The Media Research Center’s Rich Noyes appeared on the Fox Business Network, Friday, to blast a journalistic double standard on Donald Trump’s “wealthy” cabinet. Responding to the Washington Post's whining about net worth, the MRC research director highlighted, “President-elect Trump is picking people with actual success. They're not wealthy by chance. They are wealthy because they're successful. You think he would want to bring that kind of success and track record into government. But the media are rebelling against it.”
He noted that journalists had no problem with Barack Obama in 2008 picking “people with careers in government... life-long elected officials and the media were drooling over those picks.”
Noyes explained:
RICH NOYES: This is where the whole liberal narrative is being challenged by the Trump election. I mean, if the idea is that government top-down can sort of bring people up by leveling equality through government action, it would have worked by now.
Calling out reporters as hypocrites, Noyes compared:
NOYES: Penny Pritzker, the Commerce Secretary right now. She’s worth about two and a half billion dollars. So, there’s billionaires all inside Democratic government. But, notice, it wasn’t a big issue with them. It’s a big issue for this administration.
A transcript of the segment is below:
Intelligence Report
12/2/16
2:15
TRISH REGAN: The liberal media is attacking Donald Trump's cabinet picks because they're wealthy. Yeah. The media cranking out this arrive because these people have money, they're going to go and stick to the middle class. I mean, take a look here. Washington Post writes, “Many of the Trump appointees were born wealthy, attended elite schools and went on to amass even latter fortunes as adults. Their collective wealth in many ways defies Trump’s populist campaign promises.” And take a look at this one here, this Politico article with the headline “Trump's team of gazillionaires. “Donald Trump campaign as a champion of the forgotten man,” Politico writes and won the White House among his support of the white working class. So far, he’s stacking his administration with masters of the universe.” Okay, so it's a bad thing, right, that men and women have worked hard and been successful and made a lot of money? Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center joins me right now with more. Rich, I don't understand what they're complaining about here. Don't you want talented, successful people that aren't beholden to the lobbyists in Washington helping you out?
RICH NOYES: Well of course. But this isn't the way the media look at the world. I went back to 2008 when President Obama or President-elect Obama was picking people with careers in government, you know life-long elected officials and the media were drooling over those picks. George Stephanopoulos said, “We hadn't assembled that much star power and brain power in our lifetimes.” They wound up calling it a team of geniuses. President-elect Trump is picking people with actual success. They're not wealthy by chance. They are wealthy because they're successful. You think he would want to bring that kind of success and track record into government. But the media are rebelling against it.”
REGAN: You know what I think the media gets really wrong, Rich? Is that Americans don't resent wealth. We don't resent success. We like to see it. The fact that Donald Trump was elected, the wealthiest man to ever run for office, that kinda shows you Americans, they want to relate to the person. If they feel they relate to the person, the person is intelligent and can put the right things, people in place, et cetera, they don't care how much wealth they have.
NOYES: Of course not. This is where the whole liberal narrative is being challenged by the Trump election. I mean, if the idea is the re government top down can sort of bring people up by leveling equality through government action, it would have worked by now. Donald Trump —
REGAN: You know I love it, think about Obama, right? President Obama, you have all the academics that went to work for his administration.
NOYES: Right.
REGAN: These are people that have never had this real world experience, think about this in theory terms only, and I think it's dangerous, frankly. I mean, when people haven't had the experience of having to meet a payroll or have to deal with the red tape and regulation when you want to start something new.
NOYES: Right, and opening it up so the free enterprise system can work, you know, then people at the bottom start to go up the rungs of the economic ladder. People at the top will do well as well, but nobody at the bottom is going to resent someone who's rich because they're richer, they want to be able to see their own path for advancement. That's been blocked by too much government. If it opens up, they're going to cheer this. Not resent it.
REGAN: Yeah. I think you are absolutely right. Very quickly, bit of a double standard? You think Clinton had Rubin, right, as Treasury secretary, former Goldman Sachs guy who did pretty well himself. I mean, it’s not as though other Democratic administrations haven't had their share of wealthy people, too.
NOYES: Right. Penny Pritzker, the Commerce Secretary right now. She’s worth about two and a half billion dollars. So, there’s billionaires all inside Democratic government. But, notice, it wasn’t a big issue with them. It’s a big issue for this administration.
REGAN: There you go.
