How The Propaganda Press Stoke Political Violence

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Federalist Radio Hour

Episode: How The Propaganda Press Stoke Political Violence
Date: April 28, 2026
Host: Matt Kittle (Senior Elections Correspondent, The Federalist)
Guest: Tim Graham (Executive Editor, NewsBusters at the Media Research Center)

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Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation between Matt Kittle and Tim Graham about the role of corporate media (dubbed “the propaganda press”) in fueling political division and even violence in the United States. The discussion ranges from recent assassination attempts on President Trump to the persistent negative tone of media coverage, the double standards applied to political violence and rhetoric, and the changing landscape of both legacy and comedic media environments.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. The Media’s Influence on Political Violence

• Recent Assassination Attempts: The conversation begins with reaction to the shooting incident at the Washington Hilton, drawing direct lines between extreme media rhetoric and real-world violence.
• Hyperbolic Language: The media’s tendency to liken Trump to Hitler or fascists is discussed as both irresponsible and dangerous.
  • “...not only does the media repeat, you’re a fascist, you’re a pedophile, you’re a rapist... the fact checkers don’t move a muscle.” — Tim Graham [04:56]
• No Let Up After Violence: Even after Trump was shot at a rally, network coverage (ABC, CBS, NBC) remained overwhelmingly negative.
  • “One of the most remarkable statistics is... two or three days after Trump was shot, his coverage was still remarkably negative.” — Tim Graham [07:54]

2. Media Bias and Narrative Over Facts

• Narrative-Driven Reporting: Graham argues corporate media prioritize narrative over facts, sculpting stories to further a negative image of Trump regardless of circumstances.
  • “They are incapable of producing anything else. ... It’s not that the news doesn’t have facts in it, but facts are subordinate to the messaging.” — Tim Graham [08:05]
• Coverage of Conflict: Even on geopolitics (e.g., the war in Iran), the media spins coverage to reinforce negativity and avoid any positive portrayal of Trump’s actions.
  • “They wanted to focus overwhelmingly on death and on ‘soaring gas prices’ at all times... there was really nothing ever positive accomplished.” — Tim Graham [10:17]

3. Double Standards and Selective Outrage

• Political Violence: Double standards exist in how violence is discussed, condemned, or excused depending on who commits or is targeted by it.
  • “If we had truly nonpartisan networks... we think political violence is bad no matter who commits it... There is such a double standard there.” — Tim Graham [16:19]
• Fact Checking: Media will fact-check conservative claims aggressively, but not equally extreme accusations from the left.
  • “You can call Donald Trump anything you want, a fascist, Hitler, pedophile, but you can’t call Kamala Harris a communist.” — Tim Graham [18:00]
• Narrative Omission: Omission is as impactful as bias in coverage. Important stories and dissenting viewpoints are often buried.
  • “The sins of their actual coverage are sometimes much less than the sins of omission.” — Matt Kittle [22:52]
  • “Half the time people don’t know what they’re not being told.” — Tim Graham [23:05]

4. Media Economics and Fragmentation

• Declining Influence: Viewership has dropped from 50-60 million on network news in the late '80s to perhaps 20 million today, in part due to lack of trust and fragmentation of news sources.
  • “It’s maybe 20 million on a good night. ... People tune out because they don’t trust it anymore.” — Tim Graham [21:44]
• Despite Shrinks, Agenda Remains: Networks still "set the agenda," determining national discussion topics and what gets buried.

5. Culture: Late Night, Comedy, and Social Media

• Late-Night Bias: Shows like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert are now openly partisan, essentially “by Democrats for Democrats,” abandoning any pretense of balance.
  • “Jimmy Kimmel has always been very forthright. He says it on television. If you’re a Republican, don’t watch this show.” — Tim Graham [34:02]
• Morbid Jokes Precede Violence: Kimmel’s joke about Melania Trump “glowing with expected widowhood” aired days before an actual attempt on Trump’s life, raising questions of taste and the effect of this rhetoric.
  • “Once again, these people all have a death lust for Trump, whether he is shot, whether he has a heart attack from eating too many hamburgers. They just want him to die.” — Tim Graham [32:23]
• Social Media’s Role: Social media has intensified division, amplifying extreme voices and alarmist rhetoric, making politics a 24/7 obsession rather than an occasional concern.
  • “When you spend your whole day in that environment, ... you have just an exaggerated sense of alarm.” — Tim Graham [38:01]

