Meltdown Odds And Ends At The MRC
The Media Research Center raged about Republicans being called "weird," Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris, and President Biden getting credit for getting U.S. prisoners released from Russia.
In the course of its blatant campaign for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential campaign, the Media Research Center has had various meltdowns over things like debates and interviews and people saying nice things about President Biden. But there are still a few related meltdowns worth documenting.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
‘Weird’ Republicans
In his July 29 podcast, Tim Graham was dismissive of Kamala Harris calling Republicans “weird,” largely because he had to handwave a more concerning statement by Donald Trump:
On Monday morning, NBC’s Hallie Jackson aired a story on the presidential race with these themes. Kamala’s campaign is loaded with dough; Kamala thinks the Republicans are all “weird”; and Trump is “on defense” because he made a lame joke about Americans not needing to vote in four years.
This was silly, because the Democrats seek to undo whatever Trump would try to do. This also came with commentary from Kamala’s camp. They did the usual left-wing freakout: this means the End of Democracy! Then NBC dug into its video archive from 2023 to remind everyone that Liz Cheney claims Trump may never leave office if he gets elected again.
Graham offered no evidence that Trump’s statement was meant to be a “joke,” lame or otherwise.
The next day, Graham complained that an ad from a left-leaning super PAC “ad”explicitly mocks conservative Catholics and Christians who are pro-life” and “claim the uptight religious Republicans want to ban everything, because they’re weird.”
As the “weird” label started catching on — because people started realizing that right-wing bullies are actually hiding their cowardice and can’t handle being called out for who they actually are — the MRC started ramping up its attacks on the word. Mark Finkelstein whined in a July 30 post (bolding in original):
Somebody might want to run an AI analysis of Eugene Robinson’s current Washington Post column: “No, really, Republicans are getting weirder.”
It’d be interesting to see if it were written in the style of Kamala Harris speechwriters or some other member of her campaign. In both his column and his appearance on today’s Morning Joe, Robinson repeatedly used the official Harris campaign attack word on the Trump-Vance ticket: “weird.”
Eight times in his column, and another six times in one shortish Morning Joe segment, Robinson deployed the w-word against the Republican ticket. Could a columnist possibly be a more faithful repeater of a favored candidate’s propaganda? Why bother reading Robinson? Why not just go directly to the source: the Harris campaign website, or perhaps to YouTubes of her deep thoughts?
Indeed, in his column, Robinson quoted a Harris campaign email, and a statement by a possible Harris VP pick, calling Trump and Vance “weird.” He hit the liberal objection to Vance wanting parents to have more political power.
[…]
Note: Substitute host Jonathan Lemire is also aboard the “weird” train. Responding to Robinson, the seventh word out of Lemire’s mouth was . . . you guessed it.
Nicholas Fondacaro lamely tried to turn it around during his daily hate-watch of “The View”:
The Cackling Coven of ABC’s The View largely embraced the new campaign message of Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats of calling any and everything about Republicans “weird.” They praised how “effective” it supposedly was. But, as co-host Joy Behar warned, it opened them up to people putting them under the magnifying glass; which is what NewsBusters will do here, highlighting a lot of their truly weird comments and takes.
“I think the problem is that the GOP needs to convince voters that Trump and Vance are regular guys and they’re not. They are weird just like they’ve been called,” proclaimed staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners). She would go on to argue in favor of using the word “weird” because it was “innocuous” and “benign.”
Moderator Whoopi Goldberg boasted: “Well, Democrats seem to have landed on this word that they think sums up the Republican ticket.”
“Now, getting to the weird thing that they’ve really turned on the right, the Harris campaign is really kind of taken that weird. Think about it. People on the right say a lot of weird things,” declared pretend independent Sara Haines. “So, that is why that is so effective, is there is so much weird on the other side. But that pretty much sums it up.”
Faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin falsely claimed she didn’t like “name-calling” but liked throwing around the word “weird” because, “I don’t see as below the belt.”
