Time to send out the waahmbulance for the press because they just can’t stop whining about Donald Trump. President Trump’s pushback against the unfair liberal media has journalists from DC to New York throwing hissy fits.
CNN’s Brian Stelter called Trump’s criticisms of the press “poisonous” “attacks” that are “bad for the country.” His colleague Jim Acosta claimed Trump was doing “real damage to the First Amendment” and the New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet called the President “dangerous.”
And when they weren’t complaining about Trump’s slams on the press, they were spinning for the Democratic Party as NBC’s Savannah Guthrie called Georgia congressional candidate Jon Ossoff’s loss in Georgia an “ominous sign” for the GOP. And over on MSNBC Joy Reid and Dean Obeidallah were labeling the Republican’s attempt to repeal and replace ObamaCare a racist “death to poor people” act.
Liberal reporters and hosts also went nuts about Trump’s bombing of terrorists and even how he handled the Easter Egg Roll. The following is a compilation of the worst media outbursts from the past month:
“Poisonous” “Dangerous” Attacks on the Press are “Bad for the Country”
“[Jeffrey] Lord and I were just debating how effective the president’s anti-media attacks are, and we’re in agreement, they are effective. But let’s recognize how poisonous they are as well. Every single president disputes some news coverage of their presidency, but no president until now gets up at a rally and calls news outlets fake. No president gets up at a podium and says the things we’ve heard from this president tonight. It’s nothing new from him, this was really a copy-and-paste speech, as you all were just talking about. But it is insidious, it is poisonous, and I think for the journalists in this room – just trying to do their best work – it is disappointing to continue to hear the president taking this tone.”
— CNN host Brian Stelter on CNN’s live coverage of the White House Correspondents Dinner, April 29.
“You think about some of these words [from Donald Trump], some of these tweets, some of these campaign rallies back last year as – as poison, as a form of poison that has entered into the bloodstream. What I’m really interested in now is how is that poison affecting the body politic, how is that poison affecting the consumers, because it’s not something any of us were seeing or covering five years ago.”
— CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter on the Buzzfeed editor Ben Smith’s April 26 podcast of Newsfeed with Ben Smith.
“I think what [Reince] Priebus said and I think what the president is doing right now, to be frank, in regards to the media is dangerous. I think that he is portraying the media as his enemy. I think he is making the media sort of the punching bag. And I think it illustrates perhaps not understanding the role of the media. We’re supposed to be tough. We’re supposed to ask him hard questions. I’m not sure he gets that. And I think, the more he beats us up, to be frank, I think that’s bad for the country. I think it's bad for the free flow of information and criticism, including criticism of him.”
— New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet on CNN’s Reliable Sources, April 30.
Trump Vs. The First Amendment
“I was out on the campaign trail time and again when he [Donald Trump] referred to the news media as the dishonest news media, the disgusting news media. He called us liars and crooks and thieves and I can’t think of all of the other names that he called us....I think that the President has to understand that he is doing real damage to what we do. He is doing real damage to the First Amendment in this country when he refers to the news media as the enemies of the people.”
— CNN correspondent Jim Acosta at April 12 Newseum event “Trump and the Press.”
Trump’s “Deeply Disturbing” Speech
“To bring your campaign speech into the presidency is something Presidents rarely do. This was — this was the most divisive speech I’ve ever heard from a sitting American president. Others may disagree about that. He played to his base and he treated his other listeners — the rest of the people who have been disturbed about him or oppose him, he treated them basically as I don't care — I don’t give a damn what you think because you’re frankly like the enemy. You’re like the enemy with the press. I thought it was a deeply disturbing speech in that regard.”
— David Gergen on CNN Newsroom with John Berman and Poppy Harlow, April 29.
Lecturing Trump About “Fake News”
“The effort today to get this best obtainable version of the truth is largely made in good faith. Mr. President, the media is not fake news. Let’s take that off the table going forward.”
— Washington Post Associate Editor and author Bob Woodward at the White House Correspondents Dinner, April 29.
ObamaCare Repeal Is “Death to Poor People” Act
Host Joy Reid: “It’s in the old Confederate states where they have refused to put about four million people onto the Medicaid rolls out of this sense that this is sort of brown people who just want to take, and that is the reason they want to have it expanded.”...
