Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five).
This post contains the “Liberal Media Screams” for 2019. For 2020.
> For all of 2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.) “Mainstream Media Screams” for:
> July-December 2017 posts; January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013.)
Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week.
(For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables with compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)
■ December 30, 2019: Liberal Media Scream: Chuck Todd disses Trump supporters, ‘believe in fairy tales’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, this time quoting a letter to the editor claiming that supporters of President Trump “believe in fairy tales.”
On Sunday, he highlighted a “fascinating” letter to a newspaper, which suggested that people support Trump “because people have been trained, from childhood, to believe in fairy tales” and “the more fairy tales and lies he tells, the better they feel.”
Still reading, Todd said, “Show me a person who believes in Noah’s ark, and I will show you a Trump voter.”
Todd proceeded to make clear the letter matches the view of his staff, as he relayed how something “my executive producer likes to say, is ‘Hey, voters want to be lied to, sometimes. They don’t, they don’t always love being told hard truths.’”
Todd devoted the Dec. 29 edition of his show to “Alternative Facts: Inside the Weaponization of Disinformation.”
Todd read the letter during a segment with guests Marty Baron and Dean Baquet, the top editors of the Washington Post and New York Times, respectively:
“I want to read you guys a letter to the editor that we found in the Lexington Herald-Leader. It was a fascinating attempt at trying to explain why some people support President Trump. Here’s what he says. ‘Why do good people support Trump? It’s because people have been trained, from childhood, to believe in fairy tales. This set their minds up to accept things that make them feel good. The more fairy tales and lies he tells, the better they feel. Show me a person who believes in Noah’s Ark, and I will show you a Trump voter.’ Look, this gets at something, Dean, that my executive producer likes to say, is ‘Hey, voters want to be lied to, sometimes. They don’t, they don’t always love being told hard truths.’”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “That Todd felt so comfortable about showing such disdain for the ‘deplorables’ who support Trump, with a twist of anti-Christian bigotry thrown in, shows just how little respect those in the press corps have for those with a differing political view. Todd would never deride any ‘fairy tales’ believed by liberal voters and it’s hard to imagine him daring to make such a flippant remark about the religious beliefs of any religion other than Christianity.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ December 23: Liberal Media Scream: NBC’s Chuck Todd sees a ‘dark’ America
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features Meet the Press host Chuck Todd in a post-impeachment funk, talking on his NBC show about America being “in what feels like a more dark period.”
On his show, he noted a lack of “moral leadership” from politicians in the age of President Trump before giving his ominous view.
Todd revealed that before the program that the panel had voted “social ills” as the No. 1 story of the past decade, specifically gun killings at schools and the opioid crisis. After New York Times reporter Helene Cooper rued that in the wake of the Obama-era Sandy Hook, Conn., school shootings, “We were willing to prioritize our gun rights over protecting children in elementary schools,” Todd said, “It’s a reminder of how little Americans turn to politicians anymore for moral leadership because our politicians have totally failed on these two crises.”
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said that “losing trust in government means losing trust in our collective ability to do something,” but, she added: “There were positive things about these ‘10s, there was activism. ... More women ran and won than ever before, a lot more people interested in politics. There’s an arc to this decade. You have to see the positives.”
At which point, Todd jumped in: “You have to see it as a historian. In 30 years, this decade may be reviewed differently than we’re reviewing it now. We’re living in what feels like a more dark period.”
And at that he said: “I have five seconds. Sorry, guys. That’s all we have for today. Thank you for watching. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah and everything.”
Brent Baker, Media Research Center vice president of research and publications, explains our weekly pick: “Americans who love President Trump are inspired by his efforts to reinvigorate the best of American ideals while even many of those disgusted by Trump see the positives in American resilience overcoming Trump, but Todd only sees the worst, a ‘dark’ America. You can always count on a liberal journalist to see and emphasize the bad news over the good.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ December 16: Liberal Media Scream: New York Times’ columnist demands impeachment ‘to preserve America’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features celebrated New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman declaring that only impeaching President Trump will preserve the nation.
In a “Point-CounterPoint” segment on CBS’s Sunday Morning, Friedman declared: “President Trump not only should be impeached, he must be impeached, if we’re to preserve America as we’ve known it.”
Responding to Eliana Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon, who argued against impeaching Trump, Friedman began his counterpoint:
“President Trump not only should be impeached, he must be impeached, if we’re to preserve America as we’ve known it. Of course, ideally, presidents should be removed by the will of voters through elections. But, Eliana, when I hear Trump defenders say impeachment would subvert that process, I say: ‘Really? What the hell do you think Trump was doing?’ He was subverting the will of the people by using our tax dollars to force Ukraine to investigate his most feared opponent, Joe Biden, in the next election, rather than trusting voters to do that.
“If we say, as Republicans are, that what Trump did is not impeachable, we are telling ourselves and every future president, ‘Hey, it’s okay to enlist a foreign power to tilt the election your way.’ Can you imagine how much cash future candidates could raise from Saudi Arabia or how many cyber warriors they could enlist from Russia to tilt future elections? The sanctity of our elections would be shot, and we’d never again have a president, who, whether or not you liked him or her, was at least seen as legitimately elected.”
Brent Baker, Media Research Center vice president of research, explains our weekly pick: “Friedman is certainly in high dudgeon with his claim that ‘to preserve America as we’ve known it,’ President Trump must be impeached, as if not impeaching Trump will ruin the country. He’d have more credibility to pass such moral judgment if he’d not shown over the top disdain for Trump since Trump was elected. ‘This is a moral 9/11. Only 9/11 was done to us from the outside, and we did this to ourselves,’ Friedman told Bill Maher three days after the 2016 vote.
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ New on December 9: Liberal Media Scream: Angry Biden wows liberals with ‘no more Sleepy Joe’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the liberals cooing over Joe Biden’s put-down of an Iowa farmer who pressed the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate about his son’s work in Ukraine.
The incident occurred on the campaign trail last week, when the farmer, quoting what he had seen on TV, said Biden helped his son get work while he was vice president.
“So, you're selling access to the president just like he was,” he said, to which Biden barked, “You're a damn liar, man. That's not true. And no one has ever said that; no one has proved that.”
Well, liberals who like Biden have praised his angry response.
On Friday’s The View, Joy Behar cheered, “Joe Biden showed he can take the gloves off.”
Ana Navaro declared: “I’m glad he’s getting some practice calling out damn lies because if he wins the primary, he’s going to be running against a damn liar!”
Sunny Hostin related her reaction as a parent, asserting that, “You talk about my kids, and you’re going to get the wrath of Khan!”
From the Dec. 6 episode of The View on ABC:
Joy Behar: “It’s no more sleepy Joe, Donald!”
Ana Navarro: “I loved it. I really did. I have known Joe Biden for a long time, and this is Joe Biden. He is scrapping Joe Biden from Scranton. He’s going to need to be able to do this. The truth is, I’m glad he’s getting some practice calling out damn lies because if he wins the primary, he’s going to be running against a damn liar!”
Sunny Hostin: “I liked it as well. I think any parent that’s out there knows what was going on because I’m known as being very measured as a person and on this show. But you talk about my kids, and you’re going to get the wrath of Khan.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Such treatment by President Trump of an attendee at campaign rally surely would have generated indignant disgust from the ladies of The View appalled by such boorish behavior. But Biden is their guy, so they cheered him on, showing that it matters more which side of Trump divide you reside than maintaining consistency.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ December 2: Liberal Media Scream: Biographer Meacham says Trump puts America on trial
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features prize-winning presidential biographer and former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham decrying a President Trump-led America that he claimed flows with “xenophobia, extremism, racism, nativism, isolationism.”
He appeared Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation on a panel of book authors. He suggested that the “flow” under Trump needs to “ebb.”
On the show, he said:
“Now we face this wildly unconventional president who is actively and overtly putting all the norms, that so many of us were accustomed to, on trial. And so, we have these forces in American life that are perennial: xenophobia, extremism, racism, nativism, isolationism. They ebb and they flow in American life, they always have. And right now they’re flowing. The task of the country is to get them to ebb.”
Brent Baker, Media Research Center vice president of research, explains our weekly pick: “Instead of seeing the best in an America which elected Donald Trump in an effort to preserve the values which made the nation so great, Meacham only sees the U.S. through a negative prism. Those traits he cited all exist, but they are the exception which proves the larger rule, but which Meacham, like many journalists, is too narrowly focused to see.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ November 25: Liberal Media Scream: CNN frets media not anti-Trump enough
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN’s promotion of host Jake Tapper’s special, “All the President’s Lies.”
On Sunday, CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter wondered to Tapper: “Do you think journalists are going to look back years from now and regret not doing even more to speak out about this lying and deceit?”
Stelter added: “Clearly, this prime time special is a way to address how ridiculous it’s gotten.”
Tapper said, “I think some journalists will."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “It’s astounding — that in a media environment where 90% of evaluative comments about President Trump on broadcast news top 90% negative, two cable channels devote 24 hours a day to deriding Trump, and Stelter dedicates his show every week to besmirching any media figures favorable toward Trump — that he could still see a world of journalists lacking adequate disdain toward Trump.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ November 18: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Brian Stelter and Dan Rather fret over ‘cult’ of Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features two of President Trump’s critics, CNN’s Brian Stelter and Dan Rather, asking if the administration’s supporters and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are part of a Trump cult.
“The short answer is yes,” Rather said.
“Increasingly, President Trump’s support seems cultish,” Rather said on CNN’s Reliable Sources Sunday. Host Stelter had noted how the fate of the Trump presidency is in the hands of McConnell and cited a tweet by Rather in which the former CBS News anchor suggested Trump backers are part of a cult.
Stelter then asked, “Is Mitch McConnell part of the Trump cult?” Rather said, “I think the short answer is yes.”
The exchange on Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN:
Brian Stelter: “Look, the fate of the Trump presidency is in Mitch McConnell’s hands. We all know this is all going to end up in the Senate. Dan, you tweeted something that might be related to this. You said the other day, ‘I have covered many cults. Some end with a bang, others with a whimper, but they invariably end. The question is how much damage they leave in their wake.’ Is Mitch McConnell part of the Trump cult?”
Dan Rather: “Yes. I think the short answer is yes. And I’m not the only one making this observation that increasingly President Trump’s support seems cultish. It’s all about him, it’s not about the policy, it’s not about the standards of politics. Ronald Reagan had a very solid following, but he stood for something in terms of policy. Franklin Roosevelt, same way. These cults, cults generally don’t end well. There will be people who say well, 'it’s too much to say it’s a cult.' But I don’t think so because the further we go, it is always all about him. It’s not about a policy.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Mitch McConnell, the definition of a traditional ‘country club’ Republican, is ‘part of the Trump cult’? Really? Journalists who never recognized their own adoration for President Barack Obama, what one could have called a cult-like adulation, now see anyone who isn’t joining the ‘Never Trump’ impeachment cause, as part of some sort of pro-Trump cult.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ New on November 11: Liberal Media Scream: Jane Fonda wants ‘Nuremberg trials’ for energy executives
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features activist and Hollywood star Jane Fonda, who has been spending a lot of time in Washington recently protesting on climate change and even going to jail for her efforts.
