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By Mike Ciandella
 If there was any doubt about the liberal media's double-standard when it comes to policing politicians' character, the last 24 hours have made it clear: All three networks have given heavy coverage to the serious accusations against a Republican Senate candidate, while the ongoing federal trial of a Democratic Senator has been largely hidden from view.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey has now been on trial for 65 days. Menendez has been charged with taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for political favors. Yet, in all that time, ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News haven’t even mentioned the trial once. NBC’s Today also hasn’t covered this trial at all, while ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS This Morning have managed to give it one story each (1 minute, 48 seconds for ABC and 22 seconds for CBS).
In the past 24 hours, the same networks that couldn’t find a single second to mention Menendez in 65 days, spent 24 minutes and 36 seconds on serious allegations against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. Since it’s too late to put another Republican on the ballot in Alabama, Moore’s potential indiscretions threaten to flip a Senate seat that used to belong to Attorney General Jeff Sessions from red to blue.
The three evening news shows each spent about two-and-a-half minutes on the Moore scandal (ABC’s World News Tonight: 2 minutes, 48 seconds; CBS Evening News: 2 minutes, 46 seconds; NBC Nightly News, 2 minutes, 38 seconds). Good Morning America spent the most time on Moore with 7 minutes. CBS This Morning came next with 5 minutes and 22 seconds, while NBC’s Today came in third with 4 minutes, 2 seconds.
The jury has been deliberating Menendez’s fate since October 30. This is the first corruption trial of a sitting U.S. senator since 1981. On top of this, if Menendez is convicted and forced to step down before January 16, 2018, Republican Governor Chris Christie would appoint his replacement, flipping a Senate seat from blue to red.
The media are right to cover the allegations of child molestation against Alabama Senatorial Candidate Roy Moore. If these allegations are true, they are inexcusable and unforgivable, and voters in that state have a right to know about them. Yet, the same media outlets that have moments of clarity when it comes to Republican scandals and corruption turn a blind eye when the scandals and corruption come from a Democrat.
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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 Last week, The Washington Post reported that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore allegedly pursued relationships with teenagers when he was in his 30s and that he allegedly molested a 14-year-old girl. It was the latest in the avalanche of recent sexual misconduct allegations sweeping the nation. And while many believed the claims, others took them with a grain of salt citing the timing as suspicious. On Sunday’s Good Morning America, ABC’s Martha Raddatz used her analysis to express her frustration and contempt for such people. “ I don't really know what those voters are waiting for,” she huffed.
ABC’s Chief Global Affairs Correspondent was teed up by her colleague Dan Harris, who prefaced his question saying: “So you have been out on the road and you spoke with the Governor of Ohio, John Kasich, as well as voters in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. Are they following this Moore story and what do they have to say about it?”
“Well, they seem to be definitely following this story. And frankly, they kind of follow what Roy Moore says in some cases,” Raddatz whined. “The Trump voters will say: ‘Look, if he did this, it’s bad. But we don't know whether he did this.’”
Raddatz was dumbfounded that there were people who didn’t believe the allegations. And her contempt was visible as she talked down to them and about their way of thinking:
But I think, generally, you hear, you know, we don't know and it was 40 years ago. Sort of the things that Roy Moore was saying. That “if,” “if” he did that. And I don't know really how you take this further. You've got four women on the record who The Washington Post sought out. They didn't come to The Washington Post. And 30 others who they talked to. So, I don't really know what those voters are waiting for.
The hypocrisy was almost unbelievable. Voters couldn’t be skeptical about the allegations against Moore, but her network and the rest of the media could be skeptical, omit, and deny the allegations against their precious Bill Clinton. As the Media Research Center’s Tim Graham wrote back on October 21, the networks had completely ignored the allegations of sexual misconduct and rape that belong to the former President as they recalled past allegations against powerful people.
