The Media Research Center's Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham made his latest appearance on the Fox News Channel (FNC) program The O’Reilly Factor Tuesday night for what was quite the lively segment with fill-in host Eric Bolling and ETWN correspondent Lauren Ashburn as Graham and Bolling spared with Ashburn over the media’s obsession with Donald Trump and double standard when it comes to exposing lies by Hillary Clinton.
The debate grew animated right from the beginning when Ashburn declared that the “bombastic flamethrower” in Trump was “lot like ISIS” in that both turn to “social media to kill people and he uses it to insult them and for attention.”
After Ashburn drew audible groans from Bolling and Graham, Graham shot back:
[W]e’ve seen way too much of that. Is Trump bombastic? Yes. Is he ISIS? No. And the problem we have is the other Republican candidates can't get a word in edge wise because the news media like this show. They like it bombastic. They like it that he doesn't spend much time on policy. He calls somebody a pig and this guy a loser and discusses which persons he is not going to kill.
Bolling then brought up how the media’s done very little to emphasis Clinton’s lie about Trump being in ISIS recruitment videos, but Ashburn was in full denial to which Graham used to expose the massive double standard in that the media loves to expose Trump’s false statements, but stay away from Clintons:
[T]here is nothing wrong with calling out Trump when he says something that's false. The problem we have the news media is they only fact check one way. Hillary can talk about sniper fire in Bosnia, she can blame Benghazi on a YouTube video and she can lie about this in a debate that nobody watched and the news media – what are they doing today? They’re talking about Obama going on a comedy show with Jerry Seinfeld.
The third and final portion of the five-minute-plus discussion revolved around the premise that liberals are portrayed in a positive light on late-night comedy shows like Saturday Night Live while conservatives are panned, but once again, Ashburn refused to even entertain that notion.
Repeatedly stating that it was “not true” at all, Graham challenged her to go back and look at the tape of the December 19 program in which the show’s Donald Trump (played by Daryl Hammond) admitted that none of the GOP candidates have a chance of winning against Clinton (including him).
Bolling continued by picking up on that point and alluded to how they’ve portrayed socialist Senator Bernie Sanders:
They make it funny, they make it cute, they make it looks humorous. When they do Bernie Sanders, they bring in Larry David who’s hilarious and loveable. You have got to love anyone who is a Democrat, they’re portrayed as fun, heartfelt, vulnerable, and the Republicans are just trashed.
While Ashburn tried to tell the pair that they were “missing the point here,” Graham concluded by simply stating: “There is no question that Saturday Night Live is an Obama, Hillary propaganda outfit.”