Now, she wants energy executives and their political allies to be treated like Nazis and face a “Nuremberg” style trial similar to German dictator Adolf Hitler’s henchmen, who were often given the death penalty at the post-World War II trials.
She appeared on the debut of The Impeachment Show on the Viceland, where she said that there’s “literally a ticking time bomb over everything” because of climate change. She claimed “our government is being ruled by fossil fuel” and so “democracy is teetering on the edge of collapse.”
Charging that the “fossil fuel industry” has caused wars that have killed many Americans, she also charged oil executives and enabling politicians “should all be tried for crimes against humanity and nature.” Host Michael Moynihan said, “So, you want to see sort of a Nuremberg trial for climate criminals?” to which Fonda responded, “Yeah, I would.”
From the Nov. 7 debut of the weekly Thursday night program:
FONDA: "I’m only 81. But even if I was 200 years old, I know that I could have said, I've never seen this before, because humankind has never been in this situation where there is literally a ticking time bomb over everything. Everything is subsumed under that because healthcare, national security, the economy — it’s all going to go out the window if we can’t address the worsening of climate change. I think that democracy is teetering on the edge of collapse."
MOYNIHAN: "You think so?"
FONDA: "Oh, I think so. Yes. That’s why we need to go into the streets. Our government is being ruled by fossil fuel, and that’s a fact that can be proven. The wars are being fought for oil. Our men and women are being killed and maimed, wounded psychologically and physically, because of oil. They should all be tried for crimes against humanity and nature."
MOYNIHAN: "Who in particular?"
FONDA: "The people who run the fossil fuel industry. And I might add the politicians that they bought off who haven’t got the gumption to stand up to it."
MOYNIHAN: "So, you want to see sort of a Nuremberg trial for climate criminals?"
FONDA: "Yeah, I would."
MOYNIHAN: "You would support that?"
FONDA: "Yeah."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Fonda and her apocalyptic view of the world is indicative of how and why Democratic presidential candidates are being pushed so far to the Left. Rational policy options are dismissed in favor of radical proposals to stave off the end of the world, where putting people on trial for providing a product everyone uses, and which has allowed huge gains in living standards, is considered perfectly reasonable and not an ominous sign of Orwellian thinking.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ November 4: Liberal Media Scream: CNN finds 358 Trump tweet misspellings
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN's dedication of an entire segment of Reliable Sources to President Trump’s Twitter misspellings.
“It’s actually not that funny,” host Brian Stelter told his audience, adding, “I know English teachers are horrified by the president’s poor form. Lots of other people are embarrassed by it too. But I’ve never seen anyone do a comprehensive study of his spelling errors or look at what they mean.”
Stelter asked the website Factba.se to conduct “a comprehensive study of his spelling errors.”
What they found, he reported, is that “Trump makes a spelling error at least one out of every five days.” Overall, he added, “Trump has made 358 of those spelling mistakes, those errors.”
From the Sunday's Reliable Sources on CNN:
“Everybody makes spelling mistakes, all right. Everybody does. I do. Everybody does. But on Twitter, Donald Trump makes a lot more of them than most people. Just this week, he misspelled Republican and unfair, but those are hardly the worst examples. We have seen countless absurd spellings from the commander in chief. He is called showbiz shoebiz, there's hamberders, there’s the smocking gun, there’s a lot of these ...
“It’s actually not that funny. I know English teachers are horrified by the President's poor form. Lots of other people are embarrassed by it too. But I've never seen anyone do a comprehensive study of his spelling errors or look at what they mean ...
“So here’s what the researchers found, on average, Trump makes a spelling error at least one out of every five days. And since taking office, he’s made at least 188 of them total, more than 188 spelling errors on Twitter. Now, what do we compare this to? Let’s take a look at Trump’s family members to compare to — let’s take a look at the 2020 Democratic candidates as well and to see how Trump compares. Well, this says it all. Someone like Andrew Yang, 14 mistakes. Bernie Sanders, three misspellings. Obama, zero. This is during the time since Trump took office.
“Of course, if you can’t get the small stuff right, people worry about the big stuff ...
“Here’s Trump’s numbers up against Obama’s just to get it into perspective here, because again everybody makes mistakes. Obama started tweeting — Trump started tweeting 2009, Obama started tweeting in 2012. If you compare their errors since joining Twitter, Trump has made 358 of those spelling mistakes, those errors, Barack Obama four. We could all use a proofreader, right? I think President Trump could use two or three proofreaders.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Looks like Stelter has run out of relevant anti-Trump talking points, forcing him into the land of silliness. This is what now passes for hard-hitting investigative journalism from CNN. What’s next, an expose on how much hair spray Trump uses?”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ October 28: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Deutsch rants Trump will ‘jail’ critics
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features Donny Deutsch, who, while he no longer has his own TV show, continues to rant about what a “tyrant” President Trump is.
The MSNBC Morning Joe regular slammed Trump as “a sociopath and whatever the worst tyrants in history were capable of doing, he is capable of doing.” Appearing on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Deutsch claimed that while “we all keep saying it can’t happen here ... It is happening here! And people need to be frightened.”
He proceeded to warn host Bill Maher that Trump’s supposed misuse of the Justice Department means “you and I could end up in jail really easily. We’re not that far from that.”
Deutsch prefaced his remarks by recalling how “I took a lot of heat on my show going through Nazi Germany in the ‘30s and the parallels” to the Trump era. He was referring to allegations he made in July on his since canceled MSNBC program, comments detailed in the July 29 Liberal Media Scream: “Donny Deutsch: ‘I’m not saying Trump is going to slaughter 6 million Jews’”
Deutsch on the Oct. 25 Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO:
“You know, we use the term authoritative tendencies. Let’s stop with that. He is an all-out dictator. You know, I took a lot of heat on my show going through Nazi Germany in the ‘30s and the parallels, and what I will say is this, and I’ve known Donald Trump for 20 years. He’s a sociopath, and whatever the worst tyrants in history were capable of doing, he is capable of doing. We all keep saying it can’t happen here. It can’t happen here. It is happening here. And people need to be frightened.”
“You left out something in your dictator list, beyond creating an other, all of a sudden the Justice Department is not an individual branch. It serves not only at the pleasure of the president, but for and on behalf of the president. By the way, you and I could end up in jail really easily. We’re not that far from that. I’m a doom and gloom guy, but I really believe it’s this bad.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Giving credence to such ludicrously exaggerated fears should embarrass anyone pretending to be a journalist or a pundit but not Deutsch who remains beyond embarrassment. He has repeatedly made comparisons of Trump to Nazi Germany, and now he has added the paranoia that Trump might imprison him. Why would Trump do that when Deutsch is an embodiment of the East Coast elite’s irrational derangement when it comes to all things Trump?”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ October 14 and 21: Liberal Media Scream on vacation these weeks.
■ New on October 7: Liberal Media Scream: Chuck Todd barks, ‘This is not about the media!’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features NBC Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd, who has been on an anti-Trump roll.
This weekend it was Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson who raised Todd’s ire and the newsman’s demand that Johnson stop singling out biased media. Johnson also faced a slap from Todd who accused the two-term senator of buttering up to Trump.
The clash came when Johnson raised the hostility to Trump of top FBI agents before the 2016 election and how that has fueled Trump’s anger over Russia collusion charges. His voice rising, an annoyed Todd chastised Johnson for bringing up “Fox News conspiracy propaganda stuff.”
After repeatedly trying to interrupt Johnson, Todd said: “This is not about the media! Senator Johnson, please! Can we please answer the question instead of trying to make Donald Trump feel better here.”
From the October 6 Meet the Press:
SEN. RON JOHNSON: You’ve got John Brennan on -- you ought to ask Director Brennan what did Peter Strzok mean when he texted Lisa Page on December 15th, 2016?
CHUCK TODD: Senator? Can we, Senator?
JOHNSON: No, no, Chuck, let me finish.
TODD: What does this have to do with Ukraine? What does this have to do with Ukraine?
JOHNSON: It has everything to do with Ukraine. Now listen. 'Think our sisters have begun leaking like mad, scorned and worried and political. They’re kicking into overdrive.' Now, that was December 15th. Six days before that is when we first started hearing the CIA leaking about Russia supporting the Trump campaign. That is why Trump is so upset. He had this false narrative, that resulted in him being set by up James Comey in -- on January 16th. Then he has the--
TODD: Senator--
JOHNSON: --Special Counsel appointed that has hampered his entire investigation--
TODD: Senator?
JOHNSON: --his entire-- his entire-- his entire administration. And now, once he's been-- that was proven false, he would like to know and I would like to know and I know his supporters would like to know, where did this all come from? Who planted that false story?
TODD: Senator!
JOHNSON: Who leaked? You know, I have my third letter into the Inspector General of the Intelligence--
TODD: All right, senator--
JOHNSON: --Committee, asking to just confirm-- just confirm, are you investigating those leaks that Peter Strzok talked about in that--
TODD: All right, senator, I have no idea why a Fox, why a Fox News conspiracy, propaganda stuff is popping up on here. I have no idea, I have no idea why we’re going here. Senator, I'm asking about–
JOHNSON: –That is why President Trump is upset and why his supporters are upset at the news media.
TODD: Oh, okay, this is not about the media! Senator Johnson -- Senator Johnson, please! Can we please answer the question that I asked you instead of trying to make Donald Trump feel better here that you’re not criticizing him--
JOHNSON: I'm not -- I'm not.
TODD: I’m just trying to ask you a simple question of what made you what made you wince. What, I’m asking a simple question about you, clearly, were upset that somehow there was an implication military aide was being frozen because the president wanted an investigation. Why did you wince?
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “A fine display of how far Meet the Press has fallen since the days of Tim Russert. Chuck Todd is much more of a liberal political activist than an inquisitive journalist, literally yelling to silence a conservative guest who dared stray from the media’s narrative by trying to introduce facts Todd wants to discredit and condescendingly dismissed as conspiratorial.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ September 30: Liberal Media Scream: Top Democrat says Trump an ‘accessory to murder’ in Ukraine
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest example of Trump Derangement Syndrome, with an influential Democrat and former House leader accusing President Trump of being an “accessory” to murder for delaying funds to Ukraine.
