Study

Media Loved Interviewing Trump's 2020 Rivals, But Not Biden's in 2024

Alex Christy
March 21st, 2024 12:00 PM

In 2020 and 2024 respectively, GOP President Donald Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden each faced three longshot primary challengers, but the media coverage of these campaigns was vastly different, a NewsBusters study has found.

 
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'Daily Show' Correspondent Bummed About Weld's Lack of GOP Support

Ryan Foley
October 11th, 2019 9:33 AM
On Wednesday’s edition of The Daily Show, correspondent Roy Wood Jr. interviewed President Trump’s primary challenger, Bill Weld, and convened “a focus group of Trump voters to see if there really are Republicans thirsty for something new.” While the panel definitely had some misgivings about the President, all of them indicated that they would support him again in 2020; much to Wood’s horror.
 
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MSNBC Panel Refuses to Denounce Weld Insisting Trump Be Executed

Curtis Houck
September 23rd, 2019 1:50 PM

MSNBC’s Morning Joe stooped to a new low on Monday morning when the assembled panel refused to condemn 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld’s insistence that President Donald Trump should be put to death because, in his mind, he’s committed treason for his conversations with the Ukrainian president. Not only that, but Weld twice made this case while panelists Mike Barnicle, Mika…

 
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Excited Nets Push GOP Primary Challengers Against Trump

Kyle Drennen
August 26th, 2019 11:52 AM
On Monday, all three network morning shows were giddy over two weak challengers against President Trump in the 2020 Republican primary and even hoping for more quixotic candidates to enter the race. NBC and ABC touted ex-Congressman Joe Walsh issuing a “stinging rebuke” to Trump while CBS again urged contributor and former Senator Jeff Flake to jump in the contest.
 
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Tool to ‘Wound’: ABC Gives Platform to Trump Primary Challenger Walsh

Nicholas Fondacaro
August 25th, 2019 11:42 AM
Of course, Stephanopoulos humored him by letting the former Congressman bash the President and pushed back weakly on Walsh’s history of incredibly racist statements. Yet, during the so-called “powerhouse roundtable”, they admitted that Walsh didn’t have a chance at beating Trump; and Stephanopoulos found the important “question” was whether or not Walsh could “wound” the President’s chances.
 
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ABC's Dowd: Weld Primary Challenge is a 'Really Smart Political Move'

Ryan Foley
February 18th, 2019 3:25 PM
Just days after announcing that he was forming an exploratory committee to run against President Trump in the Republican primary, longshot Presidential candidate Bill Weld appears to have at least one passionate supporter in the media: ABC’s Matthew Dowd. Even after his fellow panelists on This Week made compelling arguments explaining why Weld’s candidacy will ultimately not go anywhere, Dowd…
 

CNN's Cuomo Presses Weld on Whether Johnson Is Hurting Clinton

Brad Wilmouth
October 3rd, 2016 3:21 PM
As Libertarian vice presidential nominee Bill Weld appeared as a guest on Monday's New Day, co-host Chris Cuomo repeatedly pressed him over whether his candidacy with Gary Johnson as presidential nominee was hurting Hillary Clinton to the benefit of Donald Trump. Even after Weld argued that he believes that mostly moderate Republicans are planning to vote for the Libertarian ticket, Cuomo pressed…
 

Former Chicago Trib Editor Slams Endorsement of Libertarian Candidates

Randy Hall
September 30th, 2016 5:14 PM
“The Chicago Tribune is clearly unconcerned that Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson didn't know what Aleppo is, couldn't identify a single foreign leader for Chris Matthews and was clueless about the identity of Harriet Tubman,” James Warren stated in an article posted on Friday. Warren's remarks on the newspaper's endorsement of Johnson for president are particularly interesting…
 
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Smerconish: Lie to Pollsters to Help Libertarian Ticket

P.J. Gladnick
September 11th, 2016 6:02 PM
Michael Smerconish wants to help the Libertarian presidential ticket of Gary Johnson and William Weld participate in the presidential (and vice-presidential) debates. The big problem is that the Libertarians must show they have reached a level of 15% support in an average of five national polls and they aren't there yet. Therefore Michael Smerconish has an idea for his viewers: lie like hell. I…
 
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Shock: CBS Gives Libertarians Platform to Talk ‘Problem’ of Government

Scott Whitlock
September 7th, 2016 11:07 AM
After aggressively ignoring alternatives to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for months, CBS on Wednesday not only featured Libertarian nominees Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, the show’s hosts quizzed them about the problem of big government. In a segment that last almost six minutes, CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose offered a question not seen much on network television: “Ronald Reagan said…
 
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Sharpton Frets that Gary Johnson Is ‘Taking Votes from Hillary’

Nicholas Fondacaro
August 14th, 2016 12:18 PM
The Libertarian Party candidate for president, Gary Johnson, joined Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation Sunday to discuss the prospects of a third party’s chances of success in 2016. But Sharpton’s real goal seemed to be to defend Hillary Clinton and discredit Libertarians by asking Johnson, “Do you ever have any slight fear even that you may be taking votes from Hillary Clinton and helping to…
 
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CNN's Berman Asks Lindsey Graham If Trump 'Has a Screw Loose'

Brad Wilmouth
August 4th, 2016 9:14 PM
On Thursday's At This Hour with Berman and Bolduan, CNN host John Berman asked a provocative question about GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's mental processes that you would never hear a CNN anchor raise about Hillary Clinton despite her perpetual difficulty with using acceptable judgment or ethics in office. As South Carolina Republican Senator and Trump critic Lindsey Graham appeared…
 

Blogger: GOP Conventions Feature the ‘Worst In Human Behavior’

Tom Johnson
June 27th, 2016 9:18 PM
When citing instances of “the worst in human behavior,” reasonable choices include the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and whatever ISIS did today. In a Sunday post, Washington Monthly blogger D. R. Tucker offered an absurdly unreasonable choice: the last ten Republican national conventions. Tucker did comment hopefully that “perhaps this year’s GOP convention will be so sick, so sordid, so sour…
 
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CNN Cues Up Johnson to Liken Deporting Illegals to Nazi Germany

Brad Wilmouth
June 1st, 2016 1:12 PM
As Anderson Cooper interviewed Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson on Tuesday's AC360, the CNN host brought up running mate Bill Weld's hyperbolic assertion likening Donald Trump's position on deporting illegal immigrants to the treatment of Jews by Nazis. Cooper: "Your running mate, Bill Weld, has compared Trump's deportation plan to Nazis' policies against Jews. Do you agree with that…