Speaking with Maria Bartiromo on the Fox News Channel (FNC) late Wednesday afternoon, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell blasted the media for their “incredible” double standard in spending far more time fussing over Donald Trump’s controversies while ignoring the latest Hillary Clinton gaffe with the father of the Orlando terrorist attending one of her rallies.
After playing a video mash-up of the network personalities attacking Trump, Bartiromo exclaimed before bringing in Bozell that “[c]ritics are arguing that they are tuning out coverage of the Orlando shooter's father, attending a Hillary Clinton rally in Florida” in what’s “a head scratcher” to her.
Bozell agreed that the collective shuttering has been “incredible” and sought to breakdown the situation with Trump’s comments being considered first:
What did Donald Trump say? Either you believe what he said, which is that a political movement, gun rights movement, could stop the election of Hillary Clinton or you believe her supporters, which is that he's openly advocating killing her. Now, I’m not even going to debate it. It's obvious. However, it becomes a huge controversy.
Putting one’s feelings aside concerning what Trump said, Bozell added that the media’s obsession with the matter and hyping “criticism” and “new accusations” aren’t coming from voters but the media themselves.
The Media Research Center founder then moved to Clinton and wondered what the reaction would be if it were Seddique Mateen at a Trump’s rally:
Now, switch over to Hillary Clinton, and the controversy around her. Now, here you've got a man sitting in the stands behind her speech who is the father of the assassin, who killed all of those people and this man is not just the father of an assassin, this man is a pro-Taliban sympathizer, pro-terrorist sympathizer and the media are yawning. So, Maria, I put it together and I asked this question, what if it were Donald Trump who were speaking with that man behind him?
“You know what really gets me — strikes me is the fact that the Clinton camp and the Democratic really machine is able to change the conversation very quickly. Just take you back to two weeks ago when Debbie Wasserman Schultz was fired — pushed out because of those e-mails in black and white showing the whole thing was rigged and they were working against Bernie Sanders. We only talked about that for an hour and the conversation turned quickly to Russia,” Bartiromo responded.
Later on during Bozell’s final extended comments, he laid out the Clinton playbook for the media in deflecting from really any Clinton-related scandal:
[H]ere's the playbook. The best defense is a good offense, where the Clinton machine is concerned when there is the threat of a focus on a scandal involving her, they turnaround to make an accusation against Trump or in the media, do it themselves and all eyes turn on Trump and they forget it. I mean, you could throw a half dozen of these. What about the $400 million cash pay off to — ? That disappeared or all the e-mail scandals?
The transcript of Bozell’s appearance on FNC’s Your World from August 10 can be found below.
FNC’s Your World
August 10, 2016
4:44 p.m. Eastern
MARIA BARTIROMO: Welcome back, Well, the mainstream media ramping up coverage of Donald Trump's second amendment comments. Take a listen.
LESTER HOLT [on NBC Nightly News, 08/09/16]: Donald Trump and a potential new controversy simmering tonight.
DAVID MUIR: [on ABC’s World News Tonight, 08/09/16]: The new controversy in the race for president. Donald Trump late today talking about Hillary Clinton and the selection of Supreme Court justices.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE [on NBC’s Today, 08/10/16]: Big story dominating the presidential race this morning. Donald Trump accused of openly encouraging violence against Hillary Clinton.
CHARLIE ROSE [on CBS This Morning, 08/10/16]: Donald Trump, faces a new barrage of criticism for something he said. This time, it was an apparent off-hand comment during a campaign rally in North Carolina.
BARTIROMO: Critics are arguing that they are tuning out coverage of the Orlando shooter's father, attending a Hillary Clinton rally in Florida. This is a head scratcher. Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell have been crunching the numbers. Brent, what you have found?
BRENT BOZELL: Maria, this is incredible. Let’s take it piece by piece. First, to Donald Trump. What did Donald Trump say? Either you believe what he said, which is that a political movement, gun rights movement, could stop the election of Hillary Clinton or you believe her supporters, which is that he's openly advocating killing her. Now, I’m not even going to debate it. It's obvious. However, it becomes a huge controversy. Why? Because the press are looking for the controversy of the day. I love it today — a barrage of — of criticism! It’s coming from the press themselves. New accusations! It’s coming from the press. It's not coming from the public, so that's Donald Trump, and that's just a creation of controversies, every single day, and it's going too on from now until election. Now, switch over to Hillary Clinton, and the controversy around her. Now, here you've got a man sitting in the stands behind her speech who is the father of the assassin, who killed all of those people and this man is not just the father of an assassin, this man is a pro-Taliban sympathizer, pro-terrorist sympathizer and the media are yawning. So, Maria, I put it together and I asked this question, what if it were Donald Trump who were speaking with that man behind him?
BARTIROMO: That’s absolutely right. You're absolutely right. That would be a huge story and we would never hear the end of it. You know what really gets me — strikes me is the fact that the Clinton camp and the Democratic really machine is able to change the conversation very quickly. Just take you back to two weeks ago when Debbie Wasserman Schultz was fired — pushed out because of those e-mails in black and white showing the whole thing was rigged and they were working against Bernie Sanders. We only talked about that for an hour and the conversation turned quickly to Russia and Russia had nothing to do with it. We don't know it was Russia at all, but the conversation was changed very effectively, and Donald Trump is not a politician. He can't do that. He can’t change the conversation, but the Clinton machine is very effective at doing it.
BOZELL: Yeah, Maria, you're right. The — here's the playbook. The best defense is a good offense, where the Clinton machine is concerned when there is the threat of a focus on a scandal involving her, they turnaround to make an accusation against Trump or in the media, do it themselves and all eyes turn on Trump and they forget it. I mean, you could throw a half dozen of these. What about the $400 million cash pay off to — ? That disappeared or all the e-mail scandals —
BARTIROMO: Or the meeting with Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the plane or the fact that is a Seddique Mateen was behind Hillary Clinton. That, obviously, was some kind of a kooky strategy that went awry and now we're not talking about that, but Trump is setting himself up. He keeps saying things that'll test people and so he makes it easy for them.
BOZELL: Yeah, you know it's not easy. This is a guy who lives on the ad-lib remark and anything he ad-libs, the media are going to parse it and they're going to look for an opportunity to say ah-hah, this is what we think he may have meant. National news.
BARTIROMO: Brent, good to talk to you. Thank you so much, sir. We’ll see you soon.
BOZELL: Thank you, Maria.
