Category: Media in America

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Donald Trump Media in America

WATCH Nancy Pelosi Swat Down MSNBC’s Katy Tur For Being A Trump Apologist

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused MSNBC host Katy Tur of being a Donald Trump “apologist” during a tense back-and-forth on the network yesterday afternoon, and all Tur could do was whine that she’d always been tough in her reporting on the disgraced former president.

The exchange was part of a larger conversation the two were having about the accomplishments of President Joe Biden and how they compare with the Trump administration.

“Donald Trump is a great threat to our democracy. What is a democracy, what are the pillars? What are the pillars?” Pelosi asked.

“A  free and independent press to tell the story,” she continued. “To keep everybody informed of what people are saying and doing. That transparency is essential.”

“Independent judiciary. An independent judiciary when they’re practically threatening on TV exposure of jurors in the trial of the president, or any trial, and any of that. What is an independent judiciary about? It’s about free and fair elections. And what do they do, but suppress the vote?”Independent judiciary. An independent judiciary when they’re practically threatening on TV exposure of jurors in the trial of the president, or any trial, and any of that. What is an independent judiciary about? It’s about free and fair elections. And what do they do, but suppress the vote?

“So, there’s nothing in his ‘performance,’ if that’s the word we’ll use, what he has done, that would indicate he cares, prioritizes, or ever valued, or ever did anything to support a democracy.”

The former Speaker of the House added, “And now on the ballot saying he should have immunity from whatever he might do, I mean, really, I have sympathy and respect for everybody who votes. I’m just glad people vote. I know some of them will never, will always reject those of us who might look different to them in leadership and the rest, and that’s that.”

“But there are those who have real legitimate concerns about immigration, globalization, innovation, and what does that mean to their job and their family’s future? And we have to address those concerns. And Joe Biden is doing that. Created nine million jobs in his term in office. Donald Trump has the worst record of job loss of a president. So, we just have to make sure people know.”

Tur interjected, “That was a global pandemic.”

Clearly irritated by the suggestion from Tur, Pelosi countered, “He had the worst record of any president. We’ve had other concerns in our country. If you want to be an apologist for Donald Trump, that may be your role, but it ain’t mine.”

Tur: “I don’t think anybody can accuse me of that.”

Actually, Katy, they most certainly can accuse you of just that. Trying to cover for the biggest failure of the Trump administration, their handling of the COVID pandemic which led to a jobless recession and over a million deaths is indeed being an apologist for the worst U.S. president of the past 100 years.

The 2024 election should not be the least bit competitive when you lay Biden’s accomplishments next to Trump’s incompetence and insurrection. Democracy is on the ballot. If we value this republic, we’d damn well better show up in November and reject Trump.

 

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Donald Trump Elections Media in America

Ex-White House Official Warns CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Trump Will ‘Go After’ Her If He Wins In November

An ex-Trump administration official is warning members of the news media that if failed former president Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, he will target them and even seek to have their licenses revoked by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked former Trump official Anthony Scaramucci, “Donald Trump became the first former U.S. president who had ever been indicted. And now nearly a year later, he is the presumptive Republican nominee … and it’s not clear if voters are going to get to hear the evidence against him in any of those cases before they decide if he should return to the White House.”

“If none of this happens before the trial, what does that mean?”

“Well, I think you’ve got to take that as the status quo. I think any of those other things that could happen before the trial, particularly the documents case, where if you really read through that complaint, that’s where the most damning evidence is. If none of that happens, it’s a Trump vs Biden rematch.”

Scaramucci then warned Collins of what Trump is planning for her and the network she works for.

“What [Trump] said, what he did over the four years, what he’s saying now — he wants to go after you, Kaitlan,” he said.

“He’s made it very clear that anybody that he disagreed [with] … he wants to potentially threaten their FCC license. He said publicly he wants to persecute, using the Department of Justice, his political adversaries, and the list goes on and on. He’s courting with dictators. He wants to be part of the axis of autocracy with people like Vladimir Putin, and just to remind people Vladimir Putin is tied very closely to Iran now. So just think about what that means for the Middle East, because we know how transactional Donald Trump is.”

“I think we got to get off the cases,” he added. “We have the focus on Mr. Trump being the most un-American presidential nominee in U.S. history. And we have to go through the things that he’s saying he’s going to do as it relates to being un-American … I think if we do that, he’s going to lose the election.”

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Donald Trump Media in America

Jen Psaki Has The Perfect Clapback After Trump Threatens MSNBC

MSNBC host Jen Psaki had a message for failed former president Donald Trump after he threatened the network, and she let fly with an epic clapback Sunday.

A couple of days ago, Trump posted this on his failing Truth Social site:

“MSNBC (MSDNC) uses FREE government approved airwaves, and yet it is nothing but a 24 hour hit job on Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party for purposes of ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Brian Roberts, its Chairman and CEO, is a slimeball who has been able to get away with these constant attacks for years. It is the world’s biggest political contribution to the Radical Left Democrats who, by the way, are destroying our Country. Our so-called ‘government’ should come down hard on them and make them pay for their illegal political activity. Much more to come, watch!”

