Tag: MSNBC

Trump tweets that he ‘seldom’ watches CNN and MSNBC — shortly after both networks cover a report on his viewing

President Trump tweeted on Monday morning that he does not watch as much television as a recent New York Times report claimed, adding that he “seldom, if ever,” tunes in to CNN or MSNBC.

The tweet posted just 28 minutes after MSNBC wrapped up a segment about the Times report and 30 minutes after CNN did the same.

The timing could be a coincidence. Or it could mean that Trump was doing the very thing he denied — watching CNN and MSNBC — shortly before he tweeted.

The Times reported on Saturday that “around 5:30 each morning, President Trump wakes and tunes into the television in the White House’s master bedroom. He flips to CNN for news, moves to ‘Fox & Friends’ for comfort and messaging ideas, and sometimes watches MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ because, friends suspect, it fires him up for the day.”One of the Times journalists who reported the story, Peter Baker, appeared on “Morning Joe” on Monday to discuss the president’s TV habit.“He likes this jolt of television he doesn’t agree with,” Baker said of Trump. “It’s kind of hate-watching. He watches something that he knows is going to rile him up. It’s like a big cup of caffeine. Most people try to avoid things that make them upset, but I think that President Trump — he gets a charge out of it.”

Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio appeared on CNN around the same time that Baker was on MSNBC and said that “people who have been around the president for any real period of time know that he is a television addict. He’s probably watching us right now.”Perhaps he was.

The White House did not respond to an inquiry about whether Trump was watching and responding to CNN and MSNBC.

[Washington Post]

Reality

Also, just the day before, Trump was critical of the coverage on CNN and MSNBC, tweeting anger that they were not covering the health of the economy. Again, this was just the day before.

Trump repeats Fox News attack on Maddow verbatim

President Donald Trump on Sunday reused talking points from Fox & Friends after the conservative morning show blasted MSNBC host Rachel Maddow over a story about the killing of four U.S. service members in Niger.

The hosts of Fox & Friends began their 7 a.m. ET hour by lambasting Maddow for a theory linking the Trump administration’s travel ban to the lack of support for Sgt La David Johnson and three other troops killed in Niger. Maddow suggested that Chad had pulled a large contingent of forces out of Niger recently in response to Trump’s ban on travel from the nation.

If you lean forward and you use your pen and you pause and you look thoughtful into the camera, then you must be saying something substantive,” co-host Pete Hegseth joked in a jab at Maddow. “Or maybe you’re widely [sic] spinning a conspiracy theory as the leader of the left.”

“This is what’s dangerous,” co-host Abby Huntsman opined. “It’s dangerous when the media starts having conversations about this and putting in their own theories that are completely unrelated to what actually happened. It’s dangerous, not only for us in terms of figuring out what did happen. But it’s dangerous to the families that lost loved ones over there because they’re the ones who should be the focus of this conversation and somehow we go down these roads oftentimes and it’s such a distraction and it’s such a disservice to this country and what our job is in the media.”

“We all have to be vigilant,” she added. “Do your job well, and if there is some connection, then talk about it and help people understand. But these conspiracy theories, that it where it gets completely, completely dangerous.”

“That’s why people tune it out,” Hegseth said. “And President Trump calls it fake news and you saw that poll from Politico where 46 percent think the news just makes up stuff about President Trump, 17 percent unsure.

Huntsman agreed: “I can’t tell you how many of my friends I talk to, it’s like, they have no idea where to go to figure out what’s actually going on. I hear that from my family, my friends, people I just talk to on the streets. The American people are frustrated because it used to be you could just tune in to the media and get at least a bit of a sense of what’s going on and now — this is a perfect example that you can’t.”

Within minutes, Trump tweeted, citing the very same Politico poll quoted by Hegseth and echoing the hosts’ attack on the “fake news” media.

[Raw Story]

Media

 

 

Trump Continues Attack on NBC News: ‘Not #1’

President Donald Trump on Saturday continued to criticize NBC News over the network’s reporting that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called him a “moron” earlier this summer, and its subsequent reporting on chaos that engulfed the administration in its wake.

“More.@NBCNews is so knowingly inaccurate with their reporting,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “The good news is that the PEOPLE get it, which is really all that matters! Not #1”

Since the report, Trump has said he has total confidence in Tillerson.

Tillerson scheduled a rare press conference Wednesday where he denied that he had to be talked into staying on the job, while not explicitly denying he used the “moron” epithet. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert later added that the secretary would never use such language.

The president has repeatedly denied the Tillerson report, characterizing it as “fake news.”

Reality

Trump believes the report was “fake news” because NBC never confirmed the report with him. However, Rex Tillerson specifically never denied calling Trump a “fucking moron” and if one were to read the NBC article, Tillerson made the comment behind his back, so how could Trump even be aware of Tillerson’s comment to confirm it?

Trump Tweets Shocking Assault on Brzezinski, Scarborough

On Thursday morning, while MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” was on the air, Trump posted a pair of hateful tweets about co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

MSNBC responded with this statement: “It’s a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job.”

The president’s deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, defended the tweets by saying Trump was responding to the “outrageous attacks that take place” on “Morning Joe” and other shows.

Trump refuses to be “bullied,” Sanders said on Fox News. “This is a president who fights fire with fire.”

Trump’s tweets in the 8 a.m. hour on Thursday said that “Morning Joe” is “poorly rated” (it’s not) and that the hosts “speak badly of me” (that’s true). He called both hosts disparaging names.

Trump claimed that Scarborough and Brzezinski courted him for an interview at Mar-a-Lago around the New Year’s Eve holiday.

“She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!” the president wrote.

He actually said yes, according to accounts of their meeting. Trump, Scarborough and Brzezinski mingled with guests and had a private chat.

For the record, photos from Mar-a-Lago do not show any blood or bandages on Brzezinski’s face.

Stunned commenters on social media noted that Trump targeted both hosts with his barbed tweets, but only opined on the physical appearance of the woman involved.

Democratic commentator Maria Cardona, speaking on CNN, said it was part of a pattern of misogynistic behavior by Trump.

“We should not normalize this,” she said, calling it “unacceptable and unpresidential.”

Lawmakers immediately condemned the president’s tweets, as well.

“Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, tweeted.

But First Lady Melania Trump spoke up in defense of her husband.

“As the First Lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder,” her communications director Stephanie Grisham said in response to reporters’ questions.

Melania Trump has previously said that as First Lady she wants to focus on the problem of cyberbullying.

Critics say Trump uses his Twitter account as a powerful megaphone to bully people.

Observers also expressed a lot of skepticism about Trump’s Thursday morning claim that he doesn’t watch “Morning Joe” anymore.

The president is known to watch all the major morning shows, including the programs on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC’. He sometimes calls up pro-Trump guests to thank them for their remarks on the shows.

Trump had a friendly, jovial relationship with “Morning Joe” during the presidential campaign, but it turned sour over time.

At one point he called Brzezinski “very insecure” and threatened to expose her off-screen relationship with Scarborough.

Brzezinski and Scarborough were dating at the time, and they are now engaged.

Thursday’s anti-media tweets were astonishing — and part of a pattern.

On Tuesday his main target was CNN. Trump reveled in the fact that three CNN journalists resigned on Monday after their Russia-related story was retracted.

On Wednesday Trump went after two of the nation’s biggest newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post.

He mangled the facts several times, but his overall message came through loud and clear: Do not trust the people who are trying to hold my administration accountable.

Brzezinski responded to Trump Thursday morning with a tweet of her own, mocking him with a reference to “little hands,” a reference to a disparaging idea about him that has circulated for years.

Mark Kornblau, the head of PR for NBC News and MSNBC, also weighed in on Twitter, saying, “Never imagined a day when I would think to myself, ‘it is beneath my dignity to respond to the President of the United States.'”

[CNN]

 

President Trump Attacks ‘Lunatic,’ ‘No-Talent,’ ‘Dumbest Person’ in TV

President Donald Trump says he thinks CNN’s Chris Cuomo looks like a “chained lunatic” on television. CNN’s Don Lemon is “perhaps the dumbest person in broadcasting” and CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert is a “no-talent guy” who talks “filthy.”

Those were just some of the comments Trump offered over dinner Monday night when asked about the media he consumes as President of the United States. But he did little to hide his frustration, explaining that he had been surprised that the journalistic criticism had gotten worse after the campaign. He also said he had been working on tuning out news that is critical of him.

“I’ve been able to do something that I never thought I had the ability to do. I’ve been able not to watch or read things that aren’t pleasant,” he said, maintaining that he no longer watches CNN or MSNBC. “And it keeps you young.”