“It seems like wherever Anita Hill came up in this week’s conversations about Harvey Weinstein, the liberal media kept up that annoying tactic of skipping from Hill’s 1991 allegations directly to Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood remarks,” Graham noted. And during the election, Graham recalled how in 1999 ABC had a blackout of Juanita Broaddrick’s allegation that Clinton had raped her in a Little Rock hotel room. And Raddatz’s ABC colleague Joy Behar decried Clinton’s accusers and nothing more than “tramps.”
And it’s obviously not just ABC that has this problem of telling the truth about Clinton’s sexual misconduct violations, it includes the entire liberal media. For example: In the wake of the Access Hollywood tape in 2016, CBS wanted to draw attention to sexual assault in politics, so instead of reporting on the plethora of allegations against Clinton from multiple women, they dredged up the debunked allegations against Justice Clarence Thomas. And on CNN you get shouted down for daring to even mention the allegations against Clinton on air.
It’s clear that for Raddatz and the rest of the liberal media, they’re the only ones who have a right to be skeptical of claims made against their favored politicians. As for actually calling a spade a spade and lumping Clinton in with the sexual abusers, I don't really know what those journalists are waiting for.
Raddatz's contempt for Alabama voters was sponsored by Bush's Best baked beans, Disney, Eliquis, Blue dog food, and Colgate Total.
Transcript below:
ABC
Good Morning America
November 12, 2017
8:08:44AM Eastern
(…)
DAN HARRIS: So you have been out on the road and you spoke with the Governor of Ohio, John Kasich, as well as voters in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. Are they following this Moore story and what do they have to say about it?
MARTHA RADDATZ: Well, they seem to be definitely following this story. And frankly, they kind of follow what Roy Moore says in some cases. The Trump voters will say: “Look, if he did this, it’s bad. But we don't know whether he did this.” I mean, there were some who were more definitive about it, saying he should go. But I think, generally, you hear, you know, we don't know and it was 40 years ago. Sort of the things that Roy Moore was saying. That “if,” “if” he did that. And I don't know really how you take this further. You've got four women on the record who The Washington Post sought out. They didn't come to The Washington Post. And 30 others who they talked to. So, I don't really know what those voters are waiting for.
(…)
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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 ABC’s Martha Raddatz was on a mission against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore on Sunday. After decrying skeptical Alabama voters for just not getting the message, she grilled White House Adviser Kellyanne Conway during This Week on if Moore should step aside. But no matter how many times Conway explained that she felt he should if the allegations were true, Raddatz insisted Conway was defending him. Conway called Raddatz out and pointed to the media’s double standard on ethics and failing to adequately report the corruption trial of Democratic New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez. Raddatz promised a full discussion later in the show, but it never came.
The two were discussing the allegations against Moore and the White House’s position for over four minutes before Conway brought up media’s hypocrisy on covering ethical scandals:
And we, already in this conversation, have probably spent more time talking about Roy Moore and this than we have talked about a Democratic United States senator who’s sitting in a federal courthouse as a criminal defendant in a trial. Has been indicted on some serious criminal counts and we can't get coverage on it.
And Conway was right. According to a Media Research Center study comparing the coverage of Moore and Menendez, between their morning and evening newscasts, ABC had spent only one minute and 48 seconds on the Menendez corruption trial since it began on September 9 to November 10. Meanwhile, they spent nine minutes and 48 seconds on the Moore story in the 24 hours after the news broke.
And none of the network Sunday morning shows on November 12 thought to give the trial any time at all, even though the jury was deliberating.
“We'll be talking about that. We'll be talking about that,” Raddatz said, brushing it aside. And once again, Conway condemned Moore for the allegations that he molested a 14-year-old girl:
I want to be very clear. I want to be very explicit here. I denounce that conduct and if the allegations are true, he should step aside. If they're true about a lot of people, they ought to step aside. And some of them are probably holding office right now.
But Raddatz ignored her and brought up a tweet by Mitt Romney who said: “Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections.” The Irony was lost on the ABC host because it could be argued that the same applied to the Menendez trail since his Democratic colleagues had been donating to his campaign.
