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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 What NBC’s Willie Geist spun as a rundown of the political echo chambers in America on Sunday Today, quickly devolved into a condemnation of the rise of conservative media.
“Fake news is a favorite term, as you know, of President Trump. What you consider real and fake in many cases has become a question of where you're sitting and who you're listening to,” declared Geist at the start of the segment. He ignored the fact that the term was first used to describe stories about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
According to him, reporter Hallie Jackson was supposed to talk about “media culture that has us talking past each other.” But it quickly became a hit piece on outlets they despise. “Back then, there were three,” Jackson said, touting NBC News over a clip of Camel News Caravan. “Before breaking the news down to views that we choose.”
Jackson spoke with a left-leaning progressive, who admitted she got her news from social media and NPR. “I don't know how we have a conversation with each other when we're not speaking the same language,” they told Jackson. The right-winger she spoke with lived in California and said he liked to watch MSNBC’s Morning Joe with his liberal wife since it was the only show they could agree on. “Most reporting nowadays would fail Journalism 101. It is so clear the media hates Donald Trump,” he noted.
“Today, so many choices, but many reflecting a single point of view, easier than ever to limit the ones we listen to, often leaving us in so-called echo chambers,” Jackson bemoaned. She let expert Eli Pariser explain the concept as “filter bubbles.” “We live in, kind of, our own personal information universe that is being curetted by websites like Facebook and Twitter based on who they think we are and what they think we want to know,” he told her.
But Jackson’s reliance on Pariser to decry partisan media was a joke. What she failed to properly disclose was that Pariser himself was/is a liberal activist. He’s the co-founderof Upworthy.com, which is a left-wing media website which recently touted how a White House report “finally called out” Trump for fake news assertions. He was also the president of the board for the far left-wing MoveOn.org. “A society that depends on everybody, kind of, having a sense of what's going on for the greater whole that becomes a real problem,” he complained. Clearly, he prefers the left’s narrative for things.
Next, Jackson tried to show the origins of polarized media. And if you bet she was going to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of conservatives and people on the right, then you’re 100 percent correct. According to her, polarized media all started because of Matt Drudge and the Drudge Report’s reporting on President Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinski scandal.
“What was once relegated to talk radio exploded on TV. The launch of Fox News in 1996 taking it to another level, fighting against what was perceived as liberal bias in the media,” she asserted. But there was nothing perceived about it. The Media Research Center was founded in 1987 as a response to the ever present liberal media bias. That liberal media bias was the first step to a polarized media. Hint: That happened long before Bill Clinton was degrading the dignity of the presidency.
The NBC News correspondent alluded to left-wing media when she noted that: “But when administrations changed, the pendulum swung the other way.” But there was no actual mention of left-wing outlets like MSNBC, their partner network. There was only a clip of Keith Olbermann accusing George W. Bush of “lying this country into war.” But the clip was zoomed in on his face with no indication that it was said on MSNBC nor any mention of who he worked for at the time.
“Today even more tangled with the web, the results, what can feel like permanent polarization,” Jackson whined.
If NBC News was seriously wanted to call out and shame polarized media coverage, they should have started in-house. Correspondent Andrea Mitchell was known for her steadfast reputation of being a Hillary Clinton hack. The reputation includes badgering former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell about 2016 vote recounts flipping the results. Meet the Press Moderator Chuck Todd was called out live on his show by an NBC colleague for picking sides in the 2016 election. And on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow invented a conspiracy theory about missing Trump inauguration funds based off of literally no evidence.
They have all of the flies in their soup.
Transcript below:
NBC
Sunday Today
July 2, 2017
8:41:53 AM Eastern
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think that we have gone to a place where if the media can't be trusted to report the news, then that's a dangerous place for America.
WILLIE GEIST: White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, this week, hitting the media for what she called the constant barrage of fake news. Fake news is a favorite term, as you know, of President Trump. What you consider real and fake in many cases has become a question of where you're sitting and who you're listening to. In our Sunday spotlight, NBC's Hallie Jackson goes inside the increasingly polarized American media culture that has us talking past each other.
