Donald Trump returned to the spotlight on Sunday with a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, but news channels took different approaches to how they covered the event.
Fox News broadcast the speech live, but CNN and MSNBC did not.
The latter two networks covered the speech: CNN had Jim Acosta and Donie O’Sullivan in Orlando, while MSNBC stayed with Al Sharpton’s Politics Nation. Sharpton opened his show by blowing up the speech, saying it “proves how pleased the Republican Party is at keeping in the dark”.
On CNN, anchor Ana Cabrera went to Acosta, who ran clips of Trump’s opening speech and then questioned one: “There has never been a more successful journey than the one we have been on.” Acosta noted that Trump had lost the election. CNN later made segments of Trump’s appearance with a chyron that read, “Trump serves the same old lines, the same old lies at CPAC.”
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Trump opened his speech with the words: “Hello CPAC. Do you miss me already? “He teased the possibility of running in 2024 and again made the false claim that he won the election last year.” Who knows, I might decide to beat her a third time, “Trump said.
He made some news and rejected reports that he was considering starting a third party. “I’m not starting a new party. This is false news, ”he said.
Trump’s speech was a bit unusual in that ex-presidents usually wait longer before criticizing an incumbent. Trump, who was banned from Twitter, has remained relatively silent since inauguration but gave interviews to Fox News following Rush Limbaugh’s death and reports of a serious Tiger Woods car accident.
His CPAC speech was something of a catch-up exercise in blowing up Joe Biden’s administration, especially for reversing policies on areas like immigration and the environment. He also went to some of his biggest hits – like Attacks on the News Media, “Breaking Culture” and Windmills – fearing Biden would credit the Covid-19 vaccine.
“Never let them take out the loan. Joe Biden is just executing the plan that we implemented, ”he said.
The difference in approach to Trump’s speech is not much of a surprise. Even when he was president, CNN and MSNBC reduced the number of live events they would host amid concerns that Trump would be given a platform to spread misinformation.
Newsmax TV, BBC News 24, BBC World, Sky News and C-SPAN also gave the speech, according to the research company Medium Buying.
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