6. Cynicism, Responsibility, and the Future

• Hostility as Entertainment: Even as audiences shrink, the remaining legacy platforms (and comedic programs) double down because it energizes a devoted, if narrower, base.
• Business & Power: The media’s economic model and narratives are tied to the dominance of the Democratic Party, with negative coverage serving as both product and agenda.
  • “Everything is about the Democrats having maximum power over the country. ... journalism is to serve one party.” — Tim Graham [18:50]
• Looking Ahead: Graham cautions against predictions that legacy media will disappear soon, noting they survive due to their influence rather than economic health.
  • “There's still a dominant media... We have even a more urgent problem today of not just media bias, not just media negativity. But... the level of negativity is so virulent.” — Tim Graham [45:41]
• Political Class and “Civility”: The palpable change from prior decades’ bipartisan civility (Johnny Carson era) to today’s entrenched hostility is discussed, with media and social media both cited as drivers.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you spend more than a decade labeling someone as the next Adolf Hitler fascist, a threat to democracy...that rhetoric picked up incredibly around, oh, I don't know, 2023 or so, when the left and their public relations firm, the corporate media said...we better get going on the overheated. Turn up the temperature.” — Matt Kittle [05:39]
• “When we talk about fact-checking, you can call Donald Trump anything you want, a fascist, Hitler, pedophile, but you can’t call Kamala Harris a communist... and in this case [a leftist] literally talked about seizing the means of production.” — Tim Graham [18:04]
• “Political violence begets more political violence, and the same thing can happen with the tone and tenor of the rhetoric... the only restraint on that is my own Christian belief system. You have to lead with love and not with hate.” — Tim Graham [27:35]
• “Alex Christie here at Newsbusters...started making a spreadsheet of jokes. ... Kimmel’s show in 2024 had 3,333 jokes, and 92% of those were about Republicans and conservatives.” — Tim Graham [33:24]
• “We are now reaping what corporate media for a long time has sown.” — Matt Kittle [49:09]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Media’s Role in Political Violence & Rhetoric — [03:45]–[08:05]
• Analysis of Network Coverage After Trump Shooting — [07:23]–[08:05]
• Discussion of Media’s “Narrative Machine” — [08:05]–[10:17]
• Bias by Omission and Agenda-Setting — [22:52]–[24:01]
• Minocqua Brewing Company Free Beer Incident — [24:01]–[26:21]
• Late Night Comedy and Morbid Jokes (Kimmel, SNL) — [31:54]–[35:31]; [39:43]–[44:03]
• Media Economics and Audience Fragmentation — [21:21]–[22:52]; [41:02]–[44:03]
• Social Media’s Amplification of Hostility — [38:01]–[39:43]
• Legacy Media’s Survival & Last Word — [45:41]–[47:51]
• Chuck Todd’s Comments on “Chaos” — [47:51]–[49:09]

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Tone & Style

The conversation is pointed, often sardonic, and laced with strong opinions from a right-of-center perspective. Both host and guest balance humor and seriousness, often using memorable one-liners and pop culture references to underscore frustrations with the mainstream media’s alleged biases and their perceived impact on the national climate.

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Conclusion

This episode presents a deeply skeptical view of the corporate media, blaming it squarely for the toxic atmosphere in American politics. Kittle and Graham highlight modern media’s preference for narrative over objectivity, assert double standards, and point to the retreat of comedy and journalism from civility and impartiality. They warn listeners that while ratings fall, the media’s power over public discourse persists, and the negative consequences for American democratic society—especially in fueling political violence—are serious and ongoing.

Transcript

[Blue Square Alliance Spokesperson]

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[Matt Kittle]

Visit your nearby Lowe's.

[Tim Graham]

Foreign.

[Matt Kittle]

We are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist and your experience Sherpa on today's quest for knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio the federalist.com follow us on XDRLST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast and of course, to the premium version of our website as well. Our guest today is Tim Graham, the inimitable Tim Graham, as I like to call him. He's executive editor of News Busters at the Media Research Center. They've been tracking media bias for as long as I can remember, which means that's a pretty dang long time. Tim, thank you so much for joining us once again on this edition of the Federalist radio hour.

