Todd Starnes: CNN, Democrats use El Paso massacre to take cheap shots at Trump
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}I watch CNN, so my radio show audience does not have to.
That was an act of public service I made to listeners of "The Todd Starnes Show" audience when we launched the program more than two years ago on Fox News Radio.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}There’s no reason for anyone to be unnecessarily exposed to the leftist propaganda spewing from the mouths of Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, Anderson Cooper or that stomach-churning morning show.
But I was especially disgusted by their coverage of the El Paso massacre. Americans were slaughtered in Texas by a domestic terrorist. But instead of mourning the dead, CNN welcomed Democrats onto the network to take turns whacking President Trump.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former Texas Rep. Robert “Beto” Francis O’Rourke appeared on Jake Tapper’s “State of the Union” show Sunday to spread flat-out lies about President Trump.
At one point during the interview, Tapper asked the Democrat presidential candidate if he thought the president was a “white nationalist.”
“Yes, I do,” O’Rourke replied.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Let's not mince words right now. This president is encouraging greater racism, and not just the racist rhetoric, but the violence that so often follows,” he went on to say.
Tapper did not push back. He did not ask for irrefutable evidence. He simply took O’Rourke’s answer as the gospel truth.
“We have a problem with white nationalist terrorism in the United States of America today,” O’Rourke told CNN.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}More from Opinion
The mainstream media seems hell-bent on trying to convince the nation that they elected a white supremacist who hates people of color. The truth is that President Trump is not a racist nor is he a white supremacist. But as the mainstream media demonstrated over the weekend, they will not allow the truth to get in the way of their agenda.
Consider the following allegations that were made during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” between Tapper and O’Rourke this weekend:
Claim: Trump signed an order “seeking to ban all people of one religion.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Analysis: False. President Trump did not ban all Muslims from entering the United States. He specifically targeted nations that are hot-beds of radical Islamic terrorism. Even National Public Radio described it as a temporary ban impacting six countries. Tapper did not challenge O’Rourke’s claim.
Claim: President Trump is putting “kids in cages.”
Analysis: The Associated Press once called such allegations “deceptive.” They point out that the so-called ‘cages’ were built and used by the Obama administration. The AP described the ‘cages’ as chain-link enclosures. Tapper did not challenge O’Rourke’s claims.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}I fear that the mainstream media has become so infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome that they would risk national unrest to drive this president from office. I pray that is not the case.
Claim: President Trump said after the 2017 Charlottesville attack “that Klansman and white supremacists and neo-Nazis are ‘very fine people.’”
Analysis: False. On April 26 Tapper admitted that the president was not referring to neo-Nazis as very fine people. The Daily Caller published the video online.
“Now, elsewhere in those remarks, Trump did condemn neo-Nazis and white supremacists,” Tapper said at the time. “So, he’s not saying that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people. “But he is saying people protesting alongside those neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people. Who are they?”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}So why did Tapper allow O’Rourke to advance that disproven narrative on national television? Why would Tapper, a respected journalist, turn a blind eye to something he knew to be blatantly false?
Again, the president is not a racist nor is he a white supremacist.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}I fear that the mainstream media has become so infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome that they would risk national unrest to drive this president from office. I pray that is not the case.
But the vitriol spewing from my television set over the weekend leaves little doubt there is a nefarious agenda afoot.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}And that’s why CNN and the Democrats did not think twice about using the victims of a deadly massacre to slander not only the president, but also his supporters.
It’s not just sad, it’s depraved.