PENSACOLA, FL - SEPTEMBER 09: Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during his rally at the Pensacola Bay Center on September 9, 2016 in Pensacola, Florida. Polls show that Trump and Clinton are tied in Florida. (Photo by Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)
Hours after repeating his belief that DNA evidence has not exonerated the Central Park Five, the president of the United States formally launched his 2020 presidential re-election campaign. It was via a rally, of course, set in Orlando, Florida. You could have watched the whole thing on Fox News, of course. MSNBC didn’t air it. Nor did CNN, at least after the first five minutes or so.
According to The Daily Beast, the news network decided to pull the plug on Donald Trump’s speech around the second time, in five minutes, he got around to ginning up his fanbase over the “fake news media.” Complaining, once more, about how they cover things a sitting president does, Trump whipped them into a fury, getting them do the chants they so love. Eventually chants of “fake news” turned into “CNN sucks,” at which point the channel thought it wise to ditch it for anything else.
Here’s around the moment CNN peaced out.
For the second time in less than five minutes, Trump goads his fans into booing the media and then basks in "CNN sucks!" chants.
"By the way, that is a lot of fake news back there," he says. pic.twitter.com/KU0uRJPGp7
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 19, 2019
Had CNN stuck with the rally, what they would have broadcast was Trump once again drawing the crowd he likes to whip up to the reporters standing towards the back. “That is a lot of fake news back there,” he said after the chant had died down. The president has repeatedly encouraged violence against journalists, even after a man shot up Maryland’s Capital Gazette, and even after one of his fans mailed pipe bombs to many people on his enemy’s list, including to the building that houses CNN.
The move was praised internally.
https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1141139199350861825
And it was at least noted externally.
CNN just cut away from Trump rally.
— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) June 19, 2019
Very interesting decision by CNN to carry the 1st 5 minutes of Trump speech and cut away right after he attacked the media as "fake news." I'm sure that will be much dissected by the usual suspects (although I'm glad they're not giving his campaign a free ad)
— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) June 19, 2019
Others weren’t happy CNN decided to cover it at all, choosing to instead praise MSNBC.
Fox News, CNN turn to Trump re-election kickoff; MSNBC sticks with discussion about impeachment. pic.twitter.com/1ZOjFJCiva
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) June 19, 2019
MSNBC the only ones not carrying this nonsense pic.twitter.com/BlAsfD3qLt
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) June 19, 2019
MSNBC is not carrying the Trump re-election event live.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 19, 2019
Elsewhere during his rally, Trump went through the usual complaints, with particular ire for Hillary Clinton, who ran against him in 2016 and who is not running now, even bringing up those dreaded e-mails.
https://twitter.com/poniewozik/status/1141145514781659137
If you’d like to see coverage of the speech without having to watch all of it, Vox journalist Aaron Rupar painstakingly highlighted the highlights in real time, starting here.
(Via The Daily Beast)