Behar seemingly knew this blog was coming because she warned the rest of the cast: “I don’t think you should use the word ‘weird.’… [It] opens the door for the other side to say, ‘Well, you think we’re weird? Look at you.’”
What’s actually weird was Farah Griffin once announcing on the show that she wouldn’t have an issue with her husband having a drunken one-night stand as long as he didn’t fall in love: “I could forgive, like, a drunken hookup mistake. I could not forgive falling in love with someone else.” She later doubled down on it, and then explained how to introduce another lover into a relationship.
One might call it weird that Fondacaro continues to falsely slander Hostin as “racist” and “anti-Semitic” even though it adds to the pile of evidence Hostin’s lawyers are surely compiling for their eventual defamation lawsuit against him and his employer.
In the same post in which he groused that Vance’s “childless cat ladies” slur was called out, Graham similarly groused that the “weird” tag was catching on, disapprovingly quoting a political analyst stating that Vance’ weirdness “allows Democrats to settle on this new messaging, where it’s not just offensive, it’s also really weird. We keep hearing like the Democrats like Tim Walz and Brian Schatz and even Vice President Kamala Harris have said on the stump that the things that Trump and Vance and other Republicans have said are just weird. Dissect that as a strategy.”
Finkelstein huffed in a July 31 post that the opening segment of that day’s “Morning Joe” “was all about ‘cat ladies,’ ‘weird,’ extolling the Kamala Harris rally in Atlanta, and reveling in a new swing-state poll showing things going the Democrats’ way,” further whining that commentator Katty Kay was “calling Vance’s facetious suggestion that people with children get an additional vote ‘weird.’ Nicely played, Katty! Keep ‘weird’ alive!”
Jorge Bonilla used an Aug. 4 post to manufacture a grand “Regime Media” conspiracy about the “weird” labeling and accurately quoting Vance’s “childless cat ladies” statement:
One of the main purposes of the Regime Media, formerly known as “mainstream”, is to further partisan Democrat narratives and do everything possible so as to push them out to the general public. The most recent example of this partisan message echoing disguised as news is the ceaseless promotion of negative narratives intended to adversely shape the electorate’s opinion of Senator JD Vance (R-OH), the 2024 GOP vice presidential candidate.
Watch as CBS White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang admits as much on Face the Nation:
[…]
Her confession is twofold: not only did she admit that the Regime Media chose the “cat lady” and “weird” talking points as a focal point of coverage, but that they do so because it detracts from any Trump messaging. “So it’s taking away from Trump and that is an impact in and of itself”.
Election interference, when performed by the Regime Media, can take multiple forms. Sometimes a story is suppressed, as in the case of Hunter Biden’s laptop. And sometimes, that election interference comes in the incessant pushing of narrative- as in the cases of “cat ladies” and “weird”, respectively. Different means, but the intended outcome is the same- to tilt the balance of public opinion in support of the Democratic ticket.
Yes, Bonilla this reporting accurately about Republicans is “election interference.”
Clay Waters grumbled in a Aug. 5 post that the “weird” label was accurately treated as news:
When Laura Barron-Lopez appears on PBS, the question is: Reporter or Taxpayer-Funded White House Press Secretary?
On Friday’s PBS News Hour, it sounded like Karine Barron-Lopez, touting how Democrats have a new line of personal attack: Branding Republicans as “weird” and “creepy.” The PBS White House correspondent dropped her previous sensitivity to personal attacks and seemed to approve of the new tactic.
Anchor Geoff Bennett set things up. “While on the campaign trail, the vice president is trying some new language on for size, like calling her opponent Donald Trump weird.”
Waters then added a weird twist, claiming that Barron-Lopez “didn’t mind that the vice president and her team sounded like bullies lording it over ‘weirdos’ in a 1980s high school comedy.” Huh?