[Cuts to video]
JOHN CAMERON: Network television's first daily half hour news program.
HALLIE JACKSON: Back then, there were three.
CAMERON: Sit back, light up a Camel, and be an eyewitness to happenings that made history in the last 24 hours.
JACKSON: Before breaking the news down to views that we choose.
MAKAYLA SANTIN: I don't know how we have a conversation with each other when we're not speaking the same language.
 JACKSON: For professional organizer, Makayla Santin in Progressive Portland, it is NPR in the car. On her phone, Facebook. Her evenings, network news.
JOHN BARRY: Most reporting nowadays would fail journalism 101. It is so clear the media hates Donald Trump.
JACKSON: John Barry used to be part of the media in Redlands, California. He still starts his day this way.
BARRY: I still read the L.A. Times, sometimes just for laughs, it is so outrageous, that they’ll even put anti-Trump stories on its sports page.
JACKSON: But the self-described Twitter addict, now runs on the right.
BARRY: The only political show my liberal wife and I can agree on is Morning Joe. But the rule is, when Joe is not there and Mika is there, then I get to turn it over to Fox and Friends.
SANTIN: I would not watch Fox News because it would drive me insane. And it would make me angry.
JACKSON: Today, so many choices, but many reflecting a single point of view, easier than ever to limit the ones we listen to, often leaving us in so-called echo chambers.
SANTIN: We are not listening to each other at all, because there are so many choices. It’s like pick your own adventure, pick your own news.
JACKSON: And that’s what, Eli Pariser calls the “filter bubble.”
ELI PARISER: We live in, kind of, our own personal information universe that is being curetted by websites like Facebook and Twitter based on who they think we are and what they think we want to know.
JACKSON: He points to 57 indicators that Google uses, for example, to sort what you see based on everything from where you sit to what browser you're on. That could keep you inside your own news universe.
PARISER: A society that depends on everybody, kind of, having a sense of what's going on for the greater whole that becomes a real problem.
 JACKSON: And that is something both sides agree on.
GEORGE W. BUSH: It is hard to unify the country, though, with the news media being so split up. When I was President, you know, you mattered a lot more.
BARACK OBAMA: Increasingly, we've become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information whether it is true or not that fits our opinions.
JACKSON: But in truth it began—
BILL CLINTON: I did not have--
JACKSON: --under another president.
MATT LAUER: The Drudge Report is a media gossip page known for below the beltway reporting. And it’s gaining a reputation as growing irritant to the White House. You are you admit a conservative and you have increasingly targeted the Clinton White House.
MATT DRUDGE: Well I go where the stink is.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: The Democrats and their fear mongering.
JACKSON: What was once relegated to talk radio exploded on TV. The launch of Fox News in 1996 taking it to another level, fighting against what was perceived as liberal bias in the media. But when administrations changed, the pendulum swung the other way.
KEITH OLBERMANN: I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war. [No indication of MSNBC]
JACKSON: Today even more tangled with the web, the results, what can feel like permanent polarization.
BARRY: It is very easy to slip into that echo chamber. I mean, I lost friends on Facebook. But right now, we're just talking past each other, we’re wired differently, we want to hear different things.
JACKSON: It’s still not clear what the impact really is. But listen to this: A recent Pew study finds about half of us on Facebook and more than a third on Twitter say we have a mix of political views inside our network. Bottom line though, in this deeply divided country there's never been more opportunity to remain so. For some, leaving us red all over, for others giving us the blues. For Sunday Today, Hallie Jackson, Washington.
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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 If there were two things President Trump knew how to do well, it’s tweet and get under the skin of the folks at CNN. Well, he did both on Sunday, when he tweeted a rather juvenile clip of a fight he had with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon a long time ago, with the CNN logo placed over McMahon’s face.
