So, it shouldn’t shock you that the media response was overwhelmingly negative against President Trump’s border address this week. The Trump White House and congressional Democrats are at war over border security. Trump is trying to secure our borders and enforce federal immigration laws. Democrats don’t want to do any of that. Democrats demanded equal time to respond to the president’s speech. It was something otherworldly—and provided the Internet with endless memes. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stood side-by-side and delivered their creepy address; think the twins in the hallway of The Shining. Again, you know the media hates the GOP and Trump, but here are the figures: eight times more negative coverage than Democrats. Newbusters broke it down:
…[N]etwork morning shows provided an avalanche of negative reviews for President Trump’s Oval Office address to the nation calling for border security legislation to end the government shutdown, with anchors and correspondents offering up a staggering 43 statements critical of the presidential speech. By contrast, only a scant five critiques were made of the Democratic response delivered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The glaring disparity in negative coverage of Trump versus congressional Democrats, a difference of over eight to one, also included 13 statements in which both sides of the aisle were blamed for the budget impasse. However, the analysis of the dueling public addresses on the NBC, ABC, and CBS broadcasts was heavily slanted against the President.
[…]
NBC’s Today show featured a total of 13 statements critical of Trump’s speech but only three statements critical of the Democratic response. Three statements criticized both sides. Correspondent Peter Alexander set the tone early on by proclaiming: “Now 19 days into a government shutdown, a political stalemate all but ensuring that 800,000 federal workers will not get paychecks this Friday, the President is not offering a single new proposal or idea, instead emphasizing the same dire message about violence and crime that helped propel him to the White House.”
Delivering a news brief at the 7:30 a.m. ET half hour, co-host Savannah Guthrie declared: “The President says the country faces a crisis at the border. He offered little in the way of concessions to break the standoff that has left parts of the government closed for 19 days.”
[…]
ABC’s Good Morning America similarly offered 12 statements critical of Trump in its coverage, with not a single statement critical of Pelosi and Schumer. Three statements laid blame on both parties. Correspondent Cecilia Vega lamented: “That speech last night brought both sides nowhere near closer to reaching a deal to end this shutdown.” Moments later, she hammered the President: “In his ten-minute speech riddled with factual inaccuracies, the President argued there is a crisis at the southern border.”
Again, not one comment was offered by any of the show’s journalists that criticized the Democrats’ presentation.
There is a crisis at the border. The Washington Post and The New York Times reported on this, which I guess was purposefully skipped by scores of liberal news reporters and anchors. Some hosts, like CNBC’s Joe Kernen, ripped into Democrats, noting that Trump reportedly offered to re-open the government in order to get some money for the wall. He’s only asking for a $5 billion total, but supposedly would’ve taken around $2.5 billion. Democrats rejected it outright. They had no counterproposal. They retook the House in the 2018 midterms; Pelosi is taking that for a spin. Still, Kernen noted the government could be re-opened if Democrats were more worried about having a position in these talks instead of trying to stop Trump at all times.
CNBC host calls out Democrats for government shutdown: Nancy Pelosi & Chuck Schumer “could open the government any time… they just care about making a political point.” pic.twitter.com/L7pr1rD9JN
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 11, 2019
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