Taylor Swift endorsement
The Media Research Center has had its Taylor Swift meltdowns over the years — largely involving her failure to hate LGBT people as much as it does — so when Swift endorsed Kamala Harris after her debate with Donald Trump, the MRC went on the Tay-Tay warpath again. Jorge Bonilla sneered in one post-debate post: ‘Not only was Harris v. Trump the single greatest debate performance OF ALL TIME according to the Regime courtesans at MSNBC, but we must also contend with the unmitigated greatness of the Taylor Swift endorsement of Harris in all its exquisite timing.” Curtis Houck groused about discussion of the endorsement on ABC’s “Good Morning America”:
As for the Taylor Swift endorsement, it received a few giddy mentions (but not full segments like on CBS and NBC).
[Robin] Roberts swooned in a tease with Look What You Made Me Do playing in the background: “And overnight, Taylor Swift makes her presidential endorsement following the debate, with over 280 million Instagram followers.”
Bruce tried to make it seem as though Swift decided based on ABC’s debate:
Now, one voter who was swayed by what they saw, Taylor Swift, posting to her 283 million Instagram followers that she has seen enough and done enough research to make up her mind, endorsing Kamala Harris.
And, during the Christie-Brazile segment, the latter closed by saying she’s “a Swiftie” and thus wanted to quote “one of Taylor Swift’s great songs”: “Donald Trump is going to have a hard time shaking off that debate performance. A hard time shaking it off.”
Houck further whined:
NBC’s Today wasn’t popping the proverbial champagne bottles on Wednesday like ABC’s Good Morning America did following the latter’s presidential debate marred by the partisan election interference of moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir for Vice President Kamala Harris against Donald Trump. NBC was more concerned about one person’s endorsement of Harris: Taylor Swift.
After chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander tagged on a mention of Swift’s endorsement as having been “perhaps as important or at least getting as much attention”, co-host Savannah Guthrie giddily invoked it alongside Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker and senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson.
“Can we talk about Taylor Swift just briefly? I mean, look, these celebrity endorsements, I guess it’s a question of whether or not they matter, but as far as they go, this is the biggest one out there,” she swooned.
Jackson was pumped about Swift’s “huge platform” and “very loyal followers” and how tens of thousands reportedly registered to vote when she shared a link on how to do so.
[…]
Correspondent Joe Fryer called “the surprise late-night endorsement” something “the campaigns and voters are watching very closely” to the point that “they were definitely ready for it.”
In between excerpts of her lengthy endorsement (including touting her signing it a “childless cat lady” alongside a picture of her cat, Benjamin Button), Fryer cheered Walz’s hilarious acting job of being surprised when he was told of the endorsement live on MSNBC and hoped her “massive presence and appeal to younger women” could swing the election.
Fryer also reminded viewers of how “[i]n Swift’s Netflix documentary Miss Americana, she admitted she wished she had expressed her political opinions for the first time back in 2016 to help defeat President Trump.”
Fryer closed with one huge final swoon: “And the endorsement came by surprise with the Harris campaign reportedly having no idea about it before the post, but the campaign is already jumped on it, announcing the sale of Harris-Walz’s friendship bracelets overnight.”
Bonilla served up even more complaining:
It appears that NBC News has definitely settled on a post-debate angle. Having not been an active participant in the clinic on awful moderation put on by ABC, the Peacock Network is going with full-blown Swiftamania.
First came the morning gushfest on Today. Watch as the NBC Nightly News gleefully veers into celebrity news, all in service of the Regime:
[…]
NBC News NOW anchor Savannah Sellers’ report goes on to further cite Swift’s reasons for endorsing Kamala Harris per her Instagram post, including her awe at the selection of Tim Walz as running mate, what with his “defense of LGBTQ+ rights.” So Swift is endorsing Harris because Walz put tampons in boys’ bathrooms and made Minnesota into a “trans sanctuary” where parents can lose custody of their kids if they don’t agree to their hormonal or surgical mutilation. That, and abortion on demand.