As one of the panelists Friday night on HBO’s Real Time, former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank dismissed previous reasons for impeaching Trump as he focused on the Ukraine phone call.
“I almost got the feeling it was like trying Al Capone for tax evasion,” he said.
But now with the transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, “we’ve got him for extortion and being an accessory, I believe, to murder.”
Host Bill Maher could be heard, off camera, being taken aback by the charge: “Murder?” But as Frank elaborated, on how Trump allowed “murder by the Russians of Ukrainians” by “delaying the self-defense weapons that Ukraine needed,” Maher fell in line, “oh I see” and “that’s right.”
Frank on the Sept. 27 Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO:
“Some of the stuff that they were talking about impeaching him from before, trying to cover up that he paid to cover-up his sex with Stormy Daniels, or being rude to James Comey, which almost everybody wants to be. I almost got the feeling it was like trying Al Capone for tax evasion, but now we’ve got him for extortion and being an accessory, I believe, to murder. I mean, let’s be clear, murder by the Russians of Ukrainians. We forget what the context is. The Russians, his friend Putin, are invading a peaceful, democratic country. Congress voted to give weapons to that country to defend itself against an attack. He was withholding those until he got threatened even by Lindsey Graham, that was too much even for him. But what he was saying basically, he was delaying the self-defense weapons that Ukraine needed.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Quite a serious charge to make, a sign of how liberals are so enraged by Trump that they go to extremes to impugn him. And that’s to say nothing of how Frank’s theory is undercut by the fact that Trump, unlike former President Barack Obama, pushed to provide arms to Ukraine to fight Russia. So, by Frank’s logic, Obama should also be accused of being an accessory to murder.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ September 23: Liberal Media Scream: Joy Behar seeks ‘remuneration’ for women ‘forced’ to have children
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the view of members of The View that women barred from abortions should be paid for being forced to have children.
“If you want the state to claim ownership of women’s bodies, you should pay,” said author Margaret Atwood on the daytime ABC show. Co-host Joy Behar agreed.
Promoting her new book, The Testaments, which is a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood found a receptive audience in the panel.
Behar said, “Something’s got to be done. Something, some remuneration if you are forced to give birth to some child you don’t want.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin described Atwood’s imaginary world as a “patriarchal society” in which “the rights of women have been virtually erased. The handmaids are women forced to give birth to the babies of the ruling class.”
From the Friday show, picking up on the Canadian author’s claim that “everything” in The Handmaid’s Tale, published in 1986, came from “actual, real-life events:”
Sunny Hostin: “But where were women being forced to have children?”
Margaret Atwood: “Which century would you like to visit? Which country would you like to visit? Which state in the United States would you now like to visit?”
Joy Behar: “Which was it in the United States? When was it in the United States?”
Atwood: “Well, any time before Roe v. Wade. So, and now since they’re rolling back those rights and diminishing them so much, you’re approaching a state in which women are essentially being conscripted or drafted the way you would be conscripted or drafted into the Army, and my view on that is, if you want to do this — if you want the state to claim ownership of women’s bodies, you should pay. So, if somebody’s drafted into the Army, they get their food, their lodging and clothing, their medical, all of that covered. So if you want to do that to women, you should pay for it. Don’t you agree?”
Behar: “Something’s got to be done. Something, some remuneration if you are forced to give birth to some child you don’t want.”
Brent Baker, vice president of research for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Atwood has such a dystopian view of America pre-Roe that even the ladies of The View expressed some skepticism about it, but Behar was all in on Atwood’s crazy idea that pregnant women should get ‘remuneration’ like army draftees. Hard to find a truer example of modern feminists seeing women as the victim of a male patriarchy in the real 2019, not just in Atwood’s dark alternate universe.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ September 16: Liberal Media Scream: Morning shows push questionable Kavanaugh charge
(Washington Examiner post)
There they go again.
This week’s Liberal Media Scream finds two Monday morning network news shows pushing a sexual misconduct allegation against Associate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh made in the New York Times, even after the paper put up a correction that watered down the claim.
ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today opened their Monday shows by hyping a new allegation against Kavanaugh, despite the New York Times' update that the alleged college victim “declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident.”
Nonetheless, Cecilia Vega teased on Good Morning America: “Supreme Court chaos. The new report about Justice Brett Kavanaugh alleging another case of sexual misconduct while in college. The 2020 candidates now calling for impeachment as President Trump comes to his defense.”
On Today, Hoda Kotb announced: “Under fire. Calls to impeach Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after a new allegation of sexual misconduct. This morning, our exclusive interview with the reporters who broke that story.”
Craig Melvin set up a subsequent segment: “Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is facing growing calls to be impeached in the wake of a new allegation of sexual misconduct when he was a student at Yale. That and more is detailed in a new book from two reporters from the New York Times, and NBC’s Stephanie Gosk sat down with them exclusively.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “This is why no one can trust the media. They are so invested in a storyline — in this case, the quest of liberals to ruin the reputation of a Supreme Court justice whom they disdain and want to remove — that they plow forward with a damaging allegation even after its premise has been undermined. They just can’t let go, showing they are liberals first and journalists a distant second.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ September 9: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Don Lemon gives Trump’s black jobs credit to Obama
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN host Don Lemon urging black voters not to believe President Trump’s success in reducing black unemployment to historic lows.
Instead in one of his segments, he said that blacks should focus on “the president’s racist behavior.”
His comments came after the Labor Department highlighted the black unemployment at just 5.5 percent.
Instead, Lemon teased: “Black unemployment hits a record low. How do black voters weigh the numbers against the president’s racist comments?”
From his Sept. 6 CNN Tonight:
“We’re back. We want to talk about new in your opinions from the Labor Department showing that black unemployment is down to a record low. It’s at a 5.5 percent right now for the month of August. Down half a percent from last month. The president has boasted, as you know, about strong black unemployment numbers throughout his first term.”
After clips of Trump, Lemon cued up Democratic analyst Keith Boykin: “The black unemployment rate falling to a record low. Good news only part of the story. Give us the rest of the story.”
Extrapolating on Boykin’s points, Lemon laid out the case to not credit Trump: “So under Obama, as you said, March 2010, 16.8 percent. End of the presidency, 7.9 percent. That is a difference of 8.9 percent. So Trump’s highest was 8 percent. It was in February of 2017. Now it’s at 5.5 percent. That is down 2.5 percent. So we have 8.9 percent in the Obama presidency and down by 2.5 percent in this presidency. As you said, it is good news. It is a good trend, but it didn’t start under this president and the numbers actually declined much stronger under the former president. How do black voters in 2020 weigh these low unemployment numbers against the president’s racist behavior? Charlottesville. Slamming Baltimore. Rodent infested. And you know. Go on and on?”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Democratic and liberal activist first, journalist a distant second. A clear case of Don Lemon playing political spin-meister over delivering the news. Since a just the facts news presentation would not advance the anti-Trump cause, Lemon decided to try to discredit Trump with talk of racism and a desperate attempt to twist the news of September 2019 into a chance to praise Barack Obama.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ September 2: Liberal Media Scream: Chris Matthews says Trump governs with crayons
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC’s Chris Matthews comparing President Trump to former Uganda strongman Idi Amin and charging that they both governed like children.
In a Hardball segment tied to critical comments about President Trump by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Matthews insisted “I’m not a Trump hater,” then said, “I see a president running the country...with crayons.”
He added, “This guy is Idi Amin. You know, when they found Idi Amin, the guy running Uganda, finally, they found he had toys in his room. He was actually spending his time playing with toys.”
Matthews, on MSNBC’s Hardball on Thursday August 29:
“I’m not a Trump hater. Personally, I’m not a Trump hater. It doesn’t work with me, that hating thing, but I see a president running the country, the greatest country in history maybe, with crayons. I want Greenland in crayons. It’s like a kid with, an eight-year-old with crayons. I want to make more money down in Doral. I like this guy Boris Johnson, who just suspended the Parliament, the mother of all parliaments, just got rid of the parliament. It’s Magna Carta is at stake here and he says, I like this guy’s style. This is an eight-year-old. If Mussolini was around today, he would say, I love that guy’s chin, the way it sticks out. I mean....
“This guy is Idi Amin. You know, when they found Idi Amin, the guy running Uganda, finally, they found he had toys in his room. He was actually spending his time playing with toys. Anyway, I love my history. Anyway, thank you. Even when it’s weird like that.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Yes, it is weird to say you’re not a Trump hater and then proceed to call Trump ‘an eight-year-old with crayons,’ say a fascist dictator would admire him and that he ‘is’ a modern incarnation of a mass murderer. Trump could do without defenders like Matthews, but that’s about the best he can get from MSNBC.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ August 26: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s Stelter on Trump, ‘crazy,’ ‘daily madness’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN media reporter Brian Stelter urging networks to call out President Trump’s “freakouts,” adding that they are getting worse.
On his Sunday Reliable Sources show he said, “There is definitely widespread recognition that Trump’s behavior is getting worse in type and in frequency. It seems he’s acting more erratic more often.” But, he complained, “when you watch a broadcast nightly newscast, how often do you hear about just how far off the road Trump is? Not often enough. Yes, they do note the daily madness, but they rarely connect the dots between the freakouts.”
He praised CNN and MSNBC for being “better about putting the ugly reality right in front and center in banners and in stories.”
Stelter led into his segment with two psychiatrists: “We can’t tiptoe around it anymore. We’ve got to talk about this. So let’s talk about it. Let’s do it. Let me bring in two guests, two psychiatrists ... ”
Some of the on-screen chyrons displayed by CNN as Stelter laid out his case:
• “TIPTOEING AROUND TRUMP’S INSTABILITY”
• “TRUMP’S ACTIONS RAISE AWKWARD QUESTIONS ABOUT FITNESS”
• “WHEN A PRESIDENT’S MENTAL HEALTH IS THE TOP STORY”
He said, “The story that’s playing out every day on our TV screens and Twitter feeds. He is getting worse. We can all see it. It’s happening in public. But it’s still a very hard, very sensitive story to cover. I’m talking, of course, about President Trump, about his behavior, about his instability, the contradictions, the lies, the complete rejection of reality...”
Stelter then recited his evidence, listing how George Conway said Trump is “mentally unstable,” Anthony Scaramucci claimed Trump has had a mental breakdown, Trump’s “racist remarks about Baltimore” and “The Squad” as well as confusing Dayton with Toledo and canceling his trip to Denmark over the Greenland dispute.
Stelter continued: “Look, all of these stories are covered in the moment, individually, by reporters. News outlets use words like ‘erratic,’ ‘volatile,’ ‘unstable,’ but rarely are Trump’s words and actions covered as a whole, rarely do they take it to the next level. OK, what do you see — what he just said seems crazy. What does that reveal about him? We rarely see it go to that next step.
