MRC Defends Trump After CNN Town Hall

The Media Research Center’s main complaint about Donald Trump’s town hall on CNN last month was that it didn’t suck up enough to him. Afterwards, it defended him from all criticism. A May 11 post by Alex Christy nitpicked a CNN fact-check of Trump because it “did not accurately portray” Hillary Clinton’s beliefs on abortion — but had to put words into Hillary’s mouth to do so:

Washington correspondent Sunlen Serfaty joined Thursday’s CNN This Morning to fact-check some of the claims former President Donald Trump made on Wednesday night’s town hall including the claim that Hillary Clinton supports late third trimester abortions. Serfaty would defend Clinton against the charge, but she did not accurately portray Clinton’s beliefs.

Serfaty claimed that Trump’s “comments were very misleading” for accusing “Democrats and specifically Hillary Clinton of supporting abortion late into the third trimester.”

[…]

First, what Roe allowed is not necessarily the same thing as what Clinton supported. Secondly, Serfaty omitted half of Clinton’s position. In 2016, Clinton did indeed say that third trimester abortions should be legal for reasons relating to the health and life of the mother, but she also added:

I have met with women who have, toward the end of their pregnancy, get the worst news one could get. That their health is in jeopardy if they continue to carry to term. Or that something terrible has happened or just been discovered about the pregnancy. I do not think the United States government should be stepping in and making those most personal of decisions. So you can regulate if you are doing so with the life and the health of the mother taken into account. 

What is Clinton’s definition of “terrible” and what could be discovered that justify a third trimester abortion? Clinton didn’t say.

Nicholas Fondacaro complained it was pointed out that the town hall audience was too biased in favor of Trump:

The liberal ladies of ABC’s The View were in a tailspin from the get-go during Thursday’s episode, as the majority of them fumed over CNN’s town hall with former President Trump the previous evening. But instead of keeping her animosity trained on Trump, co-host Joy Behar immediately started taking swings at the average Americans in the audience. Their crime? Being Republicans and fans of the former President, or as she called them “not American.”

P.J. Gladnick also groused that Politico (accurately) predicted that Trump would lie:

“Litany of lies.”

Is there any way that you would ever hear Politico describe any Democrat, such as Adam Schiff of the  fake news Trump-Russia collusion hoax fame, that way?  Of course not.

However on Wednesday, just hours ahead of Donald Trump’s town hall on CNN, Politico Playbook used another alliteration to brand him as a liar. “Farrago of falsehoods.”

Kevin Tober was upset that even other CNN anchors didn’t like how the town hall turned out:

Exactly twenty-four hours after CNN’s town hall with former President Donald Trump Wednesday night, CNN host Anderson Cooper responded to the unhinged leftist outrage that immediately spread on Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the town hall. Instead of trying to calm his left-wing audience down, Cooper poured gasoline on the fire during Thursday’s AC360 by telling them they’d be right if they wanted to ditch CNN for good. 

“Many of you have expressed deep anger and disappointment. Many of you are upset that someone who attempted to destroy our democracy was invited to sit on a stage in front of a crowd of Republican voters to answer questions, and predictably, continued to spew lie after lie after lie,” Cooper opened his show. 

Adding: “I get it. It was disturbing. It was disturbing to see and hear that person refer to a black law enforcement officer as a thug, an adjective he used many times to describe black men and called Kaitlan Collins, the moderator nasty, which is what he calls any woman who stands up to him.”

[…]

Cooper’s rant showed that CNN boss Chris Licht had a major problem on his hands as the on-air talent was seemingly attempting something of a mutiny. The Hill’s media and politics columnist, Joe Concha urged for heads to roll at CNN once again, and not just Cooper’s.

Strange that Tober thinks the problem is with longstanding CNN personnel who understand the network and not with the new guy.

Fondacaro raged at “The View” hosts again, this time for pointed out how CNN host Kaitlan Collins got steamrolled by Trump:

In the opening theme music of ABC’s The View, the lyrics proclaim: “This is for my girls all around the world. Stand up with your head up. Own your power. Speak your truth.” But on Friday’s edition of the show, fill-in moderator Joy Behar and racist co-host Sunny Hostin toss the women empowerment mantra out the window as they lashed out at CNN town hall host Kaitlan Collins for not being imposing enough to stop former President Trump. Hostin went as far as to hint a man would have done a better job.

Fondacaro didn’t mention that the reason he seems to be going easy on Collins is because her background is in right-wing media as a writer for the Daily Caller, where she wrote pieces about hot Syrian refugees and her bylines there have largely been removed (a la Alyssa Farah’s work for WorldNetDaily).

Tim Graham ran to the defense of Trump in his May 12 podcast:

It was a banner week for bias, with a lot of shameless behavior. Media liberals were outraged at CNN’s Trump town hall (including CNN liberals),  with the constantly interrupting questions and the MAGA-pleasing answers. We predicted Kaitlan Collins could come in with her hair on fire, and we were right. She didn’t shriek, she tried to remain calm. But on many questions, the former president was not really allowed to finish a sentence.

During his last tour of Fox News, Trump was allowed eight-minute answers. CNN didn’t want to give him more than eight words. 

The CNN town hall with Trump roughly breaks down to three portions. The first 25 minutes obsessed over scandals: Election denial, January 6, the E Jean Carroll rape allegations. Then came a half hour on issues: Inflation, debt ceiling, guns, abortion, immigration, and Ukraine. At the end, there was more election denial, and a squabble over the Mar-a-Lago documents. Collins couldn’t mention the federal raid. Then in the aftermath, CNN stars line Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper whined about all the lies….that they just platformed.

Jeffrey Lord spent his May 13 column complaining about “the fury vented by CNN staffers in the wake of the CNN Town Hall with former President Donald Trump,” declaring that “it is, it is very safe to say, representative of the mindset of so many elites not just inside CNN but well beyond into the larger media. It might be said that while this episode appears to be about CNN employees versus America, in reality it is emblematic of the liberal media versus America.”

A May 14 post by Tober touted a Fox News talking head coming to Trump’s defense:

Fox News Channel’s MediaBuzz host Howard Kurtz used the opening monologue of his show to slam the leftist media for melting down over CNN hosting a town hall for former President Donald Trump. Proving again that those at media outlets like MSNBC, The Washington Post, New York Times and others want total subservience to the radical left-wing agenda, Kurtz even aired a clip of MSNBC’s resident racist demagogue Joy Reid who lashed out at CNN. 

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He then made the obvious point that it’s not like Trump went unchallenged during the event, in fact, quite the opposite: “This wasn’t a rally where he just gets to pop off. And whatever you think of Trump and his stormy tenure, shouldn’t journalists question him as part of the campaign?”

“As it turned out, the town hall turned into an absolute train wreck, even many people at CNN being sharply critical. But the alternative, banning Trump from the airwaves, is suppression of speech, and that is not journalism,” Kurtz said.

Tober didn’t mention that Kurtz works for a network that wants total subservience to the right-wing agenda.