Sellers tried to provide some intellectual bolstering to this mindless report by citing a Harvard study on celebrity endorsements, adding Swift to the pantheon of other recent Hollywood lefty endorsers such as George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey. The report closes with Sellers expressing awe at the number of visits to a voter registration site.
NBC has clearly chosen their post-debate lane, and it is Swiftamania.
Houck served up even more morning-show-related sour grapes the next day:
With Kamala Harris donor and Obama family friend Gayle King the lead host, CBS Mornings is always going to have a heaping of instances in which they come off as unofficial state-run TV for the left.
But Wednesday’s show reacting to the second 2024 presidential debate went over the edge as King repeatedly showed her excitement over Taylor Swift endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris while other co-hosts and guests wondered if “truth matter[s]” in America anymore since Donald Trump might win.
King huffed in the “Eye Opener” about the debate being “tense”, but her mood changed when, after the highlight package, she gushed that “a lot of people felt that” way in reaction to Jon Stewart joking on The Daily Show that Swift’s endorsement after the debate meant she watched like he did.
“Let’s see what Swiftie nation does,” she added, tossing to correspondent Weijia Jiang with debate highlights with more enthusiasm for how the night went in stating “Harris was consistently on the offense against Trump.”
Clay Waters grumbled that a PBS host “added an odd talking point, saying ‘Democrats are going to love’ that Swift is playing concerts in Miami near Election Day.”
In his daily hate-watch of “The View,” Nicholas Fondacaro cheered Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s petulant response to the endorsement and was mad that thte co-hosts called him out:
ABC moderator Whoopi Goldberg had an absolute meltdown on Thursday’s edition of The View, when she flipped out on Ohio Senator and GOP vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance. His crime? He dared to state the fact the billionaires like singer Taylor Swift were not noticeably harmed by the current poor economic conditions and high inflation because they can still easily afford necessities and more.
Without any actual evidence, Goldberg proclaimed that Swift endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris had “upset snowflakes” on the right. What she claimed was evidence, was just a clip of Vance explaining that billionaires don’t feel economic hardship like average Americans do.
Of course, Goldberg’s approach to addressing the light criticism had all the maturity of an elementary school child:
Which, of course, would be roughly the level on which Fondacaro engages in his mindless bashing of “The View.”
Alex Christy chose to refocus the Swift debate on right-wingers who are apparently not persuaded by her:
When Jimmy Kimmel eventually retires, maybe MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle could take his place. On Friday, Ruhle was not happy with young Republicans who are unpersuaded by Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris because they care more about economic issues than social one because she could not “remember the last time I heard Kamala Harris talk about anything like that.” Meanwhile, RiskReversal Media co-founder Dan Nathan unironically replied by hyping that Harris is supposedly “destroying” Donald Trump on abortion.
Ruhle was set up by NBC internet culture reporter Kalhan Rosenblatt, who recalled that she “spent a week talking to young Republicans who, after the Taylor Swift endorsement, I know we’ll talk about that later, but they were telling me, ‘You know, she cares about social issues because of LGBTQ people, but us common folk, we can’t afford food, we can’t afford housing. It’s a terrible economy.’”
Fondacaro came back for a Sept. 18 “View” hate-watch to defend the wife of NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes for liking a Trump social media post in which he ranted “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” and insisting on calling Brittany Mahomes an “accomplished woman” — something he (or Trump) would never say about Swift.