[Tim Graham]

The MRC is coming up on 40 years next fall.

[Matt Kittle]

Oh, my goodness. That's about the time. Let's see. I'm trying to put that in perspective. So 40 years this fall. 1986. What?

[Tim Graham]

87. Next year.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah, next year. I'm sorry. Okay, so. So fall 1987. What was I doing at that time in 1987? I can't discuss that. This is a family show. But anyway, you've been doing it for a long time and you have seen a lot of what the media, corporate media in particular, has dished out in this country, how it has attempted to, and on unfortunately many occasions, shaped culture and society and, and really our flow of information. But now the, the flow of information has changed as well. And so what did we experience once again on Saturday night? Well, shots ringing out at the Washington Hilton Hotel in yet another attempt on President Trump's life, we witnessed again the bitter harvest of political violence, the Trump hating media help. So you were tuned in to watch, to see what the President might have to say about the fake news. And then things really took a turn for the worse very quickly. What went through your mind at that point, Tim?

[Tim Graham]

Well, I think with most of us, it was, here we go again. Obviously, the left was so upset that instead of skipping it, as he normally has done, the President accepted the invitation to come. Obviously, it's much more traditional for the President to appear than to not appear, but in this case, it was a first time for Trump. And in the lead up to this, there was so much screeching about a permission structure for fascism. You know, I mean, they have talked about Trump for the last 10 years in such a hyperbolic way. You kind of never get used to it. I mean, you do, but you don't. And so the problem here is that not only does the media repeat, you're a fascist, you're a pedophile, you're a rapist. Some of these terms Norah o' Donnell threw right in Trump's face on Sunday night.

[Matt Kittle]

Yes.

[Tim Graham]

But there is no fact checking in real time at any time for you to compare Trump to a man who oversaw the murder of 6 million Jews. You know, there's, you can compare them to Stalin, you can compare them to Mao, you can compare them to Pol Pot, and you can call him a pedophile and a rapist, and the fact checkers don't move a muscle. So what you have there is just a, an enormous amount of say whatever you feel like, you know, obviously doesn't work that way for conservatives.

[Matt Kittle]

Indeed. But to your point, if you spend more than a decade labeling someone as the next Adolf Hitler fascist, a threat to democracy, and, you know, that has been the case for a long time, but obviously that picked up incredibly around, oh, I don't know, 20, 23 or so, when the left and their public relations firm, the corporate media said, oh, Houston, we have a problem here. All the things that we've tried to do to stop this guy, it's not working. And so we better get going on the overheated. Turn up the temperature, Tim. Rhetoric to the point where as Donald Trump becomes for the third time the Republican Party's candidate for president in July, just a little under two years ago, the man takes a bullet in his ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A rally goer is murdered in cold blood. Two others are seriously injured, and at that point, you had to think, okay, okay, maybe the left and, and the corporate media, maybe they are really going to turn down the temperature, as they like to say, turn off the, the vitriol 7. And they talked about that for about 30 minutes, Tim, and then they went right back to it. How are we, how, how, what is the logical conclusion to all of this other than what we saw again Saturday night?

[Tim Graham]

Yeah, I mean, by that standard, they were much more restrained Saturday night. Yes, we certainly noticed in 2024 that it was. We're not within the hour, Margaret Brennan on CBS was suggesting, well, Trump clearly hasn't turned the temperature down. She went right into negative mode. The man had been shot. And one of the most remarkable statistics is we studied the network news for two or three days after Trump was shot, and his coverage was still remarkably negative on me, abc, CBS and NBC evening newscasts.

[Matt Kittle]

That is amazing shot.

[Tim Graham]

And so that just tells you they cannot be shaken from what they do on a daily basis by events. I, I certainly think that if we had an assassination that was successful, God forbid they would remain negative and there would be no eulogies and the talk about him afterwards would be 90% negative, because that's what it always is. So it is, it's something where, when Trump calls them fake news, I prefer to define it this way, which is these people are a narrative machine. They're a messaging factory. They will mold whatever the facts of the day are into another package of negