The Media Research Center’s pre-trial victimhood crusade on behalf of Donald Trump continued with an April 15 post by P.J. Gladnick raging at a writer who pointed out that “Trump has consistently been given more freedom and more privileges than virtually any other defendant in his shoes.” In response, Gladnick offered only the rote right-wing attacks against prosecutors Letitia James and Fani Willis and personally attacking the writer as having “hatred of Trump” while calling his column a “fraud.”
Curtis Houck fretted about Trump “suffering” during his trial in an April 16 post:
Amid the voluminous coverage on the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC this week on the start of the hush money trial brought by far-left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against former President Trump, Tuesday’s CBS Mornings whined not enough Americans care about this trial….like ABC’s Good Morning America, who was tickled pink about Trump suffering.
CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman had just finished explaining why this Trump trial is “significant because it’s first” and “is a solemn day in court when you put a former President…on trial” when co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King kvetched about the American public not being consumed by this.
[…]Over on ABC, co-host and former Clinton flack Stephanopoulos giddily told chief Washington correspondent and three-time bestselling anti-Trump author Jonathan Karl that after having spent a year “talking about the political and legal calendars clashing”, Monday finally arrived.
Stephanopoulos added Monday “felt” like a change in “the dynamic…from” the past “when Donald Trump was so convinced” the charges would be boon for his campaign.
Karl beamed in announcing he saw “it in his behavior, in his demeanor” with Monday having been “a wake-up call for Donald Trump” in the form of “his new reality” as “now criminal defendant Trump”.
Houck offered no evidence he can actually read Karl’s mind the way he is purporting to do here.
In a post the next day, Houck melted down over President Biden getting to do presidential things while Trump was stuck in a courtroom:
ABC’s Good Morning America and its chief White House correspondent/chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce were emanating warm fuzzies and weak knees on Wednesday over their allies in the New York legal system interfering in the 2024 presidential election, preventing former President Trump from campaigning five days a week and allowing their candidate — President Joe Biden — to have the country to himself.
Co-host Michael Strahan had a tease giving Team Biden what they want by boasting of Trump on day two of jury selection “test[ing] the patience of the judge while President Biden hits the campaign trails in a battleground state.”
Former Clinton official and fellow co-host George Stephanopulos later tossed to Bruce with more state-run phrasing: “While Donald Trump is tied up in court, President Biden has been on the campaign trail in battleground state of Pennsylvania.”
Even the chyron flashed their glee with the situation: “President Biden Hits the Campaign Trail; Slams Trump’s Values & “Failed” Economic Policies in Pennsylvania”.
Bruce’s 51-second report was nauseatingly hacktastic and a fine audition to replace the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre as press secretary in a hypothetical second Biden term, starting with her gleeful proclamation about “Biden…trying to seize this moment and create a real splitscreen, leaning into his roots in Scranton, arguing he and Donald Trump have very different values.”
Um, isn’t Houck the nauseatingly hacktastic one by being paid to defend his beloved inciter of riots and lash out at anyone who doesn’t pathologically hate Biden the way he does.
Nicholas Fondacaro raged in an April 17 post that people who aren’t white males are prosecuting Trump:
Elements of the liberal media don’t see the lawsuits and trials against former President Trump as just tools to score wins for their electoral politics, they also see them as tools to score wins for their racial politics as well. MSNBC host Joy Reid made that abundantly clear during the network’s Monday lovefest for the hush money trial in New York when she praised “my DEIs” for bringing so many charges against the former President.
Delving into her usual race-baiting, Reid described it as “wonderfully poetic” that black people were prosecuting Trump. Without evidence, she suggested that it would upset Trump and his inner circle because they supposedly didn’t want black people going to law school:
[…]Reid was absolutely giddy that “Donald Trump is being held to account by the very multicultural, multiracial democracy that he’s trying to dismantle.” She added that “there’s something poetic and actually wonderful about that” and said it was proof of “something good about our country that we’re still capable of having that happen.”
“Go, DEI! My DEIs are bringing it home on today!” she cheered, referring to left-wing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
As we’ve noted, the MRC’s anti-DEI crusade is all about portraying anyone who’s not a straight white male as incompetent diversity hires.
Tim Graham spent his April 19 podcast pretending to be befuddled that Trump’s trial was found newsworthy, while lashing out at non-right-wing media for offering non-right-wing takes:
The Manhattan trial of Donald Trump on “hush money” charges drew hundreds of minutes of TV obsession this week. The pro-Biden media is now enjoying talking about a “split screen” of Trump stuck in court on trial, President Biden on the campaign trail. ABC morning host Michael Strahan reported on Trump “test[ing] the patience of the judge while President Biden hits the campaign trails in a battleground state.”
Meanwhile, the impeachment of Homeland Security Mayorkas was briefly covered and derided as a partisan stunt. George Stephanopoulos called it a “partisan” impeachment, unlike his salesmanship for the Trump impeachments.
Managing Editor Curtis Houck has the details and clips. Reporters from ABC’s Mary Bruce to CBS’s Nancy Cordes helpfully spun for Biden’s campaign stops in Pennsylvania, where Biden said he’s a Scranton guy who understands the middle class, while Trump is a clueless rich guy working for the rich guys.
This split screen is exactly what the Democrats want — Trump pinned in the courtroom, Biden making weird clips in Wawa that are carefully staged to sell he’s “with it.” The music and lyrics suggest Trump has engaged in “hush money” payments to a porn star and is now caught in a “criminal fraud” trial, while Biden is the honest guy searching out the common man. It’s not “news,” it’s messaging. They can’t find time to cover Biden making bizarre gaffes like his implication that his Uncle Ambrose was eaten by cannibals when his plane crashed in World War II.
Graham is essentially demanding that all media outlets be as right-wing as Fox News, which relentlessly attacks Biden and censors most negative news about Trump. An April 21 post by Jorge Bonilla, however, featured the opposite complaint, complaining it was pointed out that the Trump trial would take up most of the media oxygen and crowd Biden out:
During the weekly panel discussion on NBC’s Meet The Press, Chief Foreign Correspondent Andrea Mitchell fretted about the trial of former President Donald Trump overshadowing everything President Joe Biden is doing on the campaign trail, to the point of referring to the present media environment as “The Trump Story”.
Watch as Mitchell compares the current Trump cycle crowding Biden to the 2016 news environment crowding Hillary Clinton, as aired on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, April 21st, 2024:
Mitchell’s comparisons of the current Trump cycle to 2016 betray a fundamental lack of self-awareness. Donald Trump earned over $5 billion in free media throughout that cycle, largely because the media believed he’d be the easiest opponent en route to Hillary Clinton’s coronation. Mitchell’s portrayal of Clinton here is as a victim of history, and not as the failed beneficiary of the campaign to drown Trump in free media. This tracks with current coverage of President Biden as the purest victim of the calamities of the present day. Fast forward to 2024, and Mitchell fretting that the orchestrated effort to weaponize state and federal government against Trump, so as to secure a felony conviction against him ahead of the presidential election, is once and again overwhelming the news cycle and “crowding out” the Democrat that was supposed to benefit from these weaponized trials.
Of course Bonilla made sure to bring it back to Trump being the victim because of “weaponized” justice — that is, the same justice normal Americans who commit crimes also face.