“I spent the week talking with major media figures at networks and newspapers. There is definitely widespread recognition that Trump’s behavior is getting worse in type and in frequency. It seems he’s acting more erratic more often. I mean, calling his Federal Reserve chair an enemy and comparing him to the communist leader of China, sending the markets into a free fall? Come on.
“Of course, the president is always going to have a choir to back him up, to rationalize the irrational, to make excuses and/or to say, hey, he was just kidding. His Fox fans pretend that Trump’s worst episodes didn’t happen at all, or, you know, they blame the media for bad coverage.
“But let’s talk about that coverage, everywhere but Fox. When you watch a broadcast nightly newscast, how often do you hear about just how far off the road Trump is? Not often enough. Yes, they do note the daily madness, but they rarely connect the dots between the freakouts.
"Now, I do think CNN and MSNBC are better about putting the ugly reality right in front and center in banners and in stories, but there’s not really a vocabulary for this. There’s not really a format for covering it.
“So something’s wrong. There are lots of theories about what it is. There are some doctors who think they know. There are others say we shouldn’t speculate. There are ethical questions about having this conversation at all. But we can’t tiptoe around it anymore. We’ve got to talk about this. So let’s talk about it. Let’s do it. Let me bring in two guests, two psychiatrists.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “The only one here suffering from any questions about their mental fitness is Stelter himself, who doesn’t seem to recognize his own Trump Derangement Syndrome, as he presumes every Trump comment that he finds odd is proof of a mental problem. Network news is already 90% negative on Trump, but Stelter sees their shortcomings as not being even more derogatory by declaring Trump mentally unfit.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ August 19: Liberal Media Scream: Mooch for President?
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a CNN host suggesting a presidential challenge by former Trump ally turned enemy Anthony Scaramucci.
On Monday’s New Day on CNN, co-host Alisyn Camerota asked Scaramucci if he’s considering making a run against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.
She pleaded with Scaramucci to name who could take on Trump: “Like who? Give me some names.” When he declined to offer any names, she wondered:
“So Anthony, when you say that you’re compiling a team of people who are like-minded, are you considering a run?”
Scaramucci declined, making a joke about “running for re-election in my marriage.”
Camerota set up the 12-minute interview in the 7 a.m. hour: “Could we see someone new within the GOP somehow force President Trump off the ticket in 2020 or might he leave of his own accord? At least one big name Republican says some inside the Trump administration have had enough.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “The wackiest urging, on the cable channel, for a guest to run for president since CNN host Brian Stelter told Michael Avenatti, ‘I’m taking you seriously as a contender.’ Camerota showed CNN’s desperation to replace Trump, seeing anyone as better than him. Her thinking will surely soon look just as embarrassing as Stelter’s, even to the most angry anti-Trump viewers.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ August 12: Liberal Media Scream on vacation this week
■ August 5: Liberal Media Scream: Bill Maher cheers economic collapse if it dooms Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features HBO’s Bill Maher praying for an economy-killing recession if it scuttles President Trump’s reelection chances.
On his show Real Time with Bill Maher Friday night, he said he hopes for a recession since “it would get rid of Trump.”
When guest panelist Josh Barro, a business columnist for New York Magazine, pointed out that in a recession “people lose their jobs and their homes,” Maher shrugged, “I know. It’s worth it.”
The exchange occurred on the Aug. 2 "Real Time Overtime," a post-show online video for YouTube, recorded at the conclusion of the regular show.
In response to a viewer question about how the Fed cutting the borrowing rate will make next economic downturn worse, Maher said, “I’ve been hoping for a recession — people hate me for it — but it would get rid of Trump, so you shouldn’t hate me for it.”
To which, Barro noted: “Recessions are really bad. People lose their jobs and their homes.”
Maher doubled down: “I know. It’s worth it.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Maher couldn’t have provided the people in ‘flyover country’ with a better example of the disdain for them from a coastal elite. Maher puts his personal hatred of President Trump ahead of the welfare of the American people. No wonder middle America has so embraced Trump as a fighter for them against the elites.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ July 29: Liberal Media Scream: Donny Deutsch: ‘I’m not saying Trump is going to slaughter 6 million Jews’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features one of the Left’s favorite slams on President Trump: that he is Adolf Hitler incarnated.
It comes from MSNBC regular Donny Deutsch on his show, Saturday Night Politics. As another MSNBC host, Joy Reid, nods her head, Deutsch rants, “There’s so many stunning parallels to what Hitler was doing,” before adding, “I’m not saying Trump is going to slaughter 6 million Jews.”
Deutsch, on the July 27 edition of MSNBC’s 8 p.m. EDT Saturday Night Politics:
“Could it happen here? ...There’s so many stunning parallels to what Hitler was doing in the early phase, and once again I’m not saying Trump is going to slaughter 6 million Jews, but ranging from the fake news parallels to the seizing of new powers, the Reichstag in ‘33 versus Trump’s nonexistent national emergencies and declarations to ignore Congress, the racial scapegoating, the rallies, the isolating of himself, the creating of false other, he has the Justice Department in his pocket. He has one branch of the government marching blindly behind him.
“And we keep saying, ‘oh, there’s a safeguard, this couldn’t happen,’ but every time, even when it comes to ‘send her home, send her home, send her back.’ And then Kevin McCarthy, the third ranking Republican, basically said you didn’t see that, that wasn’t a chant.
“So, I firmly believe, knowing Donald Trump, that if you said to Donald Trump, ‘Mr. Trump in order to become Putin, in order to stay in office forever, in order to loot this country, you have to do X,’ he’s capable to doing wherever your mind can take you for X ... I want to stop using autocrat. I want to start using the word fascist. And many tendencies like Adolf Hitler.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Hard to imagine another media figure who has so well earned five screams. How can you decry Trump for mean insults of politicians and communities when you are irresponsibly making the ludicrous case that he’s following the path of a genocidal dictator? How can anyone consider Deutsch a serious political commentator? MSNBC should be embarrassed by such drivel but, sadly, they rewarded this guy with his own show.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ July 22: Liberal Media Scream: CNN says hitting Trump ‘is true patriotism’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN’s media critic calling on journalists to rap President Trump. “That is true patriotism,” said Brian Stelter.
During his Reliable Sources show on Sunday, he fondly recalled old school journalist Edward R. Murrow and called for TV activism against Trump: “When politicians are confusing dissent with disloyalty, journalists must call it out. That is true patriotism, the kind of patriotism Murrow demonstrated 65 years ago and Americans need again today on television, in the papers and online.”
From CNN’s Reliable Sources:
BRIAN STELTER: This was a challenging week for America, but certainly not the first, far from the first challenging week. And it’s in moments like these that I think back to Edward R. Murrow’s historic 1954 broadcast on CBS. He took on Senator Joseph McCarthy and those red scare tactics of the time. After fears of communism in America had reached a fever pitch. This is what Murrow said then.”
MURROW, MARCH 9, 1954: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty ... We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom wherever it continues to exist in the world. But we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”
STELTER: “Murrow spoke so well about resisting fear and defending freedom. He ended his commentary with the most important point of all: That McCarthy had not created the situation of fear, he had merely exploited it. Murrow in that moment stepped away from what was seen as objective journalism to lay out a harsh critique against a powerful authority figure because people were getting so swept up by fear and unreason they couldn’t see how they were being manipulated. It’s easy to get caught in the divide between Left and Right, with Trump versus socialism, I don’t know, open borders versus mass deportation. All of these slogans and terms.
“But it’s important to recognize that Trump knows what we fear, at least what some Americans fear and he’s using it as his fuel. And there is an important role for journalists in identifying that, for speaking out about that. When politicians are confusing dissent with disloyalty, journalists must call it out. That is true patriotism, the kind of patriotism that Murrow demonstrated 65 years ago and that Americans need again today on television, in the papers and online.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Stelter admired how ‘Murrow in that moment stepped away from what was seen as objective journalism to lay out a harsh critique against a powerful authority figure.’ As if today’s journalism is purely objective? In what world does Stelter live? Cable news hosts and guests, and broadcast ones too, have spent much of the past week condemning Trump as ‘racist,’ with more than one calling him a ‘dictator’ or a ‘fascist.’
“There’s no need to advocate for a Murrow-like ‘call out’ of Trump’s supposed unpatriotic fear-mongering; that’s what CNN and MSNBC, fueled by New York Times and Washington Post columnists, do much of the day. If Murrow were alive today, he’d be considered too tame to get a prime time hour on CNN or MSNBC.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ July 15: Liberal Media Scream: Joe Scarborough likens Trump to KKK
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features Morning Joe Scarborough feeding off President Trump’s weekend tweets suggesting that four minority Democratic House women “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how …”
On Monday’s show on MSNBC, Scarborough repeatedly equated Trump with former KKK leader David Duke. After MoveOn’s Karine Jean-Pierre declared there’s no difference between “the Twitter feed of the President of the United States and a radical racist white supremacist,” Scarborough jumped in: “David Duke. Seriously, you could ask people, did David Duke say this or did Donald Trump say this?”
A few minutes later Scarborough broadened his attack: “This is about a political party now that has embraced the racial ideology of David Duke.” Wrapping up the three-hour program, Scarborough doubled down: “These are not the words of an American president we heard over the weekend. These are the words of David Duke, Klans members, and white nationalists, neo-Nazis.”
From the July 15 Morning Joe, starting at about 6:25 a.m. EDT:
Karine Jean-Pierre: “If you did a blind test on the Twitter feed, you could not tell the difference between the Twitter feed of the President of the United States and a radical racist white supremacist. You couldn’t tell the difference.”
Joe Scarborough: “David Duke. Seriously, you could ask people, did David Duke say this or did Donald Trump say this?”
Jean-Pierre: “Yes, that’s exactly right. Joe. And here’s the thing, this goes back to the point I was tying to make at the beginning here. Donald Trump is not testing his 2020 strategy. This is his 2020 strategy. It is racism. It is fear. It is bigotry.”
Mika Brzezinski: “It’s his last hope.”
Jean-Pierre: “Exactly. This is his last hope.”
....
Scarborough, at 6:32 a.m.: “This is about a political party now that has embraced the racial ideology of David Duke. Good luck with that in the years to come. Because you are going to be left on the dust bin of political history, Republicans.”
....
Scarborough, at 8:59 a.m.: “These are not the words of an American president we heard over the weekend. These are the words of David Duke, Klans members, and white nationalists, neo Nazis. They know it. They know it. They need to condemn it today.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Reasonable people can be uncomfortable with the tenor of Trump’s Sunday tweets suggesting four far-left congresswomen “go back” to their countries, but Scarborough, as he too often does, is so enraged that he goes beyond rational criticism and impugns the president and all Republicans as members of the Klan. Thus, he loses any credibility as a critic of Trump and Trump’s supporters.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ July 8: Liberal Media Scream: Bernstein wants probe of why people support Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame calling for a deep dive on why people support President Trump.
