With Empire actor and apparent hoaxer Jussie Smollett now formally charged with allegedly fabricating a hate crime, many are calling out the liberal media for falling for the accusations because they fit their anti-Trump narrative. During a Thursday appearance on the Fox News Channel’s Special Report, Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti called out the media for often holding water for liberals and against Republicans.
“We’re nowhere good,” Continetti answered when anchor Bret Baier asked about where we were after this apparent hoax.
He followed up by noting that “the same people who rushed to embrace Smollett’s faux story were the same people who rushed to criticize the Covington Catholic boys when that snippet of viral video came out from the pro-life movement march in D.C.”
“What is the connective tissue,” Continetti rhetorically asked. “It is a willingness to believe the worst of Donald Trump and his supporters. And that’s why people rushed to back Smollett. That's why they rushed to condemn the Covington Catholic boys.”
Seemingly fed up with the current state of the industry, he called out the media for their biased games: “And now Republicans sometimes are always eager to embrace the worst critiques of Democrats. But we see time and time again that the mainstream media amplifies the liberal critique of Republicans to a far greater extent than it does the conservative critique of Democrats.”
“This willingness to believe narratives no matter their truth is very dangerous to democracy which depends, Bret, as we know, on evidence and patients,” he declared.
After being asked by Baier about a tweet from President Trump earlier in the day demanding Smollett apologize to his supporters for smearing them, Axios national politics reporter Jonathan Swan came to Trump’s defense:
To his defense, I mean, it wasn’t Trump who inserted himself in this moment, it was Jussie Smollett. I mean, he’s the one that said that people are walking around Chicago saying that “this is MAGA country”, lynching people, et cetera. So this was not something that Trump inserted himself in. He was explicitly inserted in the story by the hoaxer, so I will give Trump some defense here.
On a related note, NBC Nightly News was the only network broadcast that evening to mention Trump’s critical tweet during their Smollett coverage. “The President, who at first sympathized with Smollett, tweeting today, ‘what about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted,’” reported correspondent Miguel Almaguer.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
Fox News Channel’s Special Report
February 21, 2019
6:43:08 p.m. Eastern(…)
BRET BAIER: The President did not stay out of this, some said they thought he might, but he did not. “@JussieSmollett, what about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with their racist and dangerous comments? #Makeamericagreatagain.” Notably, he did not tweet about the Coast Guard officer who was arrested by the FBI. And his background of planning of white nationalist killings, but your thoughts on the big picture here, Matthew, as we look at kind of where we are in this culture moment.
MATTHEW CONTINETTI: We’re nowhere good. With the same people who rushed to embrace Smollett’s faux story were the same people who rushed to criticize the Covington Catholic boys when that snippet of viral video came out from the pro-life movement march in D.C.
What is the connective tissue? It is a willingness to believe the worst of Donald Trump and his supporters. And that’s why people rushed to back Smollett. That's why they rushed to condemn the Covington Catholic boys.
And now Republicans sometimes are always eager to embrace the worst critiques of Democrats. But we see time and time again that the mainstream media amplifies the liberal critique of Republicans to a far greater extent than it does the conservative critique of Democrats. This willingness to believe narratives no matter their truth is very dangerous to democracy which depends, Bret, as we know, on evidence and patients.
BAIER: You’ve seen the President and how he deals with Twitter and obviously he saw this moment as a political, hey, this is the point. My people, my supporters are getting blamed for everything.
JONATHAN SWAN: To his defense, I mean, it wasn’t Trump who inserted himself in this moment, it was Jussie Smollett. I mean, he’s the one that said that people are walking around Chicago saying that “this is MAGA country”, lynching people, et cetera. So this was not something that Trump inserted himself in. He was explicitly inserted in the story by the hoaxer, so I will give Trump some defense here.
(…)