As would be expected, CNN’s ridiculous figure Brian Stelter lost his mind on Reliable Sources later that morning as he and his stacked liberal panel decried the tweet as fascist, a grave danger, and a threat to the people that work at CNN.
“The early reactions in the last 90 minutes have ranged from this is juvenile, ridiculous, idiotic, or wait no it's just funny. He's just having fun. Wait, no it's actually scary, dangerous,” Stelter declared as the championed CNN’s response to the tweet:
‘It is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Clearly Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the President had never done so. Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea, and working on the health care bill, he is involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office.’ The statement from CNN ends by saying: ‘We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.’
He then berated Trump for preferring to stick with news organizations that treated him well and wouldn’t pose much of a challenge. Which was the same thing former President Barack Obama did along with trying to eliminate Fox News from the White House press pool. So far, the only thing the White House has done to CNN in that regard was refuse to take their questions from time to time.
Stelter took his analysis to where it often goes when he talks about the President: Comparing him to murderous dictators:
Is this President trying to impersonate Hugo Chavez? Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Vladimir Putin? Because this is exactly the kind of language that leaders use when they're trying to undermine the press. Of course, the American press is much more free than reporters in places like Russia and Turkey and Venezuela.
Towards the end of the show, Stelter raised questions about if Trump was even allowed to post the video, saying it could violate Twitter's terms of service because it promoted violence against CNN.
The first panelist to speak was Carl Bernstein, who claimed that the tweet was a sign that Trump had real and serious mental problems. He also asserted that military leaders were openly concerned about them. “I think it also goes to the question that many military leaders in this questions raised by military leaders in this country now,” he smeared. “By the intelligence community. By people in Congress, about the stability of the President of the United States. This is an index of his state of mind, visually.”
The Baltimore Sun’s media critic, David Zurawik denounced the idea that Trump could just be having fun with his feud with CNN as dangerous. “You can kill somebody in seven seconds. That's part of the problem with social media, is people don't think about what they say,” he spat. “And they put out hateful, nasty stuff like this.”
Zurawik took his criticism to a very dark place when he claimed the tweet was akin to the tactics of Nazi Germany. “Look, you take somebody and slam them physically to the ground, you put a logo on identifying them. That’s what fascists did in the 30’s to people,” he chided.
Conservative radio host Ben Ferguson was one of the few voices of reason on the panel despite his camera feed having “technical difficulties.” He told them how he kind of laughed when he first saw the video and added that, “I don't think it incites violence. I think you people are stretching when they imply that. Wrestling is fake. Everybody knows that wrestling is fake.” But before Ferguson could finish speaking, Stelter cut him off and chastised him for not taking Trump’s threat seriously.
“You get hate mail that sometimes threatens your life. And that's what's happening to folks at CNN right now,” Stelter reminding Ferguson. “I've seen some of the trash that's coming to people's inboxes. How can we look at this video and not think that it's actually going to cause even more of those threats more of that hate to fester out there?”
Ferguson called out elements in the liberal media for blowing up stories about Trump into massive heinous acts. “He's trying to make it abundantly clear that there are people in the media who have made it their personal mission and their job to destroy this President,” he noted. “Who's turning it into a bigger story, Ben? This is what the President of the United States decided to post today,” Stelter un-ironically spat, as he interrupted his conservative guest again.
“You're playing into the exact point that I'm making here and the point that I'm making is, you’re over-- I think everyone's trying to over make this into too big of a deal, over aggregate this,” Ferguson stated, shooting down his host’s hysteria. Even media ethicist Kelly McBride of The Poynter Institute argued to Stelter that he was spending way too much time on the tweet when they should be talking about policy.
Ben Ferguson was 100 percent correct. Was the tweet crass and unpresidential? Yes. But was it an all-out assault on journalists, the First Amendment, or a call to arms to physically attack CNN? Not even close. And to compare the President to murderous dictators was ridiculous, irresponsible and proved Ferguson’s point that there are people out there with the desire to tear Trump down. That unbridled hyperbole is why the mainstream media has zero credibility these days.