There was little doubt, however, that he remained acutely aware of what reporters and correspondents were saying about him. He has large flat-screen televisions set up in the Treaty Room in the White House residence and in his private dining room in the West Wing. He continues to have stacks of newspapers and magazines delivered to his office suite in the West Wing.

“Washington Post, New York Times, they’re really, really dishonest,” he said, before directly addressing the TIME reporters he had invited for dinner. “You people are quite dishonest in all fairness.” He said he used to watch MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough but no longer does. He also claimed to have helped CNN president Jeff Zucker, an old friend and business colleague, get his job at the network.

The one network he praised was Fox News, saying he watches their shows and is responsible for its ratings bump.

Spokespeople for MSNBC and CBS said the networks had no comment on the president’s criticism. A CNN spokesperson said, “His comments are beneath the dignity of the office of the President.” Trump’s claims about CNN’s Zucker have been repeatedly refuted by the executives involved.

Here’s an extended excerpt of his conversation with TIME:

For instance I don’t watch CNN. I don’t watch MSNBC. Scarborough used to treat me great. But because I don’t do interviews and stuff and want to … He went the other way. Which is fine. He’s got some problems. But I don’t watch the show anymore. It drives him crazy. I don’t watch the show.

I do watch Fox in the morning, and their ratings have gone through the roof because everyone knows I’m watching Fox. But they’re pleasant. And if I do something wrong they report on it. I don’t mean they – if I do something wrong. But it’s really, honestly it’s the most accurate.

CNN in the morning, Chris Cuomo, he’s sitting there like a chained lunatic. He’s like a boiler ready to explode, the level of hatred. And the entire, you know the entire CNN platform is that way. This Don Lemon who’s perhaps the dumbest person in broadcasting, Don Lemon at night it’s like – sometimes they’ll have a guest who by mistake will say something good. And they’ll start screaming, we’re going to commercial. They cut him off. Remember?

I’ve seen things where by mistake somebody they bring in a guest and it turns out to be a positive. And they go, I mean they get just killed. The level of hatred. And poor Jeffrey Lord. I love Jeffrey Lord. But sometimes he’s sitting there with eight unknown killers that nobody ever heard of. And CNN actually is not doing nearly as well as others. They’re all doing well because of me. But it’s not doing as well as others that are doing better actually. But Fox treats me very fairly. MSNBC is ridiculous. It’s just bad.

It’s an ability I never thought I’d have. I never thought I’d have the ability to say, they’re doing a big story on me on CNN and I won’t watch it. And it’s amazing, it doesn’t matter. But it really, the equilibrium is much better. As far as newspapers and things, I glance at them. They’re really dishonest. I mean they’re really dishonest.

Trump also brought up The Late Show host Stephen Colbert’s blistering and crude May 1 monologue, in which the comedian delivered an oral-sex joke about the president and Russian President Vladimir Putin:

You see a no-talent guy like Colbert. There’s nothing funny about what he says. And what he says is filthy. And you have kids watching. And it only builds up my base. It only helps me, people like him. The guy was dying. By the way they were going to take him off television, then he started attacking me and he started doing better. But his show was dying. I’ve done his show. … But when I did his show, which by the way was very highly rated. It was high—highest rating. The highest rating he’s ever had.

(h/t Time)

Ben Carson: It Doesn’t Matter Whether or Not Trump Committed Sexual Assault

Ben Carson says it doesn’t matter whether the women accusing Donald Trump of sexual misconduct are telling the truth because the accusations are far less important than what he believes is the impending fall of our nation.

Before they fall, nations “take their eye off the ball, start engaging in things that really don’t matter that much — not that sexual language and abuse is not important, but when you’re talking about the train going off the cliff you really need to deal with that first,” Carson said in a heated interview with the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe Friday.

Carson — who has been known to veer off talking points when he’s acting as a surrogate for Trump —  did say he had doubts about one of the women’s accounts. Jessica Leeds told The New York Times Trump grabbed her on a plane and tried to stick his hand up her skirt.

“If somebody is sitting next to you on the first class section of the airplane, there are stewardesses, there are people around and there’s this gigantic armrest — what happened to all those things?” Carson asked.

“Are you saying that these women are lying?” BBC News reporter Katty Kay asked. Carson avoided the question and said Kay was trying to characterize him as the bad guy.

