weiss's Saturday night town hall with Erika Kirk was attacked by the Brian Stelter Brigade of media reporters as a "lackluster" performance in the ratings. But was it?
A quick Google search told us CBS Saturday nights, especially at 8 p.m., typically draws around 2 million viewers, and the Weiss show came in at 1.9 million. Their magazine shows like 48 Hours also draw modest numbers, around 1.5-2 million for specials/repeats, though ratings fluctuate with programming. Wherever Weiss puts on conservative views in this town-hall format -- whether alone or paired with a liberal -- the media reporters hate it. These are the same people who wanted to deplatform Fox News.
As 2025 winds down, it's time for more studies of the network chat shows and "comedy" programs. Nick is preparing another look at the guest count on The View, and while it may be obvious, they are completely allergic to conservative thinking -- and maybe thinking in general. There have been two "conservatives" -- asterisk appended -- this year. One was Cheryl Hines, who was dragged into defending her husband, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Marjorie Taylor Greene, as they tried to convince her to switch to the Democrats.
Enjoy the podcast below on video, or the audio is here.
