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MSNBC mocked by Washington Post writer for lack of debate on left-wing network
MSNBC mocked by Washington Post writer for lack of debate on left-wing network

Fox News

time13-05-2025

  • Politics
  • Fox News

MSNBC mocked by Washington Post writer for lack of debate on left-wing network

The Washington Post's media critic Erik Wemple mocked MSNBC on Tuesday for its "bias toward consensus" in President Donald Trump's second term, joking that its unofficial motto should be, "I could not agree more." In a new column published Tuesday, Wemple revealed he spent 18 hours watching MSNBC in order to discover if the liberal network ever had dissenting voices on to debate the issues, as other cable news networks have done since Trump returned to the White House. "To get closer to an answer, I decided to gulp roughly 18 hours of MSNBC programming, starting with 'Morning Joe' at 6 a.m. and continuing through daytime and prime time. That way, perhaps, I could gather some insights on the network's strategy and view all those fierce debates that I'd missed with my on-again, off-again viewing habits. As it turned out, there was … one," Wemple wrote. That one debate came during MSNBC's new evening program, "The Weeknight," where co-hosts Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez sparred with guest, Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, in "an intense exchange of views that qualifies as a debate," Wemple wrote. However, that was a stand-alone in the day's lineup, Wemple said, from a network that seems to have sidelined pro-Trump voices. He quoted Aidan McLaughlin, editor-in-chief of Mediaite, who said MSNBC opts for anti-Trump Republicans to appear on the network to "give it the patina of balance," even if those voices don't represent the 77 million voters who elected the president "in the slightest." "The result is a programming model in which hosts and guests compete against one another to fashion the sharpest denunciations of the Trump regime," Wemple wrote. The downside of this approach is "vast expanses of predictable programming in which people passionately agree with one another," he added. Wemple noted that there are some programs on the network that deserve recognition for sometimes breaking from this model. He acknowledged that host Ari Melber has dissenting voices on his program at times, and referenced "Morning Joe" co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski welcoming Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on their show Monday. The media critic argued that MSNBC's model would have been considered "outright journalistic fraud" before Trump took office, but isn't anymore. He claimed CNN's approach, of having Trump-supporting guests on the network for "loud chaotic" arguments, isn't much better, but "at least CNN viewers get to hear the pro-Trump arguments in all their fact-deprived glory." "No matter how it's produced, television is a medium ill-equipped to cover Trump. My advice? Read newspapers," he concluded. When asked by Wemple to respond to his criticism that the network is biased, a spokesperson for MSNBC offered up a list of commentators and hosts with backgrounds in Republican politics, such as Michael Steele, Tim Miller and Susan Del Percio, who are reliably anti-Trump voices on the liberal network. MSNBC declined to provide comment to Fox News Digital. The scathing column comes on the heels of former White House press secretary-turned-MSNBC host Jen Psaki's new primetime program bombing on its second day, shedding 53% of its viewers in its key demographic from the day before.

Left-Wing Protesters Disrupt DNC Candidate Forum, Exposing Ideological Fault Lines
Left-Wing Protesters Disrupt DNC Candidate Forum, Exposing Ideological Fault Lines

Yahoo

time31-01-2025

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

Left-Wing Protesters Disrupt DNC Candidate Forum, Exposing Ideological Fault Lines

