by WorldTribune Staff, July 29, 2018
Reporters who interrupt President Donald Trump are labeled “heroes” by their major media comrades while those who interrupted President Barack Obama were called “racist” by many of the same people, radio host Mark Levin said.
Levin said he highlighted the double standard after the media “circled the wagons” when the Trump administration last week barred a CNN White House reporter from an event after she shouted several questions at Trump inside the Oval Office.
During a meeting between Trump and European Union Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked the president about tapes CNN had of Trump allegedly talking with his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, about payments to a Playboy model.
“The White House claimed the questions were rude and came after the press pool was asked to leave the Oval Office,” columnist Paul Bedard wrote for the Washington Examiner. “As a result, they barred her from a subsequent event, prompting most media including Fox to defend Collins.”
Levin played recordings of reporter Neil Munro, then with the Daily Caller, who on June 15, 2012 interrupted Obama to ask questions about his new policy of opening the door to illegal immigrant minors.
“Obama cut him off and shut him down and the media agree with him, no circling of the wagons around Mr. Munro,” said Levin.
“I don’t remember news organizations putting out statements defending Neil Munro, do you? And he wasn’t in the Oval Office, the time wasn’t cut off, Obama wasn’t with another foreign leader, he wasn’t being asked about prosecutors and such investigating him and such because that didn’t happen of course because he’s Obama, they’d never do that, but he asked a policy question,” said Levin.
After playing comments attacking Munro for asking Obama while he was speaking if his new policy was fair to American workers, Levin also noted that many in the media said that “Munro’s interruption was racist.”
Levin cited as another example of the double standard an instance when three reporters from conservative outlets that endorsed Sen. John McCain for president in 2008 were refused entry on the Obama campaign plane.
“So he gets rid of the conservatives, gets rid of them, and by the way Glamour magazine and others were allowed to stay on the plane,” said Levin.
Levin added that some reporters have said that asking a president anything was their First Amendment right.
“They love the Constitution except when it comes to most of it,” Levin said. “There’s other parts of the First Amendment that they don’t believe in, like religious liberty.”
Levin also played CNN talking head Wolf Blitzer’s reaction to the barring of its reporter. It’s something, he said, “that you would expect to see in some totalitarian regime.” Said Levin, “I’m surprised he didn’t say Hitler’s Third Reich.”
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