The mainstream media bent over backward to paint President Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech as dark and divisive on Friday evening — but some feel "the resistance media" wouldn't have been happy with anything the president said.
"The coverage of President Trump's Mount Rushmore speech was contrary to reality. It's as if the media narratives were drafted long before the speech, and then rolled out immediately in disregard of the actual speech," Cornell Law School professor and media critic William A. Jacobson told Fox News.
The polarizing speech was praised by conservatives and Trump supporters alike, while liberal media members all used similar rhetoric when condemning the president’s remarks.
The New York Times called the speech “dark and divisive,” reporting that it cast Trump’s “struggling effort to win a second term as a battle against a ‘new far-left fascism’ seeking to wipe out the nation’s values and history.”
The New York Times was scolded by conservatives, but many other liberal publications echoed the Gray Lady.
“Is there anything sillier than The New York Times in these Trump years calling anyone else's tone ‘dark and divisive?’ They're too self-importantly partisan to have any shame,” Media Research Center contributor Clay Waters wrote.
The Washington Post reported that Trump “delivered a dark speech ahead of Independence Day in which he sought to exploit the nation’s racial and social divisions.” A quick search of the term “dark and divisive” on Twitter shows that liberal pundits ranging from CNN’s Brian Stelter to NBC News’ Claire McCaskill used the same adjectives to describe Trump’s speech.
“It is a crazy time, indeed, when the mainstream media can portray a speech designed to celebrate America as dark and divisive."
“It is a crazy time, indeed, when the mainstream media can portray a speech designed to celebrate America as dark and divisive,” DePauw University professor and media critic Jeffrey McCall told Fox News.
“Sure, Trump criticized anarchists and the people who are determined to destroy monuments, but such rhetoric would hardly have been considered polarizing in years past. For the resistance media, nothing Trump said in his Mount Rushmore speech would have been suitable,” McCall said.
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McCall feels the "mainstream media narrative today is largely negative about America" and coverage of Trump's speech reinforces his theory.
"Those news organizations weren't about to give that narrative up even on the weekend celebrating America's founding,” he said.
CNN began its negative coverage to Trump’s speech before he even took the stage, when a reporter on Friday described Mount Rushmore as "a monument of two slaveowners" situated on stolen land ahead the president’s remarks.
Once the speech concluded, CNN’s Chris Cillizza published a list of the “28 most outrageous” moments from the speech.
"I am here as your president to proclaim, before the country and before the world, this monument will never be desecrated,” was among Trump’s remarks that CNN’s political analyst considered “outrageous.”
The CNN pundit also criticized Trump for telling South Dakota the audience, "I love your state. I love this country."
Over on MSNBC, coverage of Trump’s speech was so negative that NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck put together a recap headlined, “Here’s the WORST Moments from MSNBC’s America-Hating, Anti-Founders Mt. Rushmore Coverage.”
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“MSNBC debased itself Friday night with a vile display of hatred for America, the Constitution (except the freedom of the press), the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers, and positive celebrations of both where the country has been and where we hope to go,” Houck wrote.
Houck included quotes from MSNBC host Al Sharpton, MSNBC political analyst and PBS correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, MSNBC hosts Ari Melber, Joshua Johnson, correspondent Trymaine Lee and contributor and New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, among others.
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro viewed the media coverage as "extraordinary gaslighting," writing on Twitter that the address "was prompted by weeks of rioting, looting, tearing down monuments, and lying about Americans both dead and alive."
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"The few members of national media that hadn't already shown their biased hand came out on the 4th of July to get involved in campaign 2020. There didn't seem to be a single unbiased story on Trump's visit to Mt. Rushmore,” Washington Times columnist Tim Young told Fox News.
“The most laughable part was when left-leaning media called Trump divisive for standing up against rioters and those destroying American cities,” Young added. “To left-leaning media, he's the divisive one, not the person causing violence and pulling down statues.”
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