When the conversation began to get heated Carson jumped in: “Hey can you turn her microphone off please? Turn her microphone off so I can talk.”

“It doesn’t matter whether they’re lying or not,” Carson said, he then added: “What matters is that the train is going off the cliff and we’re taking our eye off of that and we’re getting involved in other issues that can be taken care of later.”

Carson has repeatedly used the train analogy as an example of what’s at stake in this election. He believes Trump is the only candidate who can stop the train before it plummets off the cliff and he compared the recent accusations about Trump to a fight in one of the cabins, which is a distraction but not the big picture.

As Kay pointed out again that Carson’s description of the first class cabin suggests he thinks the women are lying Carson kept trying to interrupt.

“Listen, listen, would you listen for a moment? Do you guys have a plug please?” Carson asked someone off camera.

“It’s like hitting against a brick wall, getting people and particularly people in the news media, to understand how much trouble we’re in,” Carson said.

When the retired neurosurgeon and former presidential candidate was asked how he felt about the fact that multiple women have accused Trump of misconduct, Carson dismissed it.

“Again, not the important issue,” Carson said.

(h/t USA Today)

Reality

The Republicans ran on a platform of moral authority, and with their defense of Donald Trump’s bragging of sexual assault and comments like Dr. Carson, it shows how thin their morals actually were.

Ben Carson for decades wrote books, gave speeches, and just this year ran for president on a platform of morality and now has chose to turn his back on his own message because it is politically beneficial to him.

Dr. Carson claimed there was a gigantic armrest in the first class seats that would have prevented anyone from invading another person’s space.

However while Dr. Carson chooses to use his “common sense” we’ll use actual verifiable evidence. According to Leeds’ interview with Anderson Cooper the flight was on Braniff Airlines flight, which had seats equipped with reclining armrests at that time.

Other photos at the time of Braniff Airlines first class cabins show very small armrests.

Media

Trump Campaign Manager Calls For More Privacy From Trump But Less Transparency From Clinton

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway downplayed the need for “extensive medical reporting” on Donald Trump while accusing Hillary Clinton of a lack of transparency about her health conditions.

Speaking to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday, Conway said that she did not know what information Trump would disclose about his health when he appears on The Dr. Oz Show on Wednesday.

“I don’t know why we need such extensive medical reporting when we all have a right to privacy,” the campaign manager opined.

Mitchell pointed out that there was a tradition of candidates releasing medical records, which Trump had refused to honor.

“The American people have a right to know what the health is of their perspective commander-in-chief,” Mitchell insisted.
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“I agree with your premise,” Conway replied. “And so the question remains, why in the world did Hillary Clinton lie to everyone and conceal such an important fact for two days [after being diagnosed with pneumonia], saying she was overheated and dehydrated and then, of course, hours and hours later after, unfortunately, her health had become the biggest trending story of the day, not the 9/11 fallen.”

“The question remains that if this is about transparency and medical records and health conditions then why was she so furtive in the business of concealment here?”

(h/t Raw Story)

Reality

In logic this is known as a double-standard. Unfairly applying a rule in different ways to different people.

Media

Trump Reportedly Asks Why US Can’t Use Nukes

Donald Trump asked a foreign policy expert advising him why the U.S. can’t use nuclear weapons, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said on the air, citing an unnamed source who claimed he had spoken with the GOP presidential nominee.

“Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them,” Scarborough said on his “Morning Joe” program.

Scarborough made the Trump comments during an interview with former Director of Central Intelligence and ex-National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, who mentioned he knows of no peers that is advising Donald Trump.

Scarborough then asked a hypothetical question to Hayden about how quickly nuclear weapons could be deployed if a president were to give approval.

“It’s scenario dependent, but the system is designed for speed and decisiveness. It’s not designed to debate the decision,” Hayden said.

Hayden was CIA director from 2006 to 2009 during the George W. Bush presidency. He was the National Security Agency director from 1999 to 2005, spanning the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

CNBC and others reached out to the Trump campaign via email and was awaiting a response.

(h/t Yahoo)

Reality

Donald Trump has repeatedly said he would not take nuclear weapons off the table, even going so far as using them on allies in Europe.

Media

Donald Trump, Part-Time Abortion Foe, Eyes ‘Punishment’ for Women, Then Recants

Donald Trump discusses arresting women who get an abortion.

