Posted below: the May 30 edition of Notable Quotables, MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous quotes in the liberal media. This issue: Journalists are upset about GOPers bringing up Bill and Hillary’s past abuse of women, while ABC anchor David Muir wonders if Hillary Clinton is “fighting back hard enough?”
Plus, MSNBC panelists say violent protestors against Donald Trump are merely “expressing their humanity.” The complete issue, with 21 quotes is posted below (or view the printer-friendly PDF version).
Hoping Hillary Hits Trump Harder
“In the meantime, we turn to Hillary Clinton, reacting tonight after that harsh report from the State Department about her private e-mail server. Our team also asking Clinton today what some of her supporters have been asking. After Donald Trump’s attacks, is Clinton fighting back hard enough?”
— Anchor David Muir on ABC’s World News Tonight, May 26.
We Won’t Let You Use Bill’s Bad Behavior to Hurt Hillary
“Donald Trump, using that word [rape] unprompted during an interview last night with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, bringing up a discredited and long-denied accusation against former President Bill Clinton, dating back to 1978 when he was Arkansas attorney general.”
— Andrea Mitchell on NBC’s Today, May 19.
“The rape accusation is decades-old and discredited.”
— Correspondent Tom Llamas on ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir, May 19.
“They [Donald Trump and Fox News host Sean Hannity] were referring to a trio of women who say Bill Clinton made unwanted sexual advances in ’80s and ’90s. Mr. Clinton denies it. Two of the cases were plagued by factual discrepancies.”
— Correspondent Nancy Cordes on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, May 19.
vs.
“I can say that nothing has come up since that story was reported that in any way undercuts what Juanita Broaddrick said.”
— Former NBC News reporter Lisa Myers, who broke the Broaddrick story in 1999, talking to C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb on Q&A, May 27, 2014.
CNN’s Brooke Baldwin to GOP Guests: Don’t Go There
Trump supporter Gina Loudon: “What I think is reprehensible is you take someone like Hillary Clinton who has basically danced on the assaults of women — that are dozens of women, by the way — that her husband has maligned and assaulted, paying Paula Jones off $850,000 for hush money.”
Host Brooke Baldwin: “Okay, let’s not go there....I think the Clinton camp would point to, you know, her resume of lifting women up through the years.”
— Exchange on CNN’s Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, May 16.
GOP strategist Kellyanne Conway: “He [Bill Clinton] paid Paula Jones $850,000.”
Host Brooke Baldwin: “Okay, okay, okay. We are not airing all this dirty laundry here. I just can’t believe we’re going there. And it’s May and there are five months to go. I think it’s going to get really nasty before it’s all said and done.”
— Exchange during CNN’s live primary coverage, May 24.
Obama Vouched for Hillary on E-Mail Scandal, So Case Closed
Host Howard Kurtz: “You are also quoted as saying ‘I don’t think that anyone feels there was intent on her part to distribute classified information in a way that was illegal or jeopardized security.’ But how do you know that before the investigation is done?”
Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward: “Well I, look I talked to people about it. President Obama, himself, has said there was no intent. That this was careless.”
— Exchange on Fox News Channel’s MediaBuzz, May 22.
Violent Protesters Are “Expressing Their Humanity”
Joan Walsh, The Nation: “I think if you were a Latino immigrant you would be frankly terrified and very angry and so I can see why we’re going to have another Florida.”...
MTV News correspondent Jamil Smith: “I see a lot of people expressing their humanity in the face of a candidate [Donald Trump] who’s really built his candidacy on denouncing their humanity. Yeah, there are a few people out there not actually out there to protest. But at the end of the day, they accomplished their goal, got on TV and they got their issues aired.”
— During MSNBC’s live coverage of Donald Trump protests in Albuquerque, New Mexico May 24.
Trump’s Hitler-Like Rise Relied on Anti-Obama “Hate Speech”
“Let me be clear here, I believe that what we’re seeing with Trump has whiffs of how Hitler rose to power, because of the popularizing of all of these things.”
— Founder of The Intercept, Jeremy Scahill, on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, May 13.
“Trump has achieved the brink of the Republican nomination, according to the candidate himself, by being himself, no matter how politically incorrect, except that his supposedly courageous candor is contaminated with the most cowardly hate speech – racism, xenophobia, misogyny, incitement, breathtaking ignorance on issues, both foreign and domestic, and a nuclear recklessness, reminiscent of a raving meth head with a machete on an episode of Cops.”
— NPR’s Bob Garfield on WNYC’s “On The Media” radio show, May 13.
MSNBC national correspondent Joy Reid: “He [Donald Trump] was voicing I think the anxiety who felt that Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama becoming President of the United States meant a fundamental demographic shift that made them angry, anxious and uncomfortable. He verbalized it, absorbed it and then he regurgitated it, and now he’s running for president.”