WASHINGTON — A stream of left-wing protesters interrupted the Democratic National Committee's final chair candidate forum on Thursday night, shouting slogans about climate change and billionaire influence before being escorted out of a Georgetown University theater. The spaced-out nature and scale of the disruptions — one after another, after another — immobilized the forum for a period, as one of the televised event's three MSNBC moderators, Symone Sanders, strained to re-assert control and campus police and security guards hauled people out. In a leadership contest that has been largely void of explicit ideological debate, the chaotic interruption felt like a metaphor for a party that can't permanently ignore its internal policy debates and activist passions. When asked afterward about the disruptions, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, currently running for DNC chair in a competitive third-place position behind Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, treated it like a healthy component of the Democratic Party's process. 'I'm surprised I haven't seen more of it,' O'Malley said in a press gaggle. 'They're going to be on this planet a lot longer than I am, and if they stop caring passionately about the planet, then we have no hope at all. So it didn't bother me.' The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led, left-wing climate action group, said the first three protesters, who, about 20 minutes into the forum, began separately standing up to shout slogans while candidates or moderators were speaking, were affiliated with their group. The activists sought to draw attention to the Sunrise Movement's pledge, calling on DNC chair candidates to revive the Obama-era ban on corporate PAC and lobbyist donations to the DNC and use 'every tool' at their disposal to discourage super PAC spending in Democratic primaries. 'We need the Democratic Party to loudly and proudly stand up against billionaires and show young voters that Democrats are the only party ready to fight for working people,' Adah, the 18-year-old Sunrise activist who made the first interruption, said in a statement issued by Sunrise. 'If you don't, young voters and working-class voters will continue to leave the party — you will let Trump and people like him keep convincing people that he will fight for them.' Jason Paul, an attorney, and self-help author Marianne Williamson, two of the more marginal DNC chair contenders, were the only candidates onstage who had already signed on to the Sunrise Movement's pledge. That was cause for Paul to express frustration with Sunrise. 'I think it's a little odd when people onstage agree with you, that you then yell at them,' he said, prompting applause from the audience. After the Sunrise protesters left, a series of other, apparently more hard-line, left-wing climate activists rose one after the other to lament billionaire influence on the DNC and how it could jeopardize the fight against climate change. 'What will you do to get fossil fuel money out of Democratic politics? We are facing a climate emergency!' a young man yelled, his voice quavering, as he was dragged out of the theater. Several of the demonstrators physically refused to cooperate with the campus police officers, leading to loud and violent confrontations as they were sometimes carried out by multiple people at a time. Forum attendees, largely made up of voting DNC members, grew frustrated with the number of disruptions. 'Protest the Republicans! Protest the people who are actually hurting you!' one called out. Sanders, who co-moderated the event alongside MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart and Jen Psaki, tried to maintain calm as the last demonstrators were being removed. 'I think it's important to say here, we respect people's opinions,' she said. 'And it is definitely understandable that there is a lot of passion in this moment.' One man with his hair in a bun, who had been filming many of the protesters' interactions with security professionals, turned to the entire theater and yelled, 'Peace out, bitches,' before finally exiting. Once the theater calmed down, Psaki decided to give Sunrise its due and ask if every DNC chair candidate present would commit to swearing off corporate PAC donations if they were elected chair. Every candidate raised their hand except for Martin and Wikler, who each spoke about the need to raise enough money to win power so that Democrats could eventually nominate enough Supreme Court justices to overturn the 2010 Citizens United ruling permitting corporations to spend unlimited sums on elections. 'I will work my ass off to make sure we push against the corrosive impact of money out of politics,' Martin said, adding that he would not accept contributions from corporations involved in union busting. Martin and Wikler went on to join the other chair candidates in pledging not to accept donations from oil and gas companies' corporate PACs. Sunrise celebrated the candidates' pledge in a post on social media. But it's not clear exactly what kind of impact the pledge will have at a time when fossil fuel companies don't seem too keen to contribute to Democrats anyway. Oil and gas industry PACs contributed $10.2 million to Republican congressional candidates last election cycle, compared with just under $1.8 million to Democratic congressional candidates. And the Democratic National Committee got just $11.6 million of its $1.9 billion haul in 2024 from employees of energy and natural resource companies. Democrats looking for the party's future chair to adopt the Sunrise Movement's platform wholesale might have come away from the evening disappointed, but so would the perhaps even greater number of mainstream Democrats eager to see party leaders defy left-wing activist groups that critics see as out of touch with the median voter. Faiz Shakir, a former manager of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, who's running on an economic populist platform, was the only candidate onstage willing to flatly say 'no' to two culturally progressive demands pushed by DNC members in the audience. Asked whether the candidates would support increasing the number of at-large seats reserved for transgender people — currently just one — and later whether the DNC should create a Muslim council or caucus, Shakir was the only contender to refuse. He affirmed his commitment to 'diversity, equity, and inclusion,' while insisting on an approach that unites people with divergent backgrounds behind common goals. 'I am frustrated by the way in which we utilize identity to break ourselves apart,' said Shakir, who would be the DNC's first Muslim chair. 'I would like to see us focus on program and mission in which you bring your identity to programs that we would like to do at the DNC.' 'I want to build people who see the program mission, and then regardless of what background you might come from, I hope the first priority is building that economic justice vision that is inclusive,' he added.

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