Appearing on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on Monday, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy called out the host’s biased reporting in real time, ripping slanted segments that aired just moments earlier: “I personally think the biggest problem is the media attacks on the President. Just in the past 20 minutes listening to this show on [MS]NBC, we get the feeling the President is not appointing women, which is not true.”
Ruddy was referring to Mitchell’s coverage minutes before of President Trump holding a White House meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about promoting women entrepreneurs: “...when the President swore in his 30 top officials, his White House assistants to the president...maybe three of them were women. And Justin Trudeau comes here with half of his cabinet are women. So there's a notable imbalance here...”
Ruddy pushed back: “He just – two major cabinet appointments. Ivanka herself ran the Trump business, so you know, the idea that somehow he doesn't like women running things.”
He also scolded Mitchell for promoting the idea that Trump was conducting a “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants: “...he's not doing mass deportation. He is removing criminal aliens, which I think everybody in this country thinks should be done.” Ruddy concluded: “So many good things he's done are not getting out to the American public...”
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Mitchell rushed to defend her and Democratic Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham attacking the Trump administration’s immigration policy just prior to Ruddy’s appearance:
The Congresswoman was presenting her complaint that she’s not getting real information from ICE and she’s asking for a briefing. And they do represent the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, so their states are involved. And the question here has been what is the threshold for criminal? Is it just that they are criminal because they came in illegally? Some of them 20 years ago. Or is it criminal because they are violent criminals? And that’s the distinction we're trying to – we’re simply trying to ascertain, we have not been briefed on it.
Later in the exchange, Ruddy actually complimented Mitchell for being “a tough reporter” who asks “good questions,” especially in contrast to a certain other cable network: “...I think there's other people in media, I was just on a network yesterday where they spent half the day accusing the President of being a pathological liar and mentally ill. I mean, I think even you agree, you've known Donald Trump for a long time, neither one of those things are true.”
He was referring CNN’s Brian Stelter on Sunday providing a platform to left-wing pundit Andrew Sullivan declaring Trump to be an “unstable figure incapable of accepting reality.”
Here is a transcript of Ruddy’s February 13 exchange with Mitchell:
12:41 PM ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: And Michael Flynn is not the only top White House official fighting bad press today, my next guest, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy, has been at the center of new criticism of chief of staff Reince Priebus. Ruddy telling the Washington Post, Priebus is, quote, “in way over his head,” days after a private conversation he had with President Trump. Priebus went straight to the source, prompting this reaction from Ruddy on Twitter, “Reince just briefed me on new White House plans. Impressive!” Christopher Ruddy joins me now. Mr. Ruddy, thank you very much. Can you clear up what you think the President’s thinking is about his staff? We have all of this controversy over Mike Flynn. What about the chief of staff, too?
CHRISTOPHER RUDDY: Well, Andrea – thank you, Andrea, for having me on. You know I've been a media commentator for a long time before Donald Trump became president. I was offering my own view on CNN yesterday, I was not representing the President. I don't make a pretense of doing that. If Donald Trump wants people to know how he feels about Reince Priebus, he doesn't need to go through me. He'll go through directly on Twitter or through the press. I gave some criticisms, I did not ask for Reince to be fired. Some people are implying that. Reince, to his credit, quickly called me and said, “Look, here are the things I'm doing, we're making changes, we're going to be doing, you’re going to see in the next 30 to 60 days some dramatic improvements.”
I think everybody agrees there's been some real problems here, but I personally think the biggest problem is the media attacks on the President. Just in the past 20 minutes listening to this show on [MS]NBC, we get the feeling the President is not appointing women, which is not true. He just – two major cabinet appointments. Ivanka herself ran the Trump business, so you know, the idea that somehow he doesn't like women running things. And then the mass deportation, he's not doing mass deportation. He is removing criminal aliens, which I think everybody in this country thinks should be done. So many good things he's done are not getting out to the American public, and that was my beef. And I think that Reince, if he can improve that messaging, I think we'll make a major improvement here.
MITCHELL: You know, I think the communication on the deportations – let’s just point out, I was pointing out that President Obama did these deportations. The Congresswoman [Michelle Lujan Grisham] was presenting her complaint that she’s not getting real information from ICE and she’s asking for a briefing. And they do represent the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, so their states are involved. And the question here has been what is the threshold for criminal? Is it just that they are criminal because they came in illegally? Some of them 20 years ago. Or is it criminal because they are violent criminals? And that’s the distinction we're trying to – we’re simply trying to ascertain, we have not been briefed on it. But in terms of Reince Priebus –RUDDY: I think everything the President has done has been pretty sensible. I don't think he's done anything crazy and the press keeps trying to describe – even this so-called Muslim ban. It was a 90-day review period on immigration policies and proper vetting. I think we all should agree that's a good idea. Maybe there is, again, a communications issue, and that's what my problems with Reince was. He says they're taking steps to fix it, and I'm keeping an open mind, but I'm willing to criticize, like you are, when there is room for it. We will never have a president like this that is so much accessible, interested in information from the public, and who’s going to act and react to improve things as he goes along.
MITCHELL: You know, I take your point there, just on Friday night or Thursday night he was talking to two of our correspondents, just having run into them in the hallway. We love that kind of access to get his point of view. But the fact that he is tweeting, that he has himself repeatedly called it a Muslim ban in the last week, ten days reinforces that, so you know, a lot of the issues you are raising...
RUDDY: Well, it's a temporary ban.
MITCHELL: ...comes from the tweets of the President of the United States. We've never had a President who uses Twitter this way.
(...)
RUDDY: His cabinet, everybody agrees, I think, is an A-plus team. You might disagree with their politics, A-plus team, they’re just settling into office. So we’ve got to – the media has to back off and give him a little bit of slack, let him do the job. I was critical of Reince, but I told Reince, “I'm going to give you slack. I’m going to let you see how you do. My job is not to call for you to be fired or call Mike Flynn to be fired.” And you're doing your job, and I've always respected you, Andrea, I think you're a tough reporter, you ask good questions, but I think there's other people in media, I was just on a network yesterday where they spent half the day accusing the President of being a pathological liar and mentally ill. I mean, I think even you agree, you've known Donald Trump for a long time, neither one of those things are true.
(...)
