Brent Bozell and Big Media’s War Against Trump – Part One

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series featuring an exclusive interview with Brent Bozell, Founder and President of the Media Research Center. This discussion will be aired in its entirety on Liberty Nation Radio this Sunday, July 14.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that media bias is hardly a new phenomenon. Leftist punditry disguised as news has been a fixture of public life for more than half a century. But in the era of Donald Trump, the likes of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and every major TV network, plus, of course, CNN, have elevated it to a true art form.

The man with the plan to unmask them, as he has for over 30 years of hoisting the media by their own petard, is Brent Bozell, founder and president of the nation’s preeminent media watchdog, the Media Research Center. The latest of his many books assiduously documents a media bias against Trump so naked that it makes Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush look like they were relatively beloved by the fourth estate.

Tim Donner: The book is Unmasked: Big Media's War Against Trump. So let me start by mimicking Johnny Carson when he used to say -- you remember this? -- "It's bad" and then Ed McMahon would say "How bad is it?" Tell us, just how bad, and how unprecedented, is the media's condemnation of all things Trump?

Brent Bozell: Well let's start with how bad is it. Then let's ask why. How bad is it? There's never been anything like this in the history of the republic. If you look at the coverage -- and we analyze it every single month and no one ever questions our data on this -- since the start of the campaign in 2015, the coverage has been not just negative but out-of-control negative. During the campaign, the coverage was overall 90%. Then beginning with January of 2017, they went on a roll where it is every single month 91, 93, 92, 89, 91, 94% negative except for his honeymoon month in January of 2017 where it was only, I think, 86% negative.

For the year, it was ... It rounded off at 90% negative. Nine out of ten news stories were negative. So then the first question to ask is why. Why are they treating him unlike any president in the history of the republic? As best as I can come up with, and we discuss this in the book, I think there's three reasons for it.

The first one is that he directly challenged the Obama legacy and said, if elected, he would basically undo the Obama legacy. They saw what Obama was offering as what they wanted which was a fundamental transformation of society. They saw that Hillary, in four to eight years, was going to solidify it culturally and in fact change this country. So he tipped the whole apple cart.

The second thing was they believed they created this monster. They made him a celebrity in Hollywood and he got out of control and they had to stop the monster.

But the third one was the best one, which was for the first time ever, someone declared war on them. Instead of defending Himself, Trump said "Nope. I'm going after them before they come after me" ... and declared war on them.

So put the three of them together and you've got the perfect storm of hostility. They despise him. If you have 91, 93% negative, then you are looking at a record that is worse than Jimmy Carter's. That is worse than any president in history. Except his isn't. In the book, we go through the memo that he put out in October of 2018 listing the accomplishments of the administration. This is October of 2018, mind you. These are accomplishments that you may not like, but you cannot question them.

As of October of last year, 3.9 million new jobs created, Hispanic unemployment at a record low, black unemployment at a record low, women employed at a record high, the most circuit court judges named in one year in history, two Supreme Court justices named, ISIS defeated militarily. The list goes on and on. My favorite, because I had never heard of this one, 217,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records apprehended. Now, you look at that list of achievements and what you've got by any measurement is an extraordinarily successful two years. It is the exact opposite of what they reported. This goes to show you the agenda they have there.

Tim: Now, Brent, you were not a Trump fan when he first ran, but unlike the never-Trump Republicans, you got on board when he secured the GOP nomination. Do you think this naked media bias will actually serve to unite Republicans, even those who aren't that fond of President Trump?

Brent Bozell: Tim, I think at the end of the day, one of two things are going to happen. One is that the media hostility against Trump is going to ultimately give a couple of points to the Democrats, and that could sway the election. On the other hand, the media's hostility to Trump could ultimately give Trump a couple of points that might sway the election to him. Either way, I think the media are going to decide this election. Now, if you put a gun to my head and said pick one, I would pick that it's going to help him because the more you listen to them, the more unhinged they are.

Ever since the Mueller report has come out, MSNBC and CNN ratings have dropped to record lows. Something is happening out there. The media were saying from day one that there was collusion before he took office. He said there was not one ounce of credibility, not one smidgen of evidence. They all say "Yeah, but wait until the Mueller report comes out." They spent 17 months dropping one fake news story after another. When the Mueller report came out, they were stunned when it said "There's not a smidgen of evidence, a piece of evidence. Donald Trump was right in this. He's innocent."

So what happened? The audiences started peeling away, just saying "I'm not to going to listen to you, Rachel Maddow. I'm not going to listen to you, Joe Scarborough." Even their audience is abandoning them. So is that an indication? Yeah. This man is a very smart businessman. He's an even better marketer. He understands the value of picking a fight with them, and he's having a whale of a time while he's doing it.

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In part two of this series on Saturday, Brent Bozell sounds the alarm about escalating censorship of conservatives by tech and social media giants Facebook, Twitter and Google.

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