Donald J. Trump said that women who seek abortions should be subject to “some form of punishment” if the procedure is banned in the United States, further elevating Republican concerns that his explosive remarks about women could doom the party in the fall.

The comment, which Mr. Trump later recanted, attracted instant, bipartisan criticism — the latest in a series of high-profile episodes that have shined a light on Mr. Trump’s feeble approval ratings among women nationally.

In this case, Mr. Trump also ran afoul of conservative doctrine, with opponents of abortion rights immediately castigating him for suggesting that those who receive abortions — and not merely those who perform them — should be punished if the practice is outlawed.

The statement came as Mr. Trump appeared at a town-hall-style forum with Chris Matthews of MSNBC, recorded for broadcast on Wednesday night. Mr. Matthews pressed Mr. Trump, who once supported abortion rights, on his calls to ban the procedure, asking how he might enforce such a restriction.

“You go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places,” Mr. Trump said, after initially deflecting questions. “But you have to ban it.”

He added, after a bit more prodding, “There has to be some form of punishment.”

Hours later, Mr. Trump recanted his remarks, essentially in full, a rare and remarkable shift for a candidate who proudly extols his unwillingness to apologize or bow to “political correctness.”

If abortion were disallowed, he said in a statement, “the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman.”
“The woman is a victim in this case, as is the life in her womb,” he continued.

Reality

Donald Trump manged to anger literally every single person in the abortion debate. He upset the pro-choicers by being pro-life and his misogynistic stance to blame the woman, he upset some pro-lifers for going too far, and finally he upset the other pro-lifers for not going far enough.

Bravo, sir. Bravo.

This isn’t the first time Donald Trump flip-flopped on the abortion issue. For example in 1999 he told Meet the Press he was “very pro-choice“.

Media

Links

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/31/us/politics/donald-trump-abortion.html?_r=0

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-regarding-abortion

Trump says he wouldn’t take use of nuclear weapons ‘off the table’

Donald Trump discusses arresting women who get an abortion.

Donald Trump refused to take the use of nuclear weapons off the table in any situation, including in Europe or the Middle East, during a wide-ranging town hall on MSNBC.

The GOP presidential front-runner said he would consider using a nuclear weapon if the U.S. were attacked by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to an MSNBC transcript of the interview released Wednesday afternoon.

“Somebody hits us within ISIS, you wouldn’t fight back with a nuke?” he said.

When host Chris Matthews asked if the real estate mogul could definitively say he wouldn’t use nuclear weapons, he responded: “I would never say that. I would never take any of my cards off the table.”

Matthews pressed him, asking if he would consider using nuclear weapons in Europe.

“No, I don’t think so,” Trump said, but he again said he wouldn’t definitively write off the option.

In a New York Times interview published over the weekend, Trump stressed the importance of unpredictability in his foreign policy. He told Matthews Wednesday that “you’d be a bad negotiator” for taking any strategy off the table.

He called nuclear weapons “sort of like the end of the ball game.”

“I’m not going to use nuclear, but I’m not taking any cards off the table,” he said.

Reality

The world freaked the fuck out upon hearing a candidate for the President of the United States was willing to use nuclear weapons against them should terrorists be found on their soil.

  • Japan, a country with a pacific constitution and knows first hand the power of nuclear weapons, was so concerned, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe felt the need to respond publicly, saying, “whoever will become the next president of the United States, the Japan-U.S. alliance is the cornerstone of Japan’s diplomacy.”
  • South Korea, a country technically at war with the nuclear state North Korea, just had to deal with an H-bomb test by North Korea just a few weeks prior. This would not be the best time to threaten to pull out troops. The South Korean government reaction has been more focused on Trump’s assertion that South Korea is not paying its way. Furthermore Daniel Pinkston of Troy University said it would play into North Korea’s hands. “The hardliners in Pyongyang would just love such an outcome because if that were to occur, it would completely justify their nuclear status … and validate Kim Jong Un’s policy line as absolutely brilliant and absolutely correct.”

For the record, Japan spends more than $2 billion a year for the privilege of hosting U.S. forces, while South Korea pays close to $900 million, meaning it’s cheaper to the U.S. to keep our forces there than bring them home.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCj0B7HhEFs

Links

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/274730-trump-says-he-would-not-take-nuclear-off-the-table-in-any-situation

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