National Public Radio is not shy about hating Trump or blurring any line between "news" and Democrat messaging. The phrase "Defund NPR" was trending on Twitter after this NPR tweet:
BREAKING: Donald Trump, who tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and inspired a deadly riot at the Capitol in a desperate attempt to keep himself in power, has filed to run for president again in 2024. https://t.co/iqIcaN3SZA
— NPR (@NPR) November 16, 2022
This tweet is a repeat of the actual story by Domenico Montanaro, which began:
Donald Trump, who tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and inspired a deadly riot at the Capitol in a desperate attempt to keep himself in power, announced he is running again for president in 2024.
There are facts here: Trump sought to overthrow certification of the results to keep himself in power, and he encouraged his followers to go the Capitol on January 6. The words "deadly riot" is a bit overwrought, since only one person who was shot dead, and it was Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt. Several Trump fans died of heart attacks.
Overall, there is a "Anti-Trump Army" righteousness to it. Naturally, NPR people loved it. Here's Esther Ciammachilli (pronounced chom-a-keely), who anchors morning news breaks for WAMU in Washington, DC, where people listen to NPR newscasts inside the Beltway:
Defund NPR is trending this morning because they told the absolute truth in this tweet. https://t.co/7ZGlM0oYde
— Esther Ciammachilli (@EstherCinDC) November 16, 2022
As can be expected from the current Twitter (even under Musk), "Defund NPR" was trending because the Left was dropping bombs on it. But conservatives who were sincere about the Defund message also tweeted about NPR's DNC-style Twitter framing of the Arizona governor's race, as Election Denial vs. Election Integrity.
We at NewsBusters reminded people that there was no aggressive framing of Joe Biden's announcement of a presidential run in 2019. No, that was a fuzzball:
In April 2019, @NPR also sounded like a Democrat messaging operation. https://t.co/Bqh3f69yUB pic.twitter.com/NXwerxiNpa
— NewsBusters (@newsbusters) November 16, 2022
NPR's Jessica Taylor reported:
Biden's announcement focuses on a "battle for the soul of this nation," with a dramatic video centered around the 2017 white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Va., and President Trump's response that there were "very fine people on both sides" after a counterprotester was killed.
While Montanaro's story on Trump 2024 carried no Truth Social links from Trump's account, they did include a graphic of the mocking New York Post "Trumpty Dumpty" cover. Taylor's 2019 Biden article carried an official Biden tweet:
The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy...everything that has made America -- America --is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. #Joe2020 https://t.co/jzaQbyTEz3
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 25, 2019
If Biden announces a run for re-election in 2024, no one thinks NPR will tweet it like this: "Joe Biden, whose economic policies caused historic inflation, who opened the border to untrammeled immigration and botched the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, has filed to run for president again." It's factual, and unthinkable to NPR, because it sounds like GOP spin.