As for the promised discussion on the corruption trial by Raddatz, it never happened. The only time it the trial was brought up again during the show was half-hearted questions posed to DNC Chairman Tom Perez in the seconds before a commercial break. “I'm going to quickly say: Corruption charges, the trial of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez. If he's found guilty, should he resign immediately,” she asked.
Perez blew off the question because “we’ll wait and see what happens. The jury has not spoken yet.” Adding, “Well again, the jury has not spoken yet so I don't like to answer what if questions.” Raddatz then quickly went to a commercial. Between her questions and his answers, that mention of the Menendez trial lasted a meager 16 seconds, and there was no panel discussion of it.
Her hypocrisy was on full display after that because she had grilled Conway for saying Moore should step aside “if” he was guilty.
Menendez was the first sitting U.S. senator to face a corruption trial since the 80s, and if found guilty he could face years in prison. But for Raddatz and the rest of the liberal media, they could barely be bothered to discuss it.
Radatz's refusal to really discuss the Menendez trial was sponsored by Pacific Life, BDO, Comcast Business, and Fidelity.
Transcript below:
 ABC This WeekNovember 12, 2017 9:09:20 AM Eastern
(…)
KELLYANNE CONWAY: On this one, you're talking about decades-long conduct. Allegations in the press. And we, already in this conversation, have probably spent more time talking about Roy Moore and this than we have talked about a Democratic United States senator who’s sitting in a federal courthouse as a criminal defendant in a trial. Has been indicted on some serious criminal counts and we can't get coverage on it.
MARTHA RADDATZ: We'll be talking about that. We'll be talking about that.
CONWAY: I want to be very clear. I want to be very explicit here. I denounce that conduct and if the allegations are true, he should step aside. If they're true about a lot of people, they ought to step aside. And some of them are probably holding office right now.
RADDATZ: Let me tell you what Mitt Romney tweeted this Friday. He said: “Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.”
(…)
9:52:08 AM Eastern [Raddatz’s questions and Perez’s answers: 16 Seconds]
RADDATZ: I'm going to quickly say: Corruption charges, the trial of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez. If he's found guilty, should he resign immediately?
TOM PEREZ: We’ll wait and see what happens. The jury has not spoken yet.
RADDATZ: But should he resign if he’s found guilty?
PEREZ: Well again, the jury has not spoken yet so I don't like to answer what if questions.
RADDATZ: Ok, thanks very much for joining us this morning.
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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 During Brian Stelter’s Sunday morning media sermon on CNN’s Reliable Sources, he and his panel of media critics decried what they called ‘negative partisan’ media and blamed it for dividing the country. Sounds pretty accurate, right? But according to them most of the blame for a divided country rested on the shoulders of conservative and right-leaning media outlets.
Stelter began the segment by noting data from the Pew Research Center that showed how “45 percent of Republicans see the Democrats as a threat to the nation's well-being and 41 percent of Democrats view the Republicans a threat.” And he wondered “what’s the relationship between so-called negative partisanship and our daily news consumption?”
His first guest was John Avlon from the left-leaning Daily Beast, who described “negative partisan” media as hatred for others and claimed it was the only thing holding the Republican Party coalition together:
What do libertarian Republicans and the religious right really have in common for example? What it is, they focus on what they hate, what they oppose, the drumbeat that’s hammered home bipartisan media in particular and their politicians. So the only glue holding the coalition together is opposition, not proposition.
“And this been particularly epidemic in the Trump era, as you point out. Right? It’s Trump’s going after the media. I may not like Trump, but I like the people he is attacking,” Avlon continued. “That’s a form of glue. Fox's obsession with keeping on talking about Hillary Clinton.” He complained that it was unusual for news outlets to continue to talk about the losing candidate nine months after an election. He conveniently omitted the fact that it was also unusual for a presidential candidate to surround themselves with so much scandalous activity.
Stelter praised Avlon’s explanation of “negative partisan,” calling it “helpful.” That’s probably because Avlon used his favorite punching back (Fox News) to make his point.
The CNN host then turned to David Zurawik, the media critic for The Baltimore Sunnewspaper. “How this comes through in news coverage? Is it fair to say, we do have a partisan media in this country, is I fair to say this is a problem on the left, but more of a problem on the right,” Stelter asked him.