Stelter & Co.'s ridiculousness was sponsored by: Red Lobster, Orkin, Humira, and Kia.
Transcript below:
CNN
Reliable Sources
July 2, 2017
11:00:47 AM Eastern
BRIAN STELTER: But on Twitter he's wrestling with -- us. Look at this video from his Twitter account this morning. This is a WWE wrestle mania video from years ago when Trump used to show up at WWF/WWE events. You can see that the CNN logo has been superimposed onto the other fighter's face. Now, this showed up on a Reddit message board days ago. Now it's showing up on the president of the United States' own Twitter feed.
The early reactions in the last 90 minutes have ranged from this is juvenile, ridiculous, idiotic, or wait no it's just funny. He's just having fun. Wait, no it's actually scary, dangerous. We've heard a wide range of reactions to this. And we have a panel standing by. But first CNN's response.
The strongest statement I've seen from CNN or any news outlet this year in response to the President's attacks. Quote: “It is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Clearly Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the President had never done so. Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing North Korea, and working on the health care bill he is involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office.” The statement from CNN ends by saying: “We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.”
(…)
STELTER: The President's strategy, let's think about this, he's trying to build up news outlets that promote him while trying to tear down outlets that dare to challenge him. He is promoting his friends in the media, talking with friendly interviewers who won't ask him tough questions while he's demeaning voices who criticize him.
 (…)
STELTER: Is this President trying to impersonate Hugo Chavez? Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Vladimir Putin? Because, this is exactly the kind of language that leaders use when they're trying to undermine the press. Of course, the American press is much more free than reporters in places like Russia and Turkey and Venezuela.
(…)
CARL BERNSTEIN: First it's not just anti-CNN. It's anti-freedom of the press. It's anti-freedom of speech. It is a definitive statement by the President of the United States. I think it also goes to the question that many military leaders in this questions raised by military leaders in this country now. By the intelligence community. By people in congress, about the stability of the President of the United States. This is an index of his state of mind, visually.
It's very disturbing. There's nothing like light hearted about it whatsoever. It is an incitement. It is definitive, as I say, in the way this president views a free press and its exercise under the first amendment to the constitution. And let me add one thing here about Hillary Clinton and our coverage of Hillary Clinton and her server, that Donald Trump and his people thought at the time was an example of great news by the same news institutions that he is now calling fake news. When it suits him, it's great news. When it doesn't, it's fake news. And the nexus of fake news in America is the Trump White House.
STELTER: I'm glad we have an hour because we're going to unpack everything you just said.
(…)
STELTER: So, Ben I'm curious from your perspective do you have a message for the President about sharing a video like this?
BEN FERGUSON: Look, I think we got to put it in perspective. This has been going around on Twitter. I think when I saw it, I eventually laughed at it because I thought it was actually one of the more humorous moments of the real fighting back and forth that the President has had with the media. I don't think it incites violence. I think you people are stretching when they imply that. Wrestling is fake. Everybody knows that wrestling is fake. This was something that you just need to have just an ounce of humor, and just kind of look at this and say, “This may actually be a little bit of a funny moment for this. You could look at it and say it's clever –
 STELTER [Interrupting Ferguson]: Okay, you can look at it and say it’s clever. You can say wrestling is fake. Security threats are real. And Ben you suffer from this just like the rest of us do. You get hate mail that sometimes threatens your life. And that's what's happening to folks at CNN right now. I've seen some of the trash that's coming to people's inboxes. How can we look at this video and not think that it's actually going to cause even more of those threats more of that hate to fester out there?
