It’s no secret that Fox News is a right-leaning media organization when it comes to political commentary. Fox has several conservative hosts in primetime who are clearly identified as such. That fact often draws the ire of the liberal media, which was on full display on CNN’s New Day Monday morning.
Hosts John Berman and Alisyn Camerota took the opportunity to bash Fox for it's past coverage of former President Obama saying that he might meet with dictators:
CAMEROTA: Okay, I’m going to redirect this however I can. Okay, President Trump was quite excited to meet with Kim Jong-un, as we know, as he has been. And I think it's important to go back in the time machine and show how over at Fox the commentators were appalled when candidate Barack Obama suggested that he might ever sit down with Kim Jong-un. So, we have a little clip, courtesy of the internet, of then, their feelings, and now.
[VIDEO PLAYS]
SEAN HANNITY: Obama would personally negotiate with leaders of terrorist nations like Iran and North Korea without preconditions. Wow.
HANNITY: The world will probably be a little bit safer. The media should be giving President Trump credit for that.
JOHN BOLTON: Look, it’s a bad idea for the President to speak to Kim Jong-un.
JOHN BOLTON: Why wait to the end of May. Let's do this by the end of March.
STEVE DOOCY: Would you as President meet with leaders like North Korea? Obama, extraordinarily, said I’d meet with them.
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: If it works, he should get the Nobel Peace prize.
[VIDEO ENDS]
CAMEROTA: From this is horrible to Nobel Peace prize, Brian. We could have gone on -- that clip goes on for three minutes if you want to see it online.
What’s quite comical about this segment is the complete lack of self-awareness. CNN and the rest of the liberal media praised Obama and hailed him as a fantastic diplomat for his “success” regarding the Iran nuclear deal. The media accused special interest group AIPAC of being warmongers for not supporting the deal.
But how have they treated President Trump for his negotiations with North Korea? They’ve condemned him for his strategy and suggested, even sometimes explicitly stated, that Trump is friends with dictators.
Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter continued the segment by saying that he believes that the media need to be firmer in their attacks on the President:
STELTER: Yeah, Now This News found all of these clips from the Obama years that do prove the hypocrisy. I think two things are going on. There is a conservative apparatus that is, of course, hypocritical about this and props up Trump, and then the rest of the media, I think, is still grading Trump on a curve sometimes. There are strange comments he’s making during his Asia trip, not knowing what busing means, talking about Western style liberalism thinking it means California. Weird, strange comments that did not get enough attention over the weekend.
CAMEROTA: I think he also called John Bolton, Mike Bolton. Who’s a singer, by the way.
STELTER: Mike Bolton instead of John Bolton. Yes, that’s a great singer. I think those kind of comments never get called out by Fox, that kind of strange behavior and mistakes never get noticed by conservative media outlets, but they also don’t get enough attention from the rest of the news media. Over at Fox though, it's much more hermetically sealed chamber when it comes to this kind of hypocrisy.
Does Stelter not realize that Trump received 90% negative press coverage in 2018? The media has hit the President unimaginably hard, but according to Stelter, they need to invest more time into covering Trump negatively.
The only true statement in this segment was when Stelter expressed his wish to see Trump covered in a negative light 25 hours a day, 8 days a week.
Here's the complete transcript:
CNN New Day
07/01/2019
7:56 AM EST
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Speaking of the media, we need to talk about the bald hypocrisy of some of it.
BRIAN STELTER: Talking about me?
CAMEROTA: No. [Laughter] That’s hilarious. Okay, the naked hypocrisy.
STELTER: Okay, thank you!
JOHN BERMAN: Talking about me? Sorry, wait a second. That's my outside voice. Go ahead.
CAMEROTA: Okay, I’m going to redirect this however I can. Okay, President Trump was quite excited to meet with Kim Jong-un, as we know, as he has been. And I think it's important to go back in the time machine and show how over at Fox the commentators were appalled when candidate Barack Obama suggested that he might ever sit down with Kim Jong-un. So, we have a little clip, courtesy of the internet, of then, their feelings, and now.
[VIDEO PLAYS]
SEAN HANNITY: Obama would personally negotiate with leaders of terrorist nations like Iran and North Korea without preconditions. Wow.
HANNITY: The world will probably be a little bit safer. The media should be giving President Trump credit for that.
JOHN BOLTON: Look, it’s a bad idea for the President to speak to Kim Jong-un.
JOHN BOLTON: Why wait to the end of May. Let's do this by the end of March.
STEVE DOOCY: Would you as President meet with leaders like North Korea? Obama, extraordinarily, said I’d meet with them.
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: If it works, he should get the Nobel Peace prize.
[VIDEO ENDS]
CAMEROTA: From this is horrible to Nobel Peace prize, Brian. We could have gone on -- that clip goes on for three minutes if you want to see it online.
STELTER: Yeah, Now This News found all of these clips from the Obama years that do prove the hypocrisy. I think two things are going on. There is a conservative apparatus that is, of course, hypocritical about this and props up Trump, and then the rest of the media, I think, is still grading Trump on a curve sometimes. There are strange comments he’s making during his Asia trip, not knowing what busing means, talking about Western style liberalism thinking it means California. Weird, strange comments that did not get enough attention over the weekend.
CAMEROTA: I think he also called John Bolton, Mike Bolton. Who’s a singer, by the way.
STELTER: Mike Bolton instead of John Bolton. Yes, that’s a great singer. I think those kind of comments never get called out by Fox, that kind of strange behavior and mistakes never get noticed by conservative media outlets, but they also don’t get enough attention from the rest of the news media. Over at Fox though, it's much more hermetically sealed chamber when it comes to this kind of hypocrisy.
BERMAN: One of thing things that frequently asked is: what if Obama had done something like this? Well, we have the answer!
CAMEROTA: There you go.
BERMAN: Joe Lockhart, you know how he would be treated because he was treated a certain way for some of this.
JOE LOCKHART: Yeah, I know. It just makes your head hurt thinking about all of those questions. You know like, what if Chelsea Clinton had been front and center like Ivanka was during G-20 meetings. It’s -- we live – you know, Fox -- if North Korea is the Hermit Kingdom, Fox is the Hermit Network. They don't let anything in, it’s just the story. I think one of the really interesting things about yesterday, though, you know, it was historic, the President going to North Korea, but the President's comments weren't about how historic it was, it was about how great the media was and how great his coverage was. And I think the media often, and the President certainly does, mistakes motion and activity for progress. If you read "The New York Times" this morning, we've not only not made progress, we've actually taken a step back as far as our negotiating position. So, you know, a lot of chaos doesn't necessarily mean diplomatic success.
CAMEROTA: Joe, Brian, thank you very much for the analysis.