“I think it's absolutely more of a problem on the right,” Zurawik proclaimed. His example was also from Fox News. He was upset that Laura Ingram brought up Bill Clinton’s sexual assault allegations after someone on MSNBC claimed the GOP was the party of protecting sexual predators. So according to Zurawik, it was worse for Ingram to bring up Clinton that it was for MSNBC to claim the entire GOP supported protecting sexual predators. Wrap your head around that one.
It’s ridiculous and hypocritical for Stelter to pretend that he and his network, and apparently the rest of the liberal media, didn’t bear any responsibility for creating a negative partisan media and dividing the country. During the 2016 election, he blamed a firebombing in North Carolina on Trump. And he had used his show as a platform to call the President a dictatorwho was threating the lives of journalists with tweets. And for all his targeting of Fox News as a partisan powerhouse, he almost never dedicates any segments of his show to the outrageous, derogatory, and false statements made by those at MSNBC.
Stelter’s biased media sermon was sponsored by Century Link Business, Optum, Alfa Romeo, and Prilosec OTC.
Transcript below:
CNN
Reliable Sources
November 12, 2017
11:47:29 AM Eastern
BRIAN STELTER: Just how divided are the United States of America and how does that explain a lot of the media and politics story we cover? I'd like to address that now starting with animated data from the Pew Research Center which has been tracking political polarization for decades. This is from 1994 until all the way up to this year. You can watch the two parties here. Democrats on the left in blue, Republicans on the right in red. And how the median Democrat and the median Republican shift further to the left and right as the years go on. Less and less middle ground middle ground between the two.
We know that big portions of the American public have deeply negative views of the other party. Let’s look at this data from Pew that makes the point. 45 percent of Republicans see the Democrats as a threat to the nation's well-being and 41 percent of Democrats view the Republicans a threat. So what’s the relationship between so-called negative partisanship and our daily news consumption? Is there anything journalists can do to help bridge this divide?
 (…)
John, first to you. This concept of negative partisanship, how do we explain it, how do we boil it down for the audience?
JOHN AVLON: Over the past several decades, people have become obsessed with politics as a badge of identity, the way perhaps religion may have been. But increasingly has those coalitions are pretty frayed; what do libertarian Republicans and the religious right really have in common for example? What it is, they focus on what they hate, what they oppose, the drumbeat that’s hammered home bipartisan media in particular and their politicians. So the only glue holding the coalition together is opposition, not proposition. And we see that played on out in election cycles as well. It's easier to rally people to come out against something than to stand for something. And that ends up degrading our Democracy.
(…)
AVLON: And this been particularly epidemic in the Trump era, as you point out. Right? It’s Trump’s going after the media. I may not like Trump, but I like the people he is attacking. That’s a form of glue. Fox's obsession with keeping on talking about Hillary Clinton. The losing candidate is usually not talked about nine months into another campaign. But it’s the glue that hold together their otherwise fragile and fructuous coalition. So we see evidence of it all the time. It makes us dumber, it makes us meaner it makes us more divided as a country.
STELTER: That’s a helpful way to look at it. Negative partisanship is the glue that holds these things together. David Zurawik, what's your view on how this is -- how this comes through in news coverage? Is it fair to say, we do have a partisan media in this country, is I fair to say this is a problem on the left, but more of a problem on the right?
DAVID ZURAWIK: I think it's absolutely more of a problem on the right. In two ways. One, to give you an example of it, I think was Friday night with Laura Ingram on Fox News, she really didn't want to defend Roy Moore straight up. So what she did is she found a clip from Morning Joe on MSNBC, where someone said: “Look, if the Republicans stand with Roy Moore, this is who they are in the next election cycle. They protect predators. They are the party of predators.” And so that's like 30 seconds. And then she says: “Oh, you want to go there? Let's talk about two words, Bill Clinton.” And the next 30 minutes is Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and every sin the right has ever had. And I thought: “Wow, that was the way to get out of that one.”