On CNN’s Reliable Sources, Bernstein accused Trump of bringing a “cold civil war almost to the point of ignition” by promoting “undemocratic notions and authoritarian notions.”
And he urged an exploration of why people support him “no matter what he does, no matter how outrageous seemingly his conduct is.” He urged the media to do “some real reporting” by making “our table bigger in terms of our reportorial landscape.”
“Look, this cold civil war predates Donald Trump. And Donald Trump understood that we are in a cold civil war in this country. And he has exploited it and brought this cold civil war almost to the point of ignition through his actions and his words, which are unprecedented in terms of presidential conduct.
“No president in the history of the United States in 246 years has expressed the kinds of ideas and thoughts and undemocratic notions and authoritarian notions that he has. We need to start connecting these dots. What do people in the country think of this and why do they think and support him, no matter what he does, no matter how outrageous seemingly his conduct is. We’ve got some real reporting to do that we need to make our table bigger in terms of our reportorial landscape and get out of the political weeds.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Some fresh, zany ranting from Washington Post veteran Bernstein who always sees Trump causing impending doom without consideration that, far from igniting the ‘cold civil war,’ Trump is simply reacting to the Left’s effort to undermine traditional patriotic values. Nike and the Betsy Ross flag is just the latest example. It’s also humorous that, three years after Trump took office, Bernstein wants expanded reporting to learn why the strange natives would support Trump.
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ July 1: No Liberal Media Scream this week.
■ New on June 24: Liberal Media Scream: Morning Joe calls Mike Pence a ‘liar ... who claims to be a Christian’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough ripping the treatment of young illegal immigrants, comparing their situation to that of terrorist interrogation camps.
What’s more, on his Monday show his co-host Mike Brzezinski slapped Vice President Mike Pence as “pathetic” while Scarborough sneered that the veep "claims to be a Christian."
Scarborough and Brzezinski held the Trump administration culpable for the treatment of children at the border. Scarborough charged that children are “being treated like terrorists at an interrogation camp.”
Scarborough turned it into a racial issue, pleading: “There have to be Republican senators that have children and grandchildren who actually understand that it doesn’t matter what color these children’s skin is. They’re just as precious in God’s sight ...”
After a clip of Pence with which the morning show hosts disagreed, Brzezinski countered: “No, actually, no Mr. Vice President, you’re pathetic.” Scarborough added: “That’s just a lie. Mike Pence is lying.”
From the Monday, June 24 Morning Joe on MSNBC:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Children being treated like terrorists at an interrogation camp, lights on 24 hours a day.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Cold floors.
SCARBOROUGH: Cold floors, having aluminum on top of them.
BRZEZINSKI: No hygiene.
SCARBOROUGH: No toothbrushes, no soap. 7, 8-year-olds having to take care of 2, 3-year-olds who don’t have diapers or walking around in dirty diapers. This is deplorable. And I just wonder what the president and the Republican members of Congress are going to do about it. I mean, there have to be Republican senators that have children and grandchildren who actually understand that it doesn’t matter what color these children’s skin is. They’re just as precious in god’s sight as their own children and grandchildren. ....
JAKE TAPPER ON CNN’S STATE OF THE UNION: Aren’t toothbrushes and blankets and medicine, basic conditions for kids? Aren’t they a part of how the United States of America, the Trump administration, treats children?
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Well, of course they are, Jake ...
TAPPER: We have money to give toothpaste and soap and blankets to these kids in this facility in El Paso County right now.
PENCE: Of course we do.
TAPPER: So, why aren’t we?
PENCE: My point is it’s all part of the appropriations process. Congress needs to provide additional support to deal with the crisis at our southern border.
BRZEZINSKI: No, actually, no Mr. Vice President, you’re pathetic.
SCARBOROUGH: That’s just a lie. Mike Pence is lying about children living in torturous positions right there. Mike Pence who claims to be a Christian, a devout Christian and uses it — and I’m sure he is, I'm not questioning his faith, but he uses it as a political badge of honor. Mike should read the gospels again and see what Jesus says about the treatment of little children. You can start at Luke 17:2. Something about millstones being hung around people’s neck.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “With thousands of kids arriving at the border every week it’s a miracle CBP can even house them and the fact that facilities are overwhelmed is hardly surprising. But instead of looking at how Congress must help address the crisis through changes in the asylum law and additional funding, or at least trying to figure out a short-term solution, Scarborough and Brzezinksi resorted to the all-too-common Trump-bashing, complete with condescending name calling of the vice president.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ June 17: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos plays word games with Trump on ‘collusion’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the back and forth over the Mueller report between President Trump and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
The newsman and former Clinton aide said the report did not dismiss “collusion,” and he went so far as to counter Trump’s claim that there was no collusion finding by asking if the president had read the report.
The report said: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities...”
From the Sunday night "ABC News Special, President Trump: 30 Hours" as the two sat inside the presidential limo:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s your pitch to the swing voter on the fence?
TRUMP: Safety, security, great economy. I think I’ve done more than any other first-term president ever. I have a phony witch hunt, which is just a phony pile of stuff. Mueller comes out. There’s no collusion. And essentially a ruling that no obstruction. And they keeping going with it. You know what, people are angry about it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I don’t think that’s what he found. But we don’t have time for that now. We’ll talk about it later.
TRUMP: That is what he found, excuse me, he found no collusion. And he didn’t find anything having to do with obstruction because they made a ruling based on his findings and they said no obstruction.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He didn’t examine collusion, he laid out evidence of obstruction.
TRUMP: Are you trying to say now that there was collusion even though he said there is no collusion?
STEPHANOPOULOS: He didn’t say there’s no collusion.
TRUMP: He said no collusion.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He said he didn’t look--
TRUMP: George, the report said no collusion.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you read the report?
TRUMP, getting out of limo: Yes, I did and you should read it, too, George. Come on, let’s go. You should read it too, George.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “If Mueller had found ‘collusion’ under any name, that would dominate media airtime. But his report undermined the news media/liberal Democratic hopes, so Stephanopoulos resorted to word games when Trump offered a simple and accurate statement that Mueller didn’t find collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign. Stephanopoulos learned well from his mentor, Bill Clinton, the world’s best word-parser, using parsing to obscure the larger reality.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ June 10: Liberal Media Scream: Cuomo says it’s ‘D-Day’ for impeachment
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN’s Chris Cuomo citing the 75th anniversary of D-Day in urging Democrats to take a bold move toward impeaching President Trump.
In his commentary on the anniversary, a day that saw Trump give what even critics called his best speech yet, Cuomo called on Democrats to take a D-Day move to impeach.
“Where it leads, how it ends, you can’t know, and that should not be your guide. Do your duty. This is D-Day. We’re celebrating people making the ultimate sacrifice only out of a matter of duty,” he said.
Cuomo said on the June 6 "Cuomo Prime Time" on CNN:
I think the Democrats are making this all too complicated. They are collectively Hamlet, pondering to be the party of impeachment or not to be. And just like Hamlet, they’re torn on their existence because they’re not sure what comes next ...
Enough with the talk. Do your duty. That is your reason to be. That is the point of your existence. ...
Where it leads, how it ends, you can’t know, and that should not be your guide. Do your duty. This is D-Day. We’re celebrating people making the ultimate sacrifice only out of a matter of duty. Take a look at the Constitution. Your job is to check the executive, whether to do that or not or how, that’s up to you, but you’ve got to make a decision. People will punish you doing nothing or going in different directions at once and rightly so. Mr. Mueller seemed to suggest that he found things in his report that required your oversight. Get him up there. Let it be clear for the American people, and then, you make a decision about what your duty is here, and you do it.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Message to Cuomo: Don’t castigate President Trump for misusing the setting of Normandy to attack his political opponents when you are no more hesitant to employ the solemn D-Day anniversary to advance your own political agenda. Whether or not Democrats decide to impeach, the discussion about that political choice does not belong in the same space as the war deaths of thousands.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ June 3: Liberal Media Scream: Dan Rather hits ‘lack of patriotism’ in failure to ban guns
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features Dan Rather ripping the nation’s will to enact strict gun control in the wake of the Virginia Beach, Va., shootings that left 12 dead.
Following the shootings Friday, Rather on "CNN Tonight" called the inaction “despicable” and charged “it speaks to our lack of honor and patriotism.”
Rather said on Friday's "CNN Tonight" show with Don Lemon: “This story is not new. This story happens all too often, and the fact that we haven’t done anything really to come to grips with it is — despicable is the only word that comes to mind. And it speaks to our lack of honor and patriotism, in this sense: This is a national health epidemic. And can you imagine, Don, what it would be, of instead of guns, we had an outbreak of an Ebola epidemic? We the public, we the people, and our political representatives would be behaving in a completely different manner.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Rather’s citing of patriotism for his cause evokes Samuel Johnson’s ‘patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.’ Rather wants government action and anyone who disagrees with him is unpatriotic, despite legitimate concerns that, unfortunately, many of the often proscribed solutions promoted by the media would have had no impact in preventing Friday’s shooting.”
SCREAM RATING: 4 out of 5 screams
■ May 20 and May 27: No Liberal Media Screams.
■ May 13: Liberal Media Scream: Journo compares Trump to McCarthy, wants GOP to denounce
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a respected author and former Washington Post journalist calling on Republicans to denounce President Trump as they did former Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis., a half-century ago.
David Maraniss, who has written a new book about his communist parents, recalled on C-SPAN the turnabout by an anti-communist former House member, Rep. Charles Potter, D-Del. In 1952, Potter questioned the father of Maraniss in a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee, then wrote a book critical of the McCarthy era.
Talking to host Brian Lamb, Maraniss said, “Will a Republican 10 years from now write a book like that?”
In his latest book, A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father, Maraniss recalled the events during the McCarthy era and Potter’s book.
In the Q&A interview aired on Sunday, Maraniss explained:
“So, jump forward to the 1960s, he wrote a book called Days of Shame, where he acknowledged a lot of the mistakes that the Republicans made during that period: Allowing McCarthy to go as far as he did, even writes a section where he defends the Fifth Amendment and regrets that it was used as a way of saying people were guilty."
He continued, “It was the Republicans, Margaret Chase Smith, several other Republicans, including President Eisenhower, who saw the excesses of what was going on [with McCarthyism] and they stopped it. Days of Shame. Will a Republican 10 years from now write a book like that?”