That, Psaki explained, “sounded just like another one of those crazy, unhinged rants” Donald is famous for, but “he also talked about himself in the third person — always a red flag in my book, and he included his middle initial in that too.”

Psaki then gave the disgraced ex-president a lesson in the First Amendment and media in the United States:

“Trump is promising to resort to an authoritarian tactic should he become president again. Does the federal government have any role in the oversight of a cable news network? No they actually don’t. But that’s not the point here. What’s important is that he’s threatening to use the power of the government against media he believes is being critical of him.”

She added:

“Believe me, I know from experience from many days and hours at the briefing room, that the relationship between the U.S. government and the free press can be tense at times. And even both of the presidents I worked for, they had their own moments of unleashing their media critiques when they didn’t like a story. and when I think about the role of the free press and how essential it is for our democracy. I also think about my time as a spokesperson for the State Department.”

The larger issue, Psaki noted, is freedom of the press, which Trump is clearly opposed to, despite what the U.S. Constitution (and numerous Supreme Court decisions) have to say on the matter.

“It’s actually a threat to the free press. A threat to democracy. And that threat comes at a time when a record total of 533 journalists are currently detained worldwide. That’s according to Reporters Without Borders. A large number of them are being held by the sorts of authoritarian regimes that Trump envisions creating here at home.”

It’s not an overstatement to say that if Donald Trump wins in 2024, this country will become an authoritarian nightmare reminiscent of other totalitarian regimes (i.e. China and Russia) that censor almost everything their citizens read or see on a television broadcast. We cannot let that happen.

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Donald Trump Elections Media in America

CNN’s Trump Town Hall Wasn’t The Ratings Bonanza It Was Predicted To Be 

Supposedly, Donald Trump’s return to CNN was going to be a massive ratings win for the perennially third-place news network, and while Wednesday night’s town hall with the criminally indicted sex offender did indeed manage to lift CNN to first place in the timeslot, the overall numbers were significantly lower than an average night of primetime programming on Fox News and also much lower than the ratings CNN achieved when it featured Trump in 2016.

Former CNN media analyst Brian Stelter reported the results of the overnight ratings.

“Just in: CNN’s town hall with Donald Trump averaged 3.1 million total viewers. The event outrated Fox and MSNBC, as expected, but these are not 2015/16 level numbers for Trump — not even close.”

“In the key 25- to 54-year-old demo, the town hall averaged 703,000, about five times higher than CNN’s typical performance at 8pm.”

Here’s a comparison of the 3.1 million viewers CNN managed to draw last night in comparison to other Trump appearances on the network:

Considering that a verdict in the defamation lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll had been handed down just a day before the town hall on CNN, the network was projected to clean up in the ratings. Instead, they managed to draw less than what Tucker Carlson used to garner on an average primetime broadcast.

The vast majority of the American viewing public is sick and tired of Donald Trump, his lies, and his vitriol. That doesn’t exactly bode well for him as he heads into the 2024 election with numerous legal problems hanging over him.

 

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Fox News Fox News Lies Media in America

Fox Attorneys Won’t Be Allowed To Use Critical Defense Arguments In Dominion Lawsuit: Report

Now that a judge has decided a jury will be empaneled to hear the case of Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News, the conservative network is about to face a monumental task of defending itself from a $1.6 billion lawsuit without several crucial defense arguments.

That was the topic of discussion Sunday on MSNBC when host Katie Phang spoke with Jeremy Peters of The New York Times.

“Judge Eric Davis on Friday decimated much of Fox’s potential trial defenses, ruling that Fox cannot invoke the neutral report privilege because the evidence does not support that Fox conducted good faith reporting, Phang noted. “The judge is also blocking Fox from using the fair reporting privilege because the statements made by Fox and its guests were not related to official proceedings.”

Peters concurred with Phang, adding, “When the jury gets the case several of Fox’s key arguments will not be available for its lawyers to make.”

The Times reporter then elaborated:

“Several of these will have already been decided in Dominion’s favor because of the judge’s decision on Friday. So what this does is it significantly limits Fox’s ability to mount a defense and leaves for the jury the key question of whether or not there is enough evidence to show that Fox hosts, producers and executives knew what they were putting on the air was false or at least recklessly disregarded information showing that it was false.”

“That is how you get to potentially significant and sizeable judgment against Fox News,” Peters added. “Dominion is asking for $1.6 billion and appears that, unless this settles, which I think it’s highly unlikely at this point, and has already been highly unlikely because Fox appears to be preserving its options for appeal here, this is going to head to the jury and it will be one of the most significant and far-reaching defamation suits against a major media company that we have seen in decades.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWTdkuxP2d4

Fox is also facing a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Smartmatic, an election and software technology company.

The first line of that lawsuit lays out exactly how both Smartmatic and Dominion plan to win their cases against Fox:

“The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States. The election was not stolen, rigged, or fixed. These are facts. They are demonstrable and irrefutable.”

None of those facts are up for debate. And they could wind up bankrupting Fox.