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By Kyle Drennen
On Friday, while marking the one year anniversary of Donald Trump being elected president, MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff traveled to Nevada hoping to find that Latino voters who backed Trump in 2016 had now abandoned him. However, much to his astonishment, he found that they remained steadfast in their support for the President.
“Two months before the 2016 election, I went on the Las Vegas radio show of Trump adviser Jesus Marquez....29% of Nevada’s Latino voters did vote for Trump. So last week I went back on Jesus’s show to see how things have changed since then,” Soboroff explained at the top of his report during the 10 a.m. ET hour.
Soboroff pressed Marquez: “What I want to know from you is, a year after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, are you still happy with the way that you voted and the way that he’s doing?” Without hesitation, the radio host replied: “Yes, especially in the economy. The economy’s growing, we are growing now at 3.1%.”
Looking back to 2016, Soboroff confessed:
What surprised me most when I was here last time is that so many of your listeners called in, okay, and said to me, “It doesn’t matter that I’m Latino, it doesn’t matter that Donald Trump has insulted so many members of my race.” I want to know, a year later, since all of this, do people out there, do your listeners feel the same way?
It turned out that they did. Caller after caller defied the liberal reporter’s expectation of dwindling support for Trump. One man declared: “I feel way, way, way better with this president than before he was president. So I will vote for him again...” Soboroff desperately tried to lecture him: “As a Latino voter, nothing that Donald Trump has done, including, you know, ending DACA, going forward with building these wall prototypes – ” The caller cut him off:
Wait a minute, that’s a problem, that’s a problem. He didn’t end DACA. DACA was over by Barack Obama. He put the date when it was gonna have to be finished he didn’t renew it. That’s way different, brother.
Another gentleman called in to the show and emphatically stated: “I’m a Mexican-born man, I came here when I was 4. Enough is enough. Enough of the political correctness. Enough of everybody gets coddled. Enough of the establishment.”
Finally, a woman on phone not only doubled down on her vote for Trump but also blasted the liberal media:
I voted for Donald Trump, alright? And at this point in my life, I am not sorry because I did it. Actually, I am very proud of Donald Trump to be my president. I want to ask, why these people in the media, regular media, is always talking about corruption of Donald Trump with Russia. Excuse me, it’s all over the internet, it’s all over the cable channels, that the actual corruption with Russia was Hillary Clinton. So excuse me, that is collusion, that is a problem.
Exasperated by all the pro-Trump sentiment, Soboroff turned to Marquez and fretted: “What’s it going to take, Jesus, for people to change their mind that supported Donald Trump in 2016?”
Fill-in anchor Kristen Welker introduced Soboroff’s piece by telling viewers:
President Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants was expected to doom him on election day in 2016, especially with Latino voters, after demonizing Mexico and Mexican immigrants....And while Trump did not win Nevada, he did get 29% of the state’s Latino voters. Now Jacob is back in Nevada to see if those voters have any buyer’s remorse.
After the taped segment, she turned to her political panel and was baffled as to how Trump could still have any Latino supporters:
WELKER: I want to remind our viewers of how President Trump started his campaign.
DONALD TRUMP [JUNE 16, 2015]: When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.
WELKER: Tim, when he first spoke those words, everyone said, “That’s it, he doesn’t have a shot.” You just heard one voter there in that conversation say, “I actually feel better about him now that he’s in office.” How do you square all of that?
Politico’s Tim Alberta observed: “Well, look, it’s a great reminder that the Latino community is not a monolith, electorally speaking.”
Welker again worried that Trump wasn’t being seen as anti-immigrant: “...one of the things that struck me is you heard that caller talking about DACA. He said, ‘Hey, wait a minute, the way that President Obama put it in place, it wasn’t meant to last.’ So that voter isn’t pointing the finger at President Trump.”
She then entertained the possibility that the media may be out of touch: “And yet, here in political circles, a lot of folks thought, ‘Oh, that’s going to cost him with Latino voters.’ Are we thinking about this in the wrong way?” The Washington Post’s Eugene Scott agreed: “I certainly think so....to look at people who backed Trump and to think that they voted primarily from a place of being concerned about how he spoke about demographics, it’s not why they supported him.”
The biased coverage was brought to viewers by T.Rowe Price, HomeLight.com, and Planters.
Here is a full transcript of the November 10 segment:
10:38 AM ET
 KRISTEN WELKER: President Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants was expected to doom him on election day in 2016, especially with Latino voters, after demonizing Mexico and Mexican immigrants. MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff tested that theory about a month before the election. He visited a Las Vegas Spanish language talk radio show and found a lot of support for candidate Trump. And while Trump did not win Nevada, he did get 29% of the state’s Latino voters. Now Jacob is back in Nevada to see if those voters have any buyer’s remorse.
JESUS MARQUEZ: Jacob Sobor –
JACOB SOBOROFF: Soboroff.
MARQUEZ: Soboroff. Did I say that right?
SOBOROFF: Soboroff. Two months before the 2016 election, I went on the Las Vegas radio show of Trump adviser Jesus Marquez. Our September poll showed 30% of Latino voters in Nevada would go for Trump and we wanted to find out why.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN A [CALLER]: Illegal immigration is not a big issue to me. But what – my big issue is jobs and creating and having a better economy.
SOBOROFF: It turns out our poll was right, 29% of Nevada’s Latino voters did vote for Trump. So last week I went back on Jesus’s show to see how things have changed since then.
MARQUEZ: We have here Jacob Soboroff. Did I say that right?
SOBOROFF: You got it right this time, 100% correct. What I want to know from you is, a year after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, are you still happy with the way that you voted and the way that he’s doing?
MARQUEZ: Yes, especially in the economy. The economy’s growing, we are growing now at 3.1%.
SOBOROFF: What surprised me most when I was here last time is that so many of your listeners called in, okay, and said to me, “It doesn’t matter that I’m Latino, it doesn’t matter that Donald Trump has insulted so many members of my race.” I want to know, a year later, since all of this, do people out there, do your listeners feel the same way?
MARQUEZ: We’ll open the lines.
SOBOROFF: Let's do it.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN B [CALLER]: I feel way, way, way better with this president than before he was president. So I will vote for him again and probably for his family if they run for president after 2020.
SOBOROFF: As a Latino voter, nothing that Donald Trump has done, including, you know, ending DACA, going forward with building these wall prototypes –
CALLER: Wait a minute, that’s a problem, that’s a problem. He didn’t end DACA. DACA was over by Barack Obama. He put the date when it was gonna have to be finished he didn’t renew it. That’s way different, brother.
LOUIS [CALLER]: My name is Louis. I’m a Mexican-born man, I came here when I was 4. Enough is enough. Enough of the political correctness. Enough of everybody gets coddled. Enough of the establishment.
ERICA [CALLER]: Buenos dias. I voted for Donald Trump, alright? And at this point in my life, I am not sorry because I did it. Actually, I am very proud of Donald Trump to be my president. I want to ask, why these people in the media, regular media, is always talking about corruption of Donald Trump with Russia. Excuse me, it’s all over the internet, it’s all over the cable channels, that the actual corruption with Russia was Hillary Clinton. So excuse me, that is collusion, that is a problem.
MARQUEZ: Thank you very much, Erica.
SOBOROFF: What’s it going to take, Jesus, for people to change their mind that supported Donald Trump in 2016?
MARQUEZ: Like I said, if something comes out that proves that he did something illegal, of course I’m not going to support any of that.
SOBOROFF: But for the time being?
MARQUEZ: He’s good.
WELKER: Thanks for that report, Jacob. I always love Jacob’s reporting.
Now I want to bring in my guests back, Eugene Scott, national political reporter for The Washington Post, and Tim Alberta, national political reporter for Politico. Thanks guys for sticking around. A lot to chew on there. Before we get to what we just heard in Jacob’s spot, though, I want to remind our viewers of how President Trump started his campaign.
DONALD TRUMP [JUNE 16, 2015]: When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.