FERGUSON: Look, I think you obviously have reached a intense moment between the President, and the media, where he feels like there are people out there in the media that they're entire day is surrounded by trying to go after the President, and turning stories into bigger news than maybe it really is. And that's one of the things that we saw this last week that he's trying to capitalize on. He's trying to make it abundantly clear that there are people in the media who have made it their personal mission and their job to destroy this President. And when you look at something like that he just tweeted out, and we try to turn this in to a bigger story, as if he's inciting violence, which is just not the reality –
STELTER [Interrupting Ferguson again]: Who's turning it into a bigger story, Ben? This is what the President of the United States decided to post today. He could have posted about health care. He could have responded to citizen’s concerns—
FERGUSON: You're playing into the exact point that I'm making here and the point that I'm making is, you’re over-- I think everyone's trying to over make this into too big of a deal, over aggregate this. It took me three seconds to retweet that tweet earlier saying we're going to talk about this this morning. I’m sure the President saw it and thought it was pretty funny and said I'm going to retweet this. It took him seven seconds. It didn't take him 72 hours or 24 hours.
 (…)
STELTER: What he does for seven seconds can hurt people.
(…)
DAVID ZURAWIK: Well, look, first I want to say I couldn't disagree more with Ben. And I think the dangerous thing is to say: “Oh, have a sense of humor, let's just laugh at it.” You can kill somebody in seven seconds. That's part of the problem with social media. Is people don't think about what they say. And they put out hateful, nasty stuff like this.
(…)
ZURAWIK: And it is a disturbing look at the man running the country. Look, you take somebody and slam them physically to the ground, you put a logo on identifying them. That’s what fascists did in the 30’s to people. This is not something, Ben, that you laugh about say: “Oh ho ho ho. It’s only 7 seconds what a funny thing. Get a sense of humor, Yuk it up.””
(…)
STELTER: We’re talking about the media very broadly. It included reporters and it also includes commentators. And I think there's a lot of commentators who are very disturbed by the President, some of whom may go overboard sometimes.
(…)
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By Kyle Drennen
 After Thursday’snetwork evening newscasts devoted 28 times more coverage to Donald Trump’s offensive tweets than to important immigration reform legislation, on Friday, the morning shows on ABC, NBC, and CBS offered even more lopsided reporting. Combined, ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today, and CBS This Morning devoted a staggering 52 times the amount of coverage to the President’s social media attack than to Kate’s Law passing the House.
As NewsBusters analyst Nicholas Fondacaro calculated, the network evening news on Thursday provided 12 minutes 14 seconds of airtime on Trump’s tweets targeting MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski, but only NBC Nightly News featured a 26-second news brief on the House passage of two immigration bills – Kate’s Law and another cracking down on sanctuary cities.
Friday morning’s broadcasts amped up the outrage over the Presidents tweets, with a stunning 24 minutes 17 seconds on the topic. All three led with the story. Only CBS This Morning mentioned the pair of immigration polices in a 28-second news brief during the 7:30 a.m. ET hour from fill-in co-host David Westin:
The Washington Post reports the House passed two bills that crack down on illegal immigration. Kate’s Law steps up prison sentences for convicted criminals who reenter the United States illegally after having been deported. And the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act bars sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with I.C.E., that’s the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, from receiving many federal grants. It also leaves them vulnerable to liability in lawsuits from victims of illegal immigrants’ crimes. Both bills require passage now in the Senate.
In contrast, the CBS show included 4 minutes 54 seconds on Trump’s tweets.
While neither ABC’s GMA nor NBC’s Today bothered to inform viewers of the legislative push on immigration, both shows found plenty of air time for the Twitter fight. GMAfeatured a whopping 12 minutes 14 seconds on the controversy and Today offered 7 minutes 9 seconds.
In other words, the short shrift given to a Republican legislative accomplishment remained the same from the night before while denunciation of the President grew louder.
The obsessive tweet coverage was brought to viewers by Honda, Colgate, and Toyota.
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By Kristine Marsh
 Thursday night The New York Times quietly issued a correction online that admitted one of the media’s major talking points about the Russia investigation wasn’t actually true. The correction was discreetly placed on their website under a 5 day-old article on Trump and Russia by Maggie Haberman called “Trump’s Deflections and Denials on Russia Frustrate Even His Allies.”