Media Research Center's Brent Baker, the vice president of research, explains our weekly pick: “The so-called McCarthy era has long been a bête noire of the press corps, more sympathetic to the good intentions of those accused of being a communist than the threat to the U.S. and world freedom from communists. The fact Maraniss is as ashamed of Trump as he is of the McCarthy years shows just how deep runs the disgust for Trump among journalists who see him as a once-in-a-century blight.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ May 6: Liberal Media Scream: Anti-Trump media fears he’ll never leave office
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the paranoia of the left media fearing that President Trump won’t leave office peacefully, à la Venezuela.
Picking up on how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed Trump might not leave office if he loses by a close margin in 2020, MSNBC host Joy Reid on Sunday gave credence to how “there is a very real possibility that the president of the United States wants to have foreign interference again so that he can stay office” and “he doesn’t have any intention of committing to a peaceful transition of power.”
She quoted from an article about how Nixon considered refusing to leave office, and proposed: “So, it’s not completely unprecedented that a president at least contemplates the idea of staying in office unconstitutionally. How much of a threat do you think there is of that now with this president?”
Guest Jill Wine-Banks insisted “it’s a much bigger threat now,” citing how during the Nixon era there were “three networks and they all had the same facts. Now you have this awful thing where we have a bubble of people who believe facts that are totally made up.”
Reid, on the May 5 "AM Joy":
“We face the scenario where there is a very real possibility that the president of the United States wants to have foreign interference again so that he can stay in office, so that he will not be indicted, that he doesn’t have any intention of committing to a peaceful transition of power, and he’s got monarchists in his party who are willing to give up their own authority, as Congress, they’re willing to give up all their authority in order to be obedient to him, the Justice Department obedient to him. He’s stacking the courts with people who we don’t know how obedient they’re going to be. How can we have any confidence that just an election is going cure these constitutional abrogations?”
She later quoted from a Sept. 19, 2018 Politico Magazine article:
“And this says, ‘According to reporter Seymour Hersh, Nixon intimates began to believe that he was contemplating some sort of a coup d’etat to maintain power. An unnamed member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Hersh that in one meeting, Nixon called himself ‘the last hope,’ and claimed that the eastern elite was out to get him. Said the four-star officer, “his words brought me straight up out of my chair. I felt the president, without the words having been said, was trying to sound us out to see if we would support him in some extra-constitutional action. He was trying to find out whether in a crunch there was support to keep him in power.”
“So it’s not completely unprecedented that a president at least contemplates the idea of staying in office unconstitutionally. How much of a threat do you think there is of that now with this president?”
Jill Wine-Banks, who was part of the Watergate prosecution team, bought Reid’s scenario:
"I think it’s a much bigger threat now for several reasons. One is the media has multiplied in a way that didn’t exist during Watergate. In Watergate, we had basically three networks and they all had the same facts. Now you have this awful thing where we have a bubble of people who believe facts that are totally made up..."
“You could say it can’t happen here. I think a lot of people in past history have said the same thing and it did happen. And we have to be vigilant now, and we have to really get out the vote to make sure that we change administrations so that the rule of law returns, because I do think this is a significant threat.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “This is the Left’s paranoia on full display. Democrats have spent the past two years trying to delegitimize President Trump’s presidency through specious ‘collusion’ allegations, yet now, with no real evidence, Reid tries to stoke fears with her audience that Trump won’t leave if he loses. And it takes one in a bubble, to quote Wine-Banks, to see more news sources as an ‘awful thing,’ yearning for a return to a time when three channels controlled the information flow. "
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ April 29: Liberal Media Scream: It’s all Trump’s fault, says MSNBC
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a new attack on President Trump from MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" show, this time blaming the president for inciting terrorism and anti-Semitism.
Joe Scarborough on Monday’s show blamed Trump and Attorney General William Barr for the possible release from jail of Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Hasson, who is accused of plotting a domestic terrorist attack. But it is a federal judge who will hear and decide that request for release.
“Donald Trump and Attorney General Barr and the Trump Justice Department let him walk,” Scarborough charged, though Hasson is still behind bars. Scarborough offered a villainous reason: “We’re talking about the rise of white nationalism and here is a guy that is planning to slaughter everyone of Donald Trump’s political rivals.”
Minutes later, guest Eddie Glaude Jr. of Princeton University, added, “There’s an environment, a context that is allowing this stuff to metastasize.” He zeroed in on Trump “talking about the ‘sick idea’ of sanctuary cities, talking about immigration and Disneyland,” so “we have in some ways a president that is embracing a segment of the population that literally has the country by the throat, Joe. We have to do something about this or we’re going to see even more die.”
From the Monday, April 29 "Morning Joe" on MSNBC:
Joe Scarborough: “And the Trump administration is doing nothing about it. You look at the former Coast Guard member who had a kill list of media members, but also the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, the minority leader of the Senate, Democratic presidential candidates. This was a guy who had a kill list, he had a manifesto, he was inspired by a Norwegian mass murderer, a white nationalist who killed over 70 people, slaughtered dozens and dozens of children at a day camp, and Donald Trump and Attorney General Barr and the Trump Justice Department let him walk. ...
“Do we believe that Barr would have released somebody that had Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Republican candidates — the top Republican candidates running for political office in 2020 — on a kill list? Do we really believe that Donald Trump and Barr would allow that person that had weapons and had a manifesto and had a kill list of the top Republicans in America that he was ready to go out and kill, do we really believe that Barr and Trump would let that person walk free? Again, we’re talking about the rise of white nationalism, and here is a guy that is planning to slaughter everyone of Donald Trump’s political rivals. ...”
Eddie Glaude Jr.: “There’s an environment, a context that is allowing this stuff to metastasize. You have the Coast Guard, you have the churches in Louisiana, and now you have this. Just as we’re dealing with the fact that a 19-year-old is murdered, a 16-year-old woman injured, and an 8-year-old child and others, Donald Trump talking about Charlottesville, Donald Trump talking about the ‘sick idea’ of sanctuary cities, talking about immigration and Disneyland. Remember what motivated the carnage at the Tree of Life? It was the caravan, it was the kind of globalist Jew of George Soros who was funding this. So, we have an environment that is so toxic; we have in some ways a president that is embracing a segment of the population that literally has the country by the throat, Joe. We have to do something about this, or we’re going to see even more die.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Scarborough and Glaude embody all the hate and divisiveness they condemn in Trump. Culpability for hateful violence lies with the perpetrators. Those like Scarborough who use media platforms to blame a political leader for violence are only making the situation worse by exacerbating the toxicity of the public debate.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ April 22: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Godfather’ DeNiro raps Trump as ‘wannabe gangster’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features movie crime kingpin Robert De Niro accusing President Trump of being a “wannabe gangster.”
It came on Friday’s "Late Show with Stephen Colbert."
He’s a “D.D.,” the "Godfather" and "Goodfellas" actor snarked to Colbert. “A disappointed dunsky. That’s what he is. He’s a dumbbell, in other words.”
De Niro’s latest attack on Trump came after Colbert brought up how De Niro is making another gangster movie, "The Irishman," with Martin Scorsese, who directed "Goodfellas."
STEPHEN COLBERT: Why do you think people respond to the gangster genre so much? Why is it? Why is that a classic genre?
ROBERT De NIRO: I don’t know. It’s just people like the outlaw-type thing, except we have a wannabe gangster in the White House now.
COLBERT: Yeah. He does, he acts, he tries to act like a tough guy. Tries to act like a made man.
De NIRO: Like a made guy. You call it a certain, you’d say disappointed dunsky. And a dunsky is a way of calling a don, sort of a contracted way of don. A D.D. you’d call him — a disappointed dunsky. That’s what he is. He’s a dumbbell, in other words.
COLBERT: It’s no secret — it’s no secret you’re not a fan. It’s no secret you’re not a fan.
De NIRO: There are certain, there are certain — you know, even gangsters have morals and they have, they have ethics. They have a code. They have a code. And, you know, when you give somebody your word, it’s your word, because that’s all you have is your word, especially in that world. This guy, he doesn’t even know what that means.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Just what America needs, a guy who pretends to be other people smugly denouncing a political leader he disdains for acting like a tough guy. As if De Niro brings some kind of persuasive wisdom to the topic when the best he could do a few years ago was use a national TV stage to hurl crude vulgarities at Trump.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ April 15: Liberal Media Scream: Morning Joe says Mayor Pete is the Tiger Woods of politics
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" show trying to raise South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s presidential announcement with Tiger Woods’ Masters championship, dubbed the biggest comeback in sports history.
The show opened Monday with a montage of Woods talking about his win interspersed with clips of Buttigieg’s announcement. “Wow! Happy Monday,” said co-host Mika Brzezinski.
“America stopped,” her partner Joe Scarborough claimed, “everybody stopped, they were watching Tiger and they watched Mayor Pete. And, I don’t know, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, just may be a day that a lot of people look back on and see history being made.” Brzezinski relayed how “we were shuffling my mom from room to room. ‘Let’s go watch Tiger, okay let’s go back for Mayor Pete.’”
With “Sunday Split Screen: Tiger’s Comeback; Pete’s Kickoff” as the screen heading, regular contributor Mike Barnicle soon added: “In one Sunday spring afternoon in Augusta, Georgia and in South Bend, Indiana, you had two stories that combined to truly represent part of what this country is all about ... It was a remarkable day and two remarkable events.”
From the Monday, April 15 Morning Joe:
Joe Scarborough: “A really special day yesterday, whether you used to root for Tiger or not, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you actually just saw two things happen. America stopped. A lot of Americans stopped based on the phone calls that were coming in from everybody. Our phone was ringing off the hook yesterday like it hasn’t. My gosh, in an era where you have 300 cable channels and a million YouTube channels, for some reason yesterday, Mika, everybody stopped, they were watching Tiger and they watched Mayor Pete. And, I don’t know, ten years from now, 20 years from now, just may be a day that a lot of people look back on and see history being made.”
Mika Brzezinski: “Well, we were shuffling my mom from room to room. ‘Let’s go watch Tiger, okay let’s go back for Mayor Pete.’ My mom loves Mayor Pete and his speech like put her over the edge yesterday. Our phone started ringing off the hook from reporters, to Republicans to Democrats to people who really feel moved by this candidate.”
...
Mike Barnicle: “Joe, in one Sunday spring afternoon in Augusta, Georgia and in South Bend, Indiana, you had two stories that combined to truly represent part of what this country is all about. In Augusta, Georgia, you had a story of resilience, you had the story of someone who hurt himself, by himself, self-inflicted wounds over nearly a decade, get up up off the floor, back in the batter’s box and become a winner again. And it really was an epic kind of personal story ...