Daily Beast columnist Dean Obeidallah: “This [repealing ObamaCare] will kill people. Why not just call it ‘Death to Poor People’? Maybe more people in the Freedom Caucus will actually support it then. Because fundamentally that's what they’re doing.”
— MSNBC’s AM Joy, April 29.
Who Do the Trumps Think They Are? The Kennedys? The Clintons?
“Look at the seating this person [Ivanka Trump] has gotten. At the age, what is she? 27? I don’t know how old she is. There’s a young person who’s never worked in the government sitting next to the President of China at a major event. Sitting next to the President of China. Another time she’s sitting next to....the chancellor of Germany. These people must look over and say, ‘What is she doing here except she’s the President’s daughter.’ I’ve said the Romanovs because there’s something about the President who presumes that this is a royal family taking its place at the table of power. It is un-American. It is untraditional. It’s somewhat weird, although I know it must be comforting to have your kids around and I understand your son-in-law. I get the comfort factor. But is it American?”
— Host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, April 25. Ivanka Trump is 35-years-old, the same age as Bobby Kennedy when his brother named him to be Attorney General of the United States.
Mika Begs for Obama to Save the Party
“Could you do a favor for me and ask President Obama something for me? Could you – could he come back and save the party and tell them [Democrats] what to do?”
— Co-host Mika Brzezinski to Valerie Jarret on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, April 20.
Brian Pretends to Be Worried About the State of Conservatism
“For many years, you were the Republican on mainstream media, before the days where every American woke up to a cable network custom designed to agree with them. I think my dad, may he rest in peace, went to his grave believing you were the nation’s Republican. What do you then make of the brands of conservatism, whether it's Buckley, Reagan, Kemp — where is that? What has happened to it?”
— Host Brian Williams to conservative columnist George Will on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour, April 20.
Democrat Failure = “Ominous Sign for Republicans”
“Near Miss? The Democratic candidate almost wins in a special congressional race in a seat Republicans have held since the 1970s....Democrat Jon Ossoff nearly pulling off the shocking upset....[To Sen. Lindsey Graham] Do you look at this as an ominous sign of things to come for Republicans?”
— Host Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s Today, April 19.
“[John] Ossoff got awfully close, enough to have the political world asking, could Georgia become a referendum on President Trump?....The results suggest some Republicans may be dissatisfied with the direction of their party.”
— Correspondent Kristen Welker on NBC’s Today, April 19.
MSNBCer Urges ISIS to Bomb Trump Property
“This is my nominee for first ISIS suicide bombing of a Trump property.”
— April 18 tweet from MSNBC’s counter terrorism analyst Malcolm Nance. Tweet featured a picture of a Trump property in Turkey, in response to Trump congratulating Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his win. Nance later deleted the tweet.
Mother of All Dumb Metaphors
“Uncomfortable football-as-war metaphor: The size of the bomb is directly proportional to a team’s desperation and rarely impacts the score.”
— April 13 tweet by CNN host and former ABC Nightline anchor Bill Weir talking about Trump’s dropping a MOAB (“mother of all bombs”) ISIS cave complex in Afghanistan.
That “Brutal Thug” Assad Reminds Me of Cheney
“Bashar al-Assad was a brutal thug when he was torturing prisoners on behalf of the CIA. Saddam Hussein was America’s friend when he was using chemical weapons. We need to have more than just the immediate crisis memory. We need to understand the historical context of how a butcher like Assad actually has more in common with someone like Dick Cheney than he does with the average Syrian or the people who are on these airwaves as brave reporters.”
— The Intercept founder Jeremy Scahill on CNN’s Reliable Sources, April 9.
Don’t Be Distracted By Trump’s “Trained Monkey” Act
“A flurry of unfounded allegations clutter our news feeds. Susan Rice. Wiretapping of the Trump team by President Obama. The latest Fox News induced Twitter rant. The smoke machine is turned on. There’s a trained monkey dancing in the corner. The magician is buckling his cufflinks. The misdirection meter is turned up full. We cannot let ourselves be distracted....We know that Russia – led by a former KGB agent - actively worked to undermine our election. We know that there are serious investigations into collision [sic] between Trump associates and Russian operatives. That is the story. Everything else is just noise and dust until proven otherwise.”
— Disgraced former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather in an April 5 Facebook post “The Dangers of Distraction.”
