Ben Shapiro on reopening economy amid coronavirus crisis
Ben Shapiro, founder of The Daily Wire, joins ‘The Daily Briefing.’
The mainstream media's downplaying of the sexual assault allegations against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and simultaneous attack on President Trump's handling of the coronavirus are the latest examples of their "warm relationship" with the Democratic party, Ben Shapiro said Tuesday.
"The media continue to be awful at their jobs ... all reinforced by the fact that they are insane political hacks," the "Ben Shapiro Show" host said. "This becomes most obvious when you look at the media coverage of Joe Biden's accuser."
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Shapiro said he was frustrated with the much of the media's coverage - or lack of coverage -- of the allegations made by Tara Reade, a former Biden aide who accused him of assaulting her in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building.
Highlighting the double standard between the media's coverage of the allegations against Biden and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Shapiro said he stands by the "innocent until proven guilty" standard, but "what's incredible is the media coverage of this stuff."
"So much insane 'journalisming,'" he said.
The Washington Post was widely criticized Monday for their bizarre framing of several new developments supporting Reade's claim, publishing an article originally titled: "Developments in allegations against Biden amplify efforts to question his behavior."
"Is that even English? What does that even mean?" Shapiro said.
Not long after it was published, a new headline appeared in the report, "Trump allies highlight new claims regarding allegations against Biden."
"What the media will do in order to protect Democrats is insane," Shapiro went on. "When a Republican does something bad, the story is the Republican does something bad. When a Democrat does something bad, the story is that 'Republicans are attacking Democrats for doing something bad.'"
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"And by the way," he added, "it took them like a month to report on the accusation. You think it would've taken them a month to report on any accusation about any Republicans? Of course not."
Shapiro then turned to the ongoing barbs between President Trump and the media during the daily coronavirus task force briefings. On Monday, New York magazine's Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi put what Shapiro called a "stupid, asinine, ridiculous" question to Trump, saying “If an American president loses more Americans over the course of six weeks than died over the entirety of the Vietnam war, does he deserve to be reelected?”
Shapiro slammed Nuzzi for her "insanely useless" question which represents "a bunch of posturing crap from the media.
It was "obviously directed at just getting Trump to blow up so the media could have a headline ... which is completely useless and counterproductive at this point in time when people are still dying and trying to figure out the best way to reopen economy," he said.
"Trump handled that question better than I would handle that question," Shapiro added. "What a despicable question. First of all, the Vietnam War was a war that we got into by choice politically ... war is not like a pandemic. It is not contagious. The notion that Trump is responsible for anything other than the decisions the president makes during the pandemic is insane."
"The media, when they are not busy blaming Trump for Vietnam-era level numbers on a pandemic -- which again, not comparable -- they are busy trying to cover for Joe Biden and pretend this never happened.
"You want to know why the American people don't trust you guys on this?" Shapiro concluded. "This is why. Because you're not focused on bringing America the truth, you're focused on a gotcha game with Trump, while protecting Joe Biden."
"But don't worry guys," he mocked. "'Journalisming' is going to continue at will."
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