“But then you go to South Bend, Indiana...you get young Mayor Pete Buttigieg and he is standing there and he’s talking to America and he’s calm, and he’s compassionate and he’s intelligent and he’s not speaking down to people, he’s not insulting people. He’s talking about the future and basically declaring that the past is the past and you’ve been tricked. All of these people living in small mid-western and New England and industrial towns, you’ve been lied to, you’ve been tricked. The future is here. You either go forward or retreat into the distant history of the past. It was a remarkable day and two remarkable events. You’re right to call them both remarkable.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Really? They saw a politician’s speech as compelling, if not more, than a major sporting event? If anyone thought the media’s hostility to President Trump meant a tougher look at all politicians, this should put that to rest. They’ve found their new Obama.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ April 8: Liberal Media Scream: Trump win made Chelsea Handler seek psychiatrist
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a key example of the “Trump Derangement Syndrome” that still has many ready to fight supporters of President Trump.
We feature comedian Chelsea Hander, appearing on Bill Maher’s HBO show, telling of how Trump’s election victory sent her to a psychiatrist because “I just wanted to fucking fight people.”
Handler, who had shows on E! and Netflix, made her appearance in order to promote an upcoming comedy show tour and her new book, ‘Life Will Be the Death of Me: ... and you too!’
On the April 5 "Real Time" episode, Maher said that, until reading her book, “I didn’t realize you were suffering” so much from Trump winning the election. Handler explained:
“I had a midlife identity crisis once Trump won the election because I never had my world feel so unhinged, I think. I had to pay a psychiatrist to listen to me bitch about Donald Trump for about the first three weeks and then, once we got past that, and we got to the real stuff, I realized the parallel there was my world becoming unhinged when I was a little girl. My brother died when I was nine years old. I had never related two but for me, as I can imagine it must’ve been for so many people, it was a huge emotional trigger of everything being destabilized. I realized just how spoiled and privileged I’d been all my life to realize, to be this upset and this on a 10 every day and the outrage and the anger. I just wanted to fucking fight people, you know. And I was like ‘I got to go see a psychiatrist.’”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Handler’s the poster child for Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), admitting that she literally became ‘unhinged’ by his victory and entered a stage on continuous rage. I feel sorry for her psychiatrist having to hear such venom, but the doctor must have done a good job since Handler now recognizes her irrationality. If only a few more suffering from TDS would realize their self-absorption.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ April 1: Liberal Media Scream: Mika says Biden’s sniff and smooch meant to ‘be nice, kind’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features former Vice President Joe Biden, that hair kiss, and a TV host who thinks the potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate’s handsy style is meant to "be nice.”
MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski was reacting to a blog from Lucy Flores, the former Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor of Nevada, who charged that in 2014 Joe Biden made her feel “uneasy, gross” when he put his hands on her shoulders, sniffed her hair, and planted a "big slow kiss on the back of my head."
To some it sounds creepy. To others it’s just Biden being Biden, but not in a sexual way.
That’s where Brzezinski stands.
On Monday’s Morning Joe, instead of criticizing Biden for violating the behavior rules of the #MeToo era, Brzezinski contended he’s “extremely flirtatious in a completely safe way,” assuring viewers “I don’t think that there’s a bad intent on his part at all” since she was sure he didn’t mean “anything from it except to be nice, to be kind.”
Brzezinski on the April 1 Morning Joe:
“There’s a lot of things I know about Joe Biden. I’ve known him for a long time. He is extremely affectionate, extremely flirtatious in a completely safe way. I am sure that somebody can misconstrue something he’s done. But as much as I can know what’s in anyone’s heart, I don’t think that there’s a bad intent on his part at all. I read the account. I was like, ‘yeah, that’s Joe Biden,’ but never thought for a second that he meant anything from it except to be nice, to be kind.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Biden may well be just overly affectionate with no malicious intent, but so much for the media mantra that women must always be believed and the male offender ostracized. It must be nice to have a friend in the liberal media so eager to come to your defense, a benefit those accused have so far lacked. It was a nice in-kind contribution from Brzezinski and MSNBC to Biden’s expected presidential campaign.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ March 25: Liberal Media Scream: They’ll never be satisfied with the Mueller verdict
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features "Today" show co-host Savannah Guthrie’s grilling of White House press secretary Sarah Sanders over the exonerating report from special investigator Robert Mueller regarding collusion charges between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russian agents.
Guthrie pressed Sanders to “acknowledge it is incorrect for the president to call this a total exoneration” given questions remaining about obstruction of justice. Pivoting from vindication for President Trump on conspiring with Russia, Guthrie relayed how “some critics are saying” it took Mueller years to complete his investigation, but it only took Attorney General William Barr two days to conclude there wasn’t a case for obstruction, “so the criticism is here’s a guy making a snap judgment who had already made up his mind about the case.”
Her comments followed weeks of media and Democratic pleadings to Barr for a quick release of any of the details once Mueller turned it over to Justice.
Guthrie followed up with how Barr was biased since “he wrote a 19-page memo stating there’s no obstruction case against the president before he saw one piece of evidence.”
Three of Guthrie’s questions to Sanders on Monday’s "Today" show:
• “Let’s be clear about what this report – what this letter is and what it isn’t. It is an exoneration, a legal exoneration with regard to conspiracy or collusion. As to this issue of whether the president obstructed justice in this investigation, the special counsel doesn’t say, and in fact, makes a point to say, ‘This report does not conclude the president committed a crime. It also does not exonerate him.’ So would you acknowledge it is incorrect for the president to call this a total exoneration?”
• “In point of fact, you have a special counsel because the person is supposed to be independent and supposed to make this legal judgment. In this case, for whatever reason, Mueller didn’t. Attorney General Barr took it upon himself to issue a legal conclusion, and some critics are saying, ‘wait a minute, is this on the level?’ He did it in 48 hours, and he wrote a memo six months ago, eight months ago, in June last year, stating there wasn’t an obstruction of justice case. So the criticism is here’s a guy making a snap judgment who had already made up his mind about the case and it’s on the record.”
• “What about the idea that he already had judged the case? I mean, he wrote a 19-page memo stating there’s no obstruction case against the president before he saw one piece of evidence.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “File this under ‘Never satisfied.’ After journalists obsessed over learning of Robert Mueller’s findings, when, by vindicating Trump on collusion, they didn’t match the media narrative, Guthrie jumped to a new line of attack. Like much of the media reaction over the first 18 hours, to undermine Trump she focused on trying to discredit Barr’s judgment in order to keep a cloud over Trump and help justify the media’s otherwise embarrassing focus on collusion.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ March 18: Liberal Media Scream: ABC’s Dowd says Dems ‘closer to the center’ than GOP
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the new claim that the left-reaching Democratic Party is closer to the center than the GOP.
Coming after Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said a “majority of the American people” support his liberal ideas, ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd insisted Sunday that “if you look at all the issues and where the public stands, the Democratic Party is actually closer to the center than the Republican Party is.”
Dowd’s comment came after Republican strategist Alice Stewart pointed to how Democrats are “moving very far to the left.”
The exchange on the Sunday, March 17 This Week on ABC:
ALICE STEWART: "You can run away from the socialism label, you can run away from labels, but you can’t deny the fact that the Democratic Party is moving very, very far to the left. We’re talking about the Green New Deal. We’re talking about free college education. We’re talking about a lot of policies that are extremely left. The Cortez’s of Washington and the younger generation of Democrats are really causing a divide in the Democratic Party. Nancy Pelosi is having a hard time–"
MATTHEW DOWD: "The Democratic Party – if you look at all the issues and where the public stands, the Democratic Party is actually closer to the center than the Republican Party is. The Democratic Party is much closer to the center."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Dowd illustrates just how far to the left are the political press corps, where they see themselves as sitting in the middle. But they are actually so far to the left that they perceive socialist policy prescriptions as not all that far from that ‘center,’ which is actually well to the left of center.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ March 4 and 11: No Liberal Media Screams posted these weeks.
■ February 25: Liberal Media Scream: It’s Trump’s fault liberals fell for Smollett hoax
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest spin for why liberals, including some Democratic presidential candidates, fell so hard and fast for actor Jussie Smollett’s claim he was targeted in Chicago by racists and Trump supporters.
In an appearance on MSNBC, the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart blamed President Trump. He said that Trump “actually stokes the atmosphere of menace and insecurity that millions of Americans feel across this country.”
He added that Trump and his supporters “are using the Jussie Smollett situation to rhetorically bash people who are afraid for their own existence and their own lives,” which he called “really despicable.”
From the Saturday AM Joy on MSNBC, after a clip of Trump on January 31, calling the alleged attack “horrible”:
“The reason why so many people were so quick to believe Jussie Smollett and what he said and his version of events before they all unraveled was because that man [Trump] who you just played feeds into and actually stokes the atmosphere of menace and insecurity that millions of Americans feel across this country, whether they are people of color, LGBTQ, trans people, immigrants, Dreamers. You just go down the list.
“There are people in this country who every day feel that their very existence – their own security is at stake. And so, you know, the president’s Super-PAC, right-wingers, far right conservatives who are using the Jussie Smollett situation to rhetorically bash people who are afraid for their own existence and their own lives, you know, is really despicable.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Not much self-reflection from Capehart, who’s more interested in blaming his own biased perception of his political opponents for his own gullibility than examining why he feels so victimized by those on the right. Buying into Smollett’s story, which had many red flags, was bad enough. "
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ New on February 18: Liberal Media Scream: Morning Joe says Trump’s 2020 theme is, ‘let’s k eep America white’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" Scarborough on an anti-Trump rant Monday that is even unusual for him.
His focus was President Trump’s border wall scheme, but he turned it into an anti-Trump 2020 cheer, claiming that Trump’s real goal was to “Keep America white.”
Scarborough said that Trump is just “trying to keep brown people out” and charged “‘Let’s Make America White Again’” is “all his presidency is about.” Guest analyst Eddie Glaude Jr., a professor at Princeton University, decried how the “machinery of government is moving on the basis of a known lie” and maintained “the constitutional crisis we’ve been talking about on the horizon with the Trump administration is here” and “we have to confront it.”
Scarborough also snidely quipped that “people around Donald Trump commit more crimes – and are incarcerated at higher rates than actually people who cross the border illegally.”
From the Monday, Feb. 18 "Morning Joe" on MSNBC:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Donald doesn’t like it, but 80 to 90 percent of the drugs, according to Donald’s own government, they come through those legal points of entry, 80 to 90 percent. And people like Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, those type of people, they commit crimes and are incarcerated at higher rates – well my God especially people around Donald Trump commit more crimes – and are incarcerated at higher rates than actually people who cross the border illegally and legal immigrants as well.