Hardball host Chris Matthews: “You know, I agree with you. I may — we may disagree on the percentage. I think I’m a lower percentage who believe that. I think there’s a percentage of our country, 10 percent, 15 percent, whatever, I’m not going to go any higher, who want to be able to bring those books out, you know to show the kids when they go to high school and grade school, here’s a list of all our presidents in the color pictures and there’s no Obama there or have an asterisk underneath, snuck in the country.”
— Exchange about Donald Trump’s past demands for Barack Obama’s birth certificate during late night MSNBC coverage of protests in Albuquerque, New Mexico May 24.
Time to Educate “the Imbecile”
“Paul Ryan is dictating, starting today, what the Trump policies are. That’s what the meeting was about: Paul Ryan taking the imbecile candidate to school, the school of governing.”
— MSNBC Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell discussing Trump’s meeting with the Speaker of the House during the 4pm EDT hour of MSNBC Live, May 12.
More Guns = “More Homegrown Acts of Terror”
“An elementary school in Connecticut, a junior college in Oregon, a Virginia college, a South Carolina church and so many other places across the country, inner cities that are ablaze with gunfire....I’m a long time gun owner. I have a closet full of guns. I got my first one when I was ten years of age. I’m still active in sports shooting. But I’m appalled by the determination of organizations and individuals to arm more people without any appreciation of the consequence of ever-more lethal weapons in our midst. More guns and more firearm tolerance will mean more homegrown acts of terror.”
— Former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw’s commencement address at the University of Mississippi, May 14.
Too Many “Straight White Men” on Supreme Court
“You’ve spent a large part of your legacy on judicial nominations has been diversifying the federal bench. You’ve appointed more than 150 nominees who have been confirmed who are not straight white men. You had an opportunity with this nomination to, for the first time in the nation’s history, if the justice was confirmed, to have a Supreme Court that was not a majority of straight white men. Why didn’t you take that opportunity?”
— Question to President Barack Obama from Buzzfeed’s Chris Geidner on Facebook Live, May 16.
Laughing About Obama’s Health Care Lie
Host Charlie Rose: “My point is do you have equal impact on serious speeches? Because it’s about style, use of language, et cetera?”
Former Obama speech writer Jon Lovett: “I really like, I was very — the joke speeches is the most fun part of this. But the things I’m the most proud of were the most serious speeches, I think. Health care, economic speeches.”
Former Obama speech writer Jon Favreau: “Lovett wrote the line about, ‘If you like your insurance, you can keep it.’”
Lovett: “How dare you! [everybody laughs] And you know what? It’s still true! No.”
— PBS’s Charlie Rose, May 9.
“Media Happy to Be Managed” By Obama
“One of the news media’s main jobs is to hold public officials accountable, from the president on down. But Mr. Obama is the beneficiary of news-media managers and reporters who mostly like his style and agree with his policies, from his reluctance to make strong military commitments to his advocacy for LGBT rights, fighting climate change and supporting tougher gun-control laws. Case in point: The administration’s easy orchestration of the media story line about the Iranian nuclear deal, recently revealed by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, only scratches the surface of the White House’s skill at managing a media happy to be managed.”
— Retired USA Today reporter Richard Benedetto in a May 21 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “How Obama Gets Away With It.”
Nobody I Party With Thinks This E-Mail Thing Is a Big Deal
Co-host Gayle King: “How big a deal is this [Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal] really? I was at an event last night and both Democrats and Republicans were quoting Bernie Sanders saying, ‘I’m sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.’”
Co-host Charlie Rose: “But that was a long time ago. He’s since changed some of that.”
King: “He has, but the people at this party last night haven’t.”
— Exchange on CBS This Morning, May 26.
What Makes Hillary So Untrustworthy, Other than Benghazi?
Co-host Sunny Hostin: “I just mentioned only, only three, only three of the Trump lies, only three. I’ve got a stack. How many lies? Why is she [Hillary Clinton] untrustworthy? How many lies has she told?”
Fox News contributor Jedediah Bila: “On the night of the Benghazi attack... ”
Hostin: “Other than Benghazi. You already said Benghazi. What else? What else?”
— Exchange on ABC’s The View, May 20.
Honestly, What President Hasn’t Been Accused of Rape?
“A little history lesson. In the 20th century, almost every president had some kind of sexual allegations thrown at him so this is nothing new. Can we find a woman perhaps who doesn’t have any sexual allegations? We have one. Let’s just vote for her.”
— Co-host Joy Behar discussing Bill Clinton sexual assault accusations on ABC’s The View, May 19.
Subtle Display of Disapproval
“I was at a concert that I heard he [Donald Trump] was attending. So I had my full security like, I was like ‘find Donald Trump.’ Because I was just, I was adamant on finding him and then making a video of me going ‘Hey Trump! [bleep] you!’”
— Actress Jennifer Lawrence shown giving the middle-finger on BBC’s The Graham Norton Show, May 19.