Criticism of Susan Rice Fueled by Racism
“At the end of the day, we need some element of decency. When Rand Paul gets out there and says she’s [Susan Rice] abused this right, there is not an iota of evidence that she’s abused anything. Calling her Typhoid Mary? She — all we know now is that she did her job. Did she do something wrong? There is no information indicating that. So they are making her, you know, basically they’re defaming her without any reason to do so because she’s a woman. Maybe because she’s a black woman.”
— Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn on MSNBC’s Hardball, April 4.
Chuck Sets Speed Record for “Lame Duck” Labeling a New President
“You have a presidency right now that I think is, it’s beyond saying it is in crisis mode. It is, you know, it’s on the brink. The question is on the brink of what? Is it on the brink of collapse? Is it on the brink of becoming a temporarily lame duck presidency? And maybe it feels like it’s lame duck-ish temporarily right now.”
— Meet the Press host Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, March 31.
Pushing Trump from the Left to Attack Freedom Caucus
“On this question of going after the – the Freedom Caucus, the far right in – in the – in the House Republican caucus has essentially paralyzed that party now for years. John Boehner couldn’t deal with it and Trump confronts the same problem. And I actually think that there’s something to be said for a president, the leader of the party, who says, ‘I’m not going to allow you to paralyze our agenda. We need to be a governing party, and you stand in the way of that.’ So I don’t know if he can’t deliver on this, he just looks like – like a – like a blow hard. But the idea that he take them on, I don’t think that’s a crazy idea.”
— Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on CBS’s Face the Nation, April 2.
Trump Cuts “Likely to Hurt Children”
“Cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget are likely to hurt children the most, experts say.”
— April 13 tweet from CNN’s official Twitter account.
Trump’s True Test is The Easter Egg Roll?
“The president facing some major tests the past few weeks, and add this one to the list. The White House Easter Egg Roll. Sounds trivial, yes, but this is considered ‘the’ biggest social event held at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a tradition for more than 100 years. Here’s the problem – as of earlier this week many key vendors and schools say they haven’t heard a peep about it....Will this whole event, flop? And what does it say about this administration?”
— Substitute anchor Dave Briggs on CNN Newsroom, April 14.
“Mad King” “Menace” Trump “Needs to Be Impeached”
“The thing about Trump is, the things he has said seriously about nuclear weapons is quite frightening. I'll give you a couple. To Chris Matthews, he asked, ‘Why do we make them, he said, if we wouldn't use them?’ Ok. The possibility of nuclear war between Japan and North Korea: ‘It would be a terrible thing. If they do, they do.’ Good luck. Enjoy yourselves, folks. He said he was open to nuking Europe because ‘it’s a big place.’...Why doesn’t everybody face it? He needs to be taken out of office. He needs to be impeached. He is a menace. You say Kim Jong Yum-yum is crazy? So is he. So is he. Get real. Come on. He is nuts and we’re in the middle of it!”
— Co-host Joy Behar on ABC’s The View, April 3.
“Well, I think, if I was editing Vanity Fair, I would put him in the cover of Mad King Ludwig. I would have him in a gold bathrobe wearing a crooked crown holding his iPhone tweeting, because we’re covering a kind of – it’s almost like being in the ward of a mental hospital half the time with what’s going on with Trump. You can’t make it up.”
— Former Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Daily Beast editor Tina Brown on CNN’s Reliable Sources, April 2.
Kid Rock Visit Sadder Than Burning The White House to the Ground?
“Kid Rock, Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin, kinda giving the thumb, but you know what they wanted to do to Hillary Clinton. So is this the saddest day in the history of White House since the British burned it to the ground in 1814?”
— Host Joy Behar on ABC’s The View, April 21.
When Fact-Checking Goes Ridiculously Too Far
“The White House press secretary tried to twist a cap on reporters’ questions Tuesday about the Trump team’s alleged ties to the Kremlin. ‘If the President puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that’s a Russia connection,’ Sean Spicer said. Thing is, Russian dressing isn’t Russian. (Also, it’s really not for salads, but more of a sandwich spread – usually a Reuben.) The mayo and ketchup concoction – often dressed up with horseradish and spices – was created in Nashua, New Hampshire.”
— Michelle Krupa in a March 29 CNN.com article “Russian dressing is actually from Nashua, New Hampshire.”