So, this is just a big old fat softball coming down the middle of the plate to you, to say if we know they’re lying, if we know they’re bending the truth and the stats show that they’re lying, this is really about nothing more – it ain’t a dog whistle, it is a racist P.A. announcement that all of Trump supporters in America can listen to. “I know the facts aren’t on our side, I know we’re not going to win in the courts,” but let me just tell you “I’m trying to keep brown people, or as I said on Twitter last week, people from Latin America, out of the United States,” because when I say, as Donald Trump, when I say “Let’s Make America Great Again,” I’m really just saying, as Donald Trump, your president, “let’s keep America white , majority white is what it’s all about.” Put that on your bumper sticker if you’re supporting Donald Trump in 2020 because that, he has proven at last, is all his presidency is about.
EDDIE GLAUDE JR: Joe, that is a huge softball, about that big, you’re absolutely right.
SCARBOROUGH: Knock it 450, go Ken Griffey on it.
GLAUDE: If I could put it this way: He’s lying through his damn teeth and everybody knows it. What’s interesting is that the machinery of government is moving on the basis of a known lie. That’s what’s so confusing about this. That there are all these folks that are complicit with the lie. So that’s the first thing. He’s lying through his teeth. The second thing, right, is that Noah [Rothman] is right, the constitutional crisis we’ve been talking about that’s on the horizon with the Trump administration is here. The co-equal branches of government are not doing their jobs, Trump has engaged in constitutional overreach and now we have to confront what the imperial presidency means for Madisonian democracy. Some of us didn’t want to confront it under Barack Obama, many didn’t want to confront it with regard to Nixon and the Bushes and then Nixon and Clintons, however the order goes, right? But it’s here now. We have to confront it.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “When you can’t make a cogent argument against the threat President Trump is trying to address, you resort to the tired old slander of asserting Trump and his supporters are motivated by racism. That’s the sum total of Scarborough’s take on the border wall. As if no one who isn’t a racist could possibly want a nation with secure borders. And it’s nice that Glaude has discovered the ‘imperial presidency’ after showing no such concern during the Obama years.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ February 11: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Tur cheers Green New Deal
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC’s Katy Tur justifying the liberal "Green New Deal" by citing reports warning that global warming could lead to a “complete disaster” in 12 years.
Tur, on Sunday’s "Meet the Press," said without the deal, pushed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., “millions and millions and millions of people will die.”
Tur, host of the 2 p.m. hour weekdays on MSNBC, during the panel on the Feb. 10 "Meet the Press":
You have some real reporting out there from experts, not just analysts on television, but from actual experts at the U.N., from Donald Trump’s own administration saying how dire this is. The U.N. said we have 12 years before complete disaster. You talk to the representative of the Marshall Islands and he’s calling it what could amount to genocide if we allow things to go as they are.
The reports aren’t just hey, it’s going to get bad. The reports are people will die. Millions and millions and millions of people will die and I think that there is an appetite among voters out there, especially Democratic voters and potentially swing voters to say, ‘hey, let’s do something about this now because it’s going to affect our future.’ And there’s real economic damage that can happen as well. Billions of dollars in economic damage from crops, to deaths, to losing ocean front homes and businesses in — over the next century.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “How about a little journalistic skepticism? Tur eagerly gave justification to a plan based on ending cow flatulence and airplane travel, two of many things in the plan she could have questioned. Instead, she chose to give credibility to a plan to spend trillions to remake the economy, promulgated by those with a political agenda based on fear-mongering.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ February 4: Liberal Media Scream: Media should be ‘celebrating’ 2020 Democrats
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a concern in the media that the diverse group of likely Democratic presidential candidates filling newspapers, websites, and Twitter aren’t getting enough coverage and celebration from the press.
On CNN’s "Reliable Sources" Sunday, host Brian Stelter painted the media as coming up short when it comes to promoting liberal Democrats.
He championed “history-making” Democratic presidential candidates, citing the “incredible” number of women and people of color running, before lamenting, “I kind of feel this is being taken for granted.” He then asked if the press should be “talking more about the historic nature of this early primary season?”
Stelter on the Sunday:
"We are talking about a historic, a number of history-making candidates. It is incredible to see the number of women running, the number of people of color running for president already on the Democratic side, and yet I kind of feel this is being taken for granted. Should we, in the press, be talking more about the historic nature of this early primary season?"
Guest David Zurawik, of the Baltimore Sun, agreed: “Not only should we be talking about it, I think if we feel that way, we should be celebrating it, this diversity, all of these different voices are going to make this conversation of democracy in the election much, much stronger.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “A few weeks after a guest on 'Reliable Sources' seriously maintained ‘the prestige press in this country has a pro-Trump bias,’ this week we have the show’s host fretting that the media are not enthusiastic enough about liberal Democratic presidential candidates. Diversity in this case is about race and gender, not ideology. And Stelter wonders why the press are held in such low regard?”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ January 28, 2019 Liberal Media Scream: Ocasio-Cortez terrifies whites, conservatives
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest media spin on the impact of Democratic firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
AOC, as she is known in media circles, has made a substantial impact already and been ready to strike back when attacked.
In this case, a journalist featured on Sunday’s CNN "Reliable Sources" said that the New York lawmaker’s words are threatening to whites and conservatives.
Laura Bassett, the Huffington Post’s senior culture and politics reporter until she was laid off last week, said that Ocasio-Cortez “is threatening white conservative men’s power and they’re terrified of her.” She also declared that “they’re trying to take her down. They’re using all the tricks in the patriarchy.”
From the Jan. 27 "Reliable Sources" on CNN, picking up after host Brian Stelter prompted her with this leading question: “What do you think is fueling the constant attacks on Fox against this freshman congresswoman?”
LAURA BASSETT: Look, she’s got a target on her back because she ticks every box that makes conservative men uncomfortable: She’s a woman, she’s Latina, she’s young, she’s working class, she’s a millennial, she’s a Democratic socialist. Everything that makes people uncomfortable. And she’s a star, she’s a rising Democratic star. She’s got a lot of power. People are really responding to her on social media, as Charlotte [Alter of Time magazine] said, in the same way that people responded to Trump kind of emotionally a couple of years ago. So, I think, in some ways, she’s sort of the ideal anti-Trump and she is threatening white conservative men’s power and they’re terrified of her.
STELTER: And thus she’s a feature on Fox. That’s what you’re saying?
BASSETT: Absolutely. They’re trying to take her down. They’re using all the tricks in the patriarchy.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “How ridiculous. After months of major media outlets celebrating and promoting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the greatest gift to America since Barack Obama, CNN and Bassett impugn the motives of a rare media outlet willing to critique her left wing policy pronouncements. It isn’t Fox News that’s terrified of AOC’s ideas, it’s Bassett and Stelter who are afraid her ideas won’t hold up to scrutiny.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
■ January 21, 2019 Liberal Media Scream: Suddenly, worries about accuracy
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features concerns in the media about being dragged down by the BuzzFeed report on President Trump and his lawyer subsequently called “not accurate” by special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the end of Sunday’s "Meet the Press," moderator Chuck Todd despaired at how Mueller’s characterization of the story as inaccurate might be exploited by media critics.
“We’ve got to remind people, though, there are people who want to exploit this. They want to see us be put this way. And they’re just doing it for exploitation purposes. So let’s not give them the ammunition,” he said.
But Todd did not note that he and NBC, among many media outlets, promoted the story before the Mueller slam.
On Friday, Savannah Guthrie opened NBC’s "Today" show: “Breaking overnight: Bombshell. The new report that says President Trump himself ordered his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, a potential game-changer with claims that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has e-mails, documents and testimony to prove it. What the president’s side is saying this morning.”
In the subsequent segment, Todd added some analysis, “You can’t overstate how significant this development is, with the caveat of the ‘If true.’”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Memo to Chuck Todd: If you don’t want to provide ‘ammunition’ to media critics to ‘exploit’ an erroneous news story in order to discredit the whole media, including your network, then don’t allow your network to so enthusiastically promote that story in the first place when you aren’t sure yourself whether it’s true or not. It’s that simple.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
■ January 14, 2019 Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Mika sees a ‘yes’ in Trump’s shrug on Russia
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the new media frenzy over suggestions that President Trump is on Russia’s payroll.
Leading the campaign was Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski today.
Picking up on an AP headline, “Trump dodges question on whether he has worked for Russia,” Brzezinski opened Monday’s show by highlighting how, when Trump was asked, “have you ever worked for Russia?" that “nowhere in his 354-word answer did he say the word no.”
In fact, in response to the question from FNC’s Jeanine Pirro, Trump pretty clearly rejected the allegation: “I think it’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked. I think it’s the most insulting article I’ve ever had written. And if you read the article you’d see that they found absolutely nothing.”
Pirro’s question was prompted by a New York Times story headlined: “F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia.”
Brzezinski, on the January 14 Morning Joe:
“On Saturday the president was asked, point blank, ‘have you ever worked for Russia?’ Nowhere in his 354-word answer did he say the word no. Welcome to Morning Joe on this Monday, January 14th...”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “It’s a new silly season in the media, so well exemplified by Brzezinski. Journalists so want it to be true that Trump really is a Russian agent that they lose all critical thinking ability and embarrass themselves, as Brzezinski has here. Just because Trump did not explicitly say ‘no,’ does not mean he didn’t deny the charge for which there is no evidence.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
■ January 7, 2019 Liberal Media Scream: ‘Prestige press’ pro-Trump, ‘easier coverage than he deserves’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a view about the media’s Trump bias that even the former editor of the New York Times would mock.
It comes from Atlantic writer David Frum who said, in an apparent reference to the media biggies President Trump calls “fake news,” that the “prestige media” lets the president off the hook too often.
Frum, on CNN’s "Reliable Sources" Sunday, said that “relative to the truth, the prestige press in this country has a pro-Trump bias. Relative to the truth, Trump gets easier coverage than he deserves.”
And he said pro-Trump commentators should be working for the Home Shopping Network.
He was reacting to the observation, in an upcoming book by former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, that the news pages the Times and the Washington Post are “unmistakably anti-Trump.”
Frum on the Jan. 6 "Reliable Sources":
“Relative to the truth, the prestige press in this country has a pro-Trump bias. Relative to the truth, Trump gets easier coverage than he deserves. The surest way onto the op-ed page of a prestigious paper is to come up with some angle to explain why something the president has done is less crazy or dangerous than it seems. Networks, like this one, give a lot of airtime to people who normally would be working for the Home Shopping Network, who wouldn’t be on at all.”Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “What planet is Frum living on? You can argue that Trump is a terrible president who deserves negative coverage, but to contend the ‘prestige press’ has a bias in favor of Trump because they occasionally allow someone to defend him? That’s just nuts. By any measure, Trump is on the receiving end of the most hostile press of any president in the past century.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
> Liberal Media Scream posts for 2020.
> For all of 2018.
> For July through December 2017.
> For January through June 2017.
> For July through December 2016.
> For January through June 2016.
> For July to December 2015.