Biden credit for prisoner swap
In 2022, the Media Research Center lustily cheered Russia’s unlawful detainment of WNBA player Brittney Griner because she isn’t white or heterosexual, falsely smearing her as a drug smuggler (all she had was two vape cartridges of cannabis oil), and was upset that President Biden got her released in a prisoner swap with Russia — black lesbians like Griner deserve to rot in prison, apparently. When Biden got more U.S. prisoners unjustly held in Russia released, the MRC was angry again, though mostly at Biden for getting credit. Christy huffed in an Aug. 1 post:
Former CNN analyst turned Washington Bureau Chief for The Grio, April Ryan, joined former CNN host turned MSNBC anchor Ana Cabrera on Thursday to discuss the news that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan are being released from Russian prison as part of a multi-nation prisoner swap. For Ryan, the news provided an opportunity to hail President Joe Biden’s economy and Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
Christy then played whataboutism: “Donald Trump likes to view himself as a great hostage releaser as well, but for the media, the rules of how to react to prisoner swaps change based on what party controls the White House.” Christy didn’t explain why he’s so mad at these prisoners getting released. A couple hours laters, Christy raged that Biden’s tweak of Trump was reported:
CNN’s Dana Bash could not conceal her excitement on Thursday’s installment of Inside Politics as she hailed President Joe Biden’s anti-Trump “mic drop moment” at the end of his press conference announcing the prisoner swap involving former Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Meanwhile, chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto would claim that the deal is a victory for Biden’s worldview and a defeat for Trump’s.
It was all set up as Biden was ending his presser when Reuters White House correspondent Andrea Shalal lobbed a softball Biden’s way, “President Trump has said repeatedly that he could’ve gotten the hostages out without giving anything in exchange, what do you say to that? What do you say to President Trump? Former president.”
Biden replied, “Why didn’t he do it when he was president?”
With the press conference over, Bash appeared with a giant grin to recap, “I think that was what they call a mic drop moment at the end there. ‘Why didn’t he do it when he was president?’”
Christy again played Turmp whataboutism: “Still, Trump does view his record in hostage releases as one of his strongest, so trying to turn this deal into a referendum on how Trump and Biden view U.S.-Norway or U.S.-Germany relations is, to use the left’s new favorite word, weird.”
Houck served up his own whining fit:
Minutes after word began trickling out Thursday morning that a major prisoner swap between the United States, Russia, and five other countries was underway that’d bring home The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan, CBS Mornings immediately went political and went right to speculating about what this will mean for President Biden’s “legacy” while Trump’s “hype factor” promising to get Gershkovich out has been “silenced.”
Fill-in co-host Kristine Johnson took it in a political direction with this ask of chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes: “I’m also thinking about the Biden administration as a whole, the President’s decision to drop out of the race and now this news. I know it was a major priority for his administration. How does this look then for his legacy?”
Cordes eventually focused things back on the difficulty of negotiating with these hostile regimes, but briefly entertained the political angel:
Houck then whined that “chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett took a pot shot at Trump” by pointing out that Trump made an election promise out of getting Gershkovich released. He didn’t explain why reporting a fact was a “pot shot.”
Christy returned with more whining that Biden got credit for the prisoner swap:
Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart had nothing but effusive praise for President Joe Biden on Friday’s PBS News Hour as he marveled at the prisoner swap with Russia being, “not bad for an 82-year-old man everyone said had cognitive decline and were questioning his mental acuity.”
Host Geoff Bennett set the table, “Well, as we end our conversation, I want to talk about the fact that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan were among those two dozen detainees released as part of the biggest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the Cold War. Lasting takeaways. President Biden said it was a feat of diplomacy.”
Capehart oozed, “Yeah, not bad for an 82-year-old man everyone said had cognitive decline and were questioning his mental acuity. When you read what… happened in the Wall Street Journal, that man was all over it.”
Christy didn’t mention that the Wall Street Journal is right-wing — but since it wasn’t playing along with his biased political narrative du jour, he had to find someone who did: “Johnson then turned to David Brooks fill-in, Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief, Eliana Johnson. Johnson was more subdued, ‘It’s wonderful that they’re home. However, we need to stop doing deals where we trade terrorists and assassins for reporters and dissidents.’”
The MRC, however, was unusually subdued about the release of Whelan, describing him only as a “former Marine.” In 2022, though, it offered much more profuse praise for Whelan since it preferred his release over that of Griner. As before, the MRC hid Whelan’s background, the fact that he received a bad-conduct discharge from the Marines following a court martial for attempted larceny, false statements and dereliction of duty, among other things.