So what did the Times finally admit wasn’t true? That oft-repeated claim that “Seventeen” intelligence agencies assessed that Russia hacked the 2016 presidential election. Here’s what the paper had to say about that:
Correction: June 29, 2017
A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump’s deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessmentthat said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year’s presidential election.The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.
This correction is a hugely significant admission because this lie was widely propagated for over the past nine months. It was repeated by every major media outlet, on talk show hosts like The View and even by Hillary Clinton during the final presidential debate. This “fact” that the left ran with was the basis of many smug headlines meant to shame those on the right criticizing the media’s use of anonymous sources in the Russia investigation. For example, this USA Today article from October 21, still on their website, says in the headline, “Yes, 17 Intelligence Agencies Really Did Say Russia Was Behind Hacking.”
However the Times wasn’t the first on the left to correct this myth. Obama appointee, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper contradicted the media’s narrative when he testified May 8, saying only “three” intelligence agencies actually made this assessment, not 17.
For finally admitting months after the fact, that one of their major talking points wasn’t actually true, the paper earned mockery from those on the left on Twitter:
Wikileaks:
Even the correction is misleading by calling ODNI an intelligence agency. It is an oversight & policy body and does not collect information.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 29, 2017
The Young Turks’ Michael Tracey:
Podesta repeated the same tired claim on CNN today, naturally. This is one of the most successfully propagated deceits in political history.
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 30, 2017 |
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By Brad Wilmouth
On Friday's Real Time on HBO, far-left columnist and gay activist Dan Savage -- known for making attacks on conservatives that are beyond inflammatory -- joined left-wing comedian Bill Maher in demonizing Republicans as the two agreed that Democrats should start "fighting dirty" and begin "cheating like Republicans."
Maher also questioned whether the recent Georgia special election was stolen, and Savage wrongly claimed that Democrats won the House elections popular vote by a million votes even though Republicans, in fact, won by three million votes.
In the opening monologue, host Maher likened the Senate Republican health care plan to a "serial killer." After recalling that President Donald Trump was successful in implementing his travel ban to prevent terrorists from entering the country, Maher added:
Donald Trump says he will not have foreign nationals coming here and killing innocent Americans. That's what the health care plan is for. Oh, yes, there's that one, too: repealing Obamacare. I mean, the Democrats are all excited that this is stalled now in the Senate except it's not dead. It's like the slasher movie when the baby sitter thinks she's killed the serial killer, but we can see he's getting up behind her.
A bit later, Maher brought aboard Savage to discuss what Democrats should do to win elections in the future. The liberal columnist soon suggested cheating:
Bernie said -- and you've said this a lot -- that Democrats have to start fighting like Republicans -- which may include cheating like Republicans. Republicans win when Republicans cheat.
After Maher injected, "They do cheat, yes," Savage complained about gerrymandering as the two continued:
SAVAGE: Democrats -- Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.
MAHER: So did Al Gore.
SAVAGE: So did Al Gore, but that was, I think, a theft. But Democratic candidates took a million more votes in House races. But for gerrymandering, Democrats would have the majority in the House. The system is rigged like Bernie Sanders said, but it's rigged against Democrats.
in fact, Republicans beat Democrats in the House popular vote by more than three million votes in 2016. Savage is apparently still citing the numbers from 2012.
Moments later, the two likened the Republican party to a "prison gang," and Savage recommended that Democrats "fight dirty" as he added:
Republicans have brass knuckles on, and Democrats don't. And Democrats need to pick up the brass knuckles and play the game that's actually being played. So many Democrats think that they're in Washington to set a good example for the GOP. And we need to start fighting like the GOP fights, and even fighting as dirty as the GOP fights.
Maher approvingly responded: "Okay. I'm glad you feel that way."
A bit later, Savage derided voters in red states as "knuckle drag America" as he recalled:
Democrats have to do a better job of turning those people out and stop chasing voters they're never going to get. Sending John Kerry out with a gun to shoot something right before the election didn't win him any votes in "knuckle drag America."