WELKER: Tim, when he first spoke those words, everyone said, “That’s it, he doesn’t have a shot.” You just heard one voter there in that conversation say, “I actually feel better about him now that he’s in office.” How do you square all of that?
TIM ALBERTA: Well, look, it’s a great reminder that the Latino community is not a monolith, electorally speaking. I think a couple of things. First, President Trump actually was elected with a slightly higher percentage nationwide than Mitt Romney was. According to exit polls, 28% for trump, 27% for Romney, Latino voters nationwide. I think the number was 29% in Nevada.
That having been said, Donald Trump lost the state of Nevada by about two and a half points. Now, if the exit poll is even remotely accurate, at about 29% Latino voters, that’s a state that is about 50/50. It’s basically a majority-minority state at this point with Latino voters playing an overwhelming part of the vote share there. If Donald Trump were to have scored even 35% to 37% of that Latino vote, than he wins Nevada.
So on the one hand, I think it’s valuable to hear the perspective of some Latino voters in that state who said, “Yes, we proudly supported Trump, we still support him.” But overwhelmingly, if you look at 29 versus 71% who did not, you have to wonder, as he’s heading toward re-election in 2020, if the President needs to build on that existing support that he established in 2012 [sic].
WELKER: It’s a great question. And, Eugene, one of the things that struck me is you heard that caller talking about DACA. He said, “Hey, wait a minute, the way that President Obama put it in place, it wasn’t meant to last.” So that voter isn’t pointing the finger at President Trump. And yet, here in political circles, a lot of folks thought, “Oh, that’s going to cost him with Latino voters.” Are we thinking about this in the wrong way?
EUGENE SCOTT: I certainly think so. I covered politics in Arizona during the election and before the election. And what I saw when I spoke with many voters is pretty similar to what I saw with all demographics that supported Donald Trump. People who supported Trump, who got on the Trump train, are generally going to stay on, whether they’re Latino, evangelical, working class, women, college educated. And so, to look at people who backed Trump and to think that they voted primarily from a place of being concerned about how he spoke about demographics, it’s not why they supported him. And I think that’s what he was trying to explain.
WELKER: And very quickly, before we go, we had a little bit of a mini political earthquake this week, Democrats winning big in various states, but particularly Virginia and New Jersey. When you look toward 2018 and Democrats saying, “Hey, now we have a real shot at trying to take back the House, maybe even take back the Senate,” how important are Latino voters gonna be in 2018?
ALBERTA: Well, in some of these battleground states, more important than others. And in Virginia, you have a perfect example of a state that’s demographically transformed over the last two decades and the political transformation has been a corollary. And you’re going to see that in some of the other major battleground states in 2018, where Republicans are trying to flip Senate seats, and where, in some of these individual House districts, especially suburban districts outside of big cities, you have booming Hispanic populations.
WELKER: Alright, Tim and Eugene, thank you so much for another great conversation, really appreciate it.
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By MRC Latino Staff
As if anyone needed more evidence that Jorge Ramos has become journalistically incapacitated as a result of his rabid anti-Trump activism, along comes a new weekly podcast hosted by the veteran Univision news anchor that reveals just how severe is his case of Trump derangement syndrome.
The title of Ramos' new weekly online show is Contrapoder ("Against Power"), and the debut program featured a 17-minute interview with Puerto Rico's Governor that is solely dedicated, in Ramos words, to asking the Governor "why he doesn't criticize Donald Trump."
The program is painful to listen to, as Ramos subjects 38-year-old Governor Ricardo "Ricky" Rosselló to a barrage of every possible variation of the same question. Don't believe us? Here's a selection, in order, transcribed below:
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, CONTRAPODER, UNIVISION: They accuse you of being servile to Donald Trump, of being very soft...why do you not respond tougher to President Donald Trump?
...You have never called Donald Trump a racist. Why?
...Does it not seem to you, Governor, that it was a lack of respect for President Donald Trump to throw paper towels at the victims of the hurricane? Is that not a lack of respect? And why did you not come out to defend those Puerto Ricans? Is that not a lack of respect, Governor?
