Nicholas Fondacaro continued the Media Research Center’s complaint that non-right-wing media deviated from the right-wing narrative that President Trump’s state of the union address must not be criticized:
Just after midnight in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, CNN was still reacting to President Trump’s State of the Union address when co-anchor Jake Tapper led the rest of the ladies on the panel in clutching their pearls over Democrats getting called out as “crazy” by the President. Of course, they didn’t mention what issue Trump called them “crazy” for supporting and it was a pretty disturbing one.
“What did you think of the President’s calling Democrats ‘crazy?’ What did you think?”Tapper wanted to know. “I mean, like, obviously that’s his DNA, et cetera but, you know, what is it? A third of the country is Democrats.”
[…]Sorry to break it to you Jake, but CNN most definitely played a part in getting us here. Just seven month’s into Trump’s first term, and your colleague Brian Stelter was suggesting Trump was insane and that the media should be treating him that way and reporting it as fact.
[…]Of course, what they completely skipped over was what Trump was calling Democrats “crazy” for supporting. During the speech, Trump had called out Democrats for supporting taking children away from their parents and transitioning them without the parents’ knowledge or permission.
Fondacaro offered no evidence that this is actually happening anywhere in America, let alone that Democrats support it.
Jorge Bonilla huffed that an actor similarly deviated from the right-wing narrative:
This year, the left was more deliberate in counterprogramming President Trump’s State of the Union address. Over 70 Democrat Members of Congress chose not to attend, going instead to one of several alternate events where attendees would gather and spit bile about how much America sucks, in their opinion. One of those events was headlined by Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro.
Watch as De Niro asserts that America is hard to love these days:
[…]There is an interesting juxtaposition here. On the one hand, you had multiple expressions of patriotism, buoyed by celebration of USA Hockey sweeping Olympic gold. There was honor given to our brave heroes, and an elevation of the American citizen.
On the other, you had a bitter expression of a collective nationalism that is conditioned solely upon the right people being in power. One is reminded of Michelle Obama finally being proud of America once her husband secured his party’s presidential nomination.
As if Bonilla would engage in nationalist narratives if a fellow right-winger was not president. Remember, the MRC hates De Niro for voicing his (non-narrative-approved) opinions.
Alex Christy played comedy cop:
Predictably, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel was not a fan of President Trump’s Tuesday State of the Union address, but even by his standards, Kimmel went off the rails.
Kimmel began by declaring, “It was an angry speech. The theme of tonight’s speech was all foreigners are murderers. And Trump just—he said zero illegal aliens have been allowed into the United States on his watch, but the door is always open to those who come in legally to be his next wife. So, that’s something. He bragged about ending DEI, he bragged about kicking two million people off food stamps. It was like a Christmas message from the Grinch.”
Sticking with the immigration theme, Kimmel also compared the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II to Trump’s America, “Trump applauded the efforts of a World War II vet who liberated an internment camp, at the same time he is building new ones here in the United States.”
Curtis Houck joined in as well, with added whataboutism:
In reacting Wednesday to President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address, ABC’s Good Morning America followed its tiresome pattern of being all Trump hate, all the time by repeating an absurd 11 times the President’s grappling with negative polling and went out to deliver a speech that consisted of “brutally harsh” “partisan attacks” and irresponsibly “paint[ed] a rosy picture” of the economy when, in their telling, it’s cratered for everyday Americans.
This was in sharp contrast to their reviews of Joe Biden’s final State of the Union, which they reveled in as having been “aggressive,” “fiery,” and “tough” from a President having to deal with a “raucous” GOP that was “a clear contrast for voters.”
Houck didn’t discuss how badly his favored right-wing media treated Biden’s speech. Instead, he raged some more about deviation from the narrative:
The second hour featured a recap of Scott’s Negative Nancy attitude, followed by correspondent Elizabeth Schulze’s supposed “reality check” on the state of the economy.
Predictably, Schulze spun a tale of economic desolation and ruin: “President Trump is painting a rosy picture of the economy at a time when many households say they are not feeling it.”
She again mentioned ABC polling with “48 percent of Americans say[ing] the economy has gotten worse since Trump became President” as proof the country’s gone to hell.
Christy returned to play comedy cop on another late-night host:
CBS’s Stephen Colbert hosted his last-ever live edition of The Late Show in the early hours of the morning on Wednesday as he reacted to President Trump’s State of the Union address, which he labeled “dark.”
During his monologue, Colbert and his audience took a page out of Jimmy Kimmel’s playbook and applauded the gold medal-winning women’s hockey team for not being at the speech, “One team of gold medal winners wasn’t there because the U.S. women’s hockey team declined Trump’s invite to the State of the Union. Yeah. No show. No show. Or as they say in hockey, ‘puck no.’ The woman actually got a better offer because, this is true, hip-hop legend Flavor Flav invited the team to party in Vegas.”
[…]Further on, Colbert introduced a clip of Trump by declaring, “Throughout his speech tonight, Trump showed remarkable flexibility for a man his age to toot his own horn.”
In the clip, Trump stated, “In one year we have lifted 2.4 million Americans, a record, off of food stamps.”
Colbert attacked, “Yes, he lifted 2.4 million people off of food stamps in that he kicked 2.4 million people off of food stamps so they are off of food, and now they are just eating stamps, delicious flavors like blueberry, strawberry, and Bruce Lee.”
Christy went on to whine that guest John Dickerson argued that presidents ought to have similar virtue to that of George Washington, protesting that George is too high a standard to follow:
If George Washington is the standard, then no president can be said to have lived up to the founders’ intentions, even those presidents who were also founding fathers. Then there is the fact that Colbert and Dickerson’s lamentations about Congress not checking a president only seem to pop up when Trump is president and Republicans are in control of Congress.
We already know Trump is no Washington, Alex.
Mark Finkelstein ranted as well:
Joe Scarborough has reacted to President Trump’s State of the Union with profanity — and by questioning his sanity.
After a sweeping denunciation of Trump’s remarks on immigration, inflation, and elections, Joe Scarborough declared the speech “extraordinary… for many reasons,” adding:
“He did sh– that no sane president would ever do. It was really, really crazy to be watching that in a State of the Union address.”
“No sane president.” “Really, really crazy.” Whatever would Jake Tapper have to say at this talk?
Scarborough’s language moved from policy critique into questions of presidential fitness. The insanity accusation is nothing new for Scarborough. He has previously called for invoking the 25th Amendment against Trump. Looks like Joe might be fantasizing about that again.
Finkelstein concluded by whining further: “The morning after a State of the Union used to mean policy debate. On Wednesday, Morning Joe delivered psychological diagnosis, flirtations with fascism analogies, and a gratuitous splash of profanity for bad measure.” As if Finkelstein was involved with psychological diagnosis and flirtations with fascism in his attacks on Scarborough.