Maher then claimed that, unlike Democrats, Republicans meet in an "underground lair" and plot strategy to do things like making up accusations of liberals being violent:
They meet in their underground lair, their volcano, and they say, "Okay, tomorrow we are all going to say that the Left is unhinged and violent," even though it's crazy. And somebody goes, "Wait, the Left is not violent." "Yeah, but we're going to say that -- we're all going to say that." And then it's going to become true to at least half the country. Democrats need to do that, don't you think?
Later in the show, after he brought aboard former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke to discuss Russian efforts to influence elections, Maher suggested that he believed the Georgia special election was somehow stolen by Republicans as he fretted:
Are you confident those elections will be on the up and up? Because I'm not even sure about that Georgia election we just had because he was ahead in the polls. Once again, they're ahead in the polls, and then I guess something happened.
Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Saturday, June 30, Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO:
10:06 p.m. ET BILL MAHER: His stupid travel ban went into effect. As of last night, people from the Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Iran can forget about that dream vacation to Dollywood. Yet, Saudi Arabians, on the other hand, are free to board any plane and fly into a building of their choice.
Donald Trump says he will not have foreign nationals coming here and killing innocent Americans. That's what the health care plan is for. Oh, yes, there's that one, too: repealing Obamacare. I mean, the Democrats are all excited that this is stalled now in the Senate except it's not dead. It's like the slasher movie when the baby sitter thinks she's killed the serial killer, but we can see he's getting up behind her.
(...)
10:12 p.m. ET
DAN SAVAGE, COLUMNIST: Bernie said -- and you've said this a lot -- that Democrats have to start fighting like Republicans -- which may include cheating like Republicans. Republicans win when Republicans cheat.
MAHER: They do cheat, yes.
SAVAGE: Democrats -- Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.
MAHER: So did Al Gore.
SAVAGE: So did Al Gore, but that was, I think, a theft. But Democratic candidates took a million more votes in House races. But for gerrymandering, Democrats would have the majority in the House. The system is rigged like Bernie Sanders said, but it's rigged against Democrats.
(...)
10:13 p.m. ET
SAVAGE: Republicans are a gang.
MAHER: Right. Like a prison gang.
SAVAGE: Like a prison gang.
MAHER: And that's where our politics are, yeah.
SAVAGE: Right. Republicans have brass knuckles on, and Democrats don't. And Democrats need to pick up the brass knuckles and play the game that's actually being played. So many Democrats think that they're in Washington to set a good example for the GOP. And we need to start fighting like the GOP fights, and even fighting as dirty as the GOP fights.
MAHER: Okay. I'm glad you feel that way.
(...)
10:15 p.m. ET
SAVAGE: If more people turned out in the cities to vote, in all of the cities to vote, Democrats would not have won the election. Democrats have to do a better job of turning those people out and stop chasing voters they're never going to get. Sending John Kerry out with a gun to shoot something right before the election didn't win him any votes in "knuckle drag America."
(...)
10:17 p.m. ET
MAHER: It also shows that when they want to get on a page, they -- that's what the Democrats don't do. They meet in their underground lair, their volcano, and they say, "Okay, tomorrow we are all going to say that the Left is unhinged and violent," even though it's crazy. And somebody goes, "Wait, the Left is not violent." "Yeah, but we're going to say that -- we're all going to say that." And then it's going to become true to at least half the country. Democrats need to do that, don't you think?
SAVAGE: Absolutely.
MAHER: They need to have an underground lair where they come up with -- and they all say it. They never do that. They never all say the same thing.
(...)
10:34 p.m. ET
MAHER: The election of 2018, the election of 2020, are you confident that they will be --
RICHARD CLARKE, FORMER ABC NEWS COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: They'll be back.
MAHER: The Russians will be back? I'm saying: Are you confident those elections will be on the up and up? Because I'm not even sure about that Georgia election we just had because he was ahead in the polls. Once again, they're ahead in the polls, and then I guess something happened.
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