Despite being a Democrat, the young Governor steadfastly refused to participate in Ramos' determined smear campaign against President Trump, and even smacked the anchor down when Ramos went so far as to claim that the President does not consider what happened in Puerto Rico to be a real catastrophe.
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, CONTRAPODER, UNIVISION: When President Trump says that the real catastrophe was what happened in Katrina and not in Puerto Rico, why did you not defend the Puerto Ricans? Why didn't you tell him, 'Mr. President, that is not correct?' For many, you are very subservient.
RICARDO ''RICKY'' ROSSELLO, GOVERNOR OF PUERTO RICO: Well, because he didn't say that the real catastrophe was one, and not in Puerto Rico. He spoke of the Katrina catastrophe, right, and what we have always asked the President, after expressions or a twitter issue, is clarity. Does the President recognize that this is a disaster? Yes. I flew over the island with him and he could see that there are hundreds of thousands of homes in Puerto Rico that are destroyed, and he recognized that in the conversations we had and afterwards.
But Ramos wasn't the only one Rosselló smacked down. He also took San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz to task for the patently ridiculous statement, fed to him through Ramos, in which she said that "the real catastrophe has been the expressions of President Donald Trump."
RICARDO ''RICKY'' ROSSELLO, GOVERNOR OF PUERTO RICO: This is real simple. I am here to get results, right? Not to focus on what is being said or talked about. I've now just heard an expression where it is said, by the Mayor of San Juan, that the real catastrophe is what Donald Trump is saying, when every day what we are seeing is that the real catastrophe is what happened here in Puerto Rico. It's a hurricane. It's caused massive damage. That's what we have to focus on.
But even after two back-to-back smackdowns, Ramos' harangue was far from over. The same line of questioning continued:
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, CONTRAPODER, UNIVISION: Why do you continue treating Donald Trump so well?
...Is there not racism in the way that Donald Trump has treated you (Puerto Ricans), Governor?
...Puerto Ricans keep dying, and despite all this your attitude with Donald Trump is still the same. Due to the lack of aid, Governor. Because the aid they need has not arrived. In other words, the deaths and the wounded are because of the lack of aid that the government of Donald Trump has not provided in time.
Here again, Rosselló responded that though the island's main airports and seaports were closed in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, within a few days "the aid began to rapidly arrive...to say that aid hasn't been being brought simply is not correct."
Ramos then promptly turned to President Trump's October 12 tweet, made within the frequently unmentioned context of Sharyl Attkisson's Full Measure segment on how Puerto Rico's ability to withstand and respond to the impact of Hurricane María was severely handicapped as the result of years of corruption and chronic mismanagement of public resources.
Commenting on an online publicity promo in advance of Attkisson's incisive segment on the subject, in a succession of tweets the President noted that Puerto Rico's infrastructure was already "a disaster before the hurricanes" and that "Congress to decide how much to spend." He then made the following matter-of-fact statement that was quickly projected by his detractors as a threat to cut aid to Puerto Rico, when he said "We cannot keep FEMA, the Military and First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!"
This is how Ramos' characterized the President's tweet:
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, CONTRAPODER, UNIVISION: What Donald Trump is now saying in his tweet is that he doesn't want to keep FEMA, the military and the first responders there...does that not bother you, Governor? Does it not bother you that the President say that?
Rosselló responded that upon seeing the tweet he contacted White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who assured him that the tweet did not constitute a threat to remove federal aid, either from FEMA, the military or first responders.
Rosselló went on to say: "If it were the case that Donald Trump is saying that Puerto Rico, that we have to take the aid out of Puerto Rico, and they confirmed it to me in the White House as an action item, I would be the first to be on all the television programs denouncing that...at the moment when help is not being given, or commtiments are being broken, I am going to be the first to say so."
Wrapping up and clearly disappointed with Rosselló for failing to align with his anti-Trump agenda, Ramos went on to say "in all these minutes we have been speaking, Governor, not even one criticism of Donald Trump."
"My style is not to criticize. My style is to act. My style is to get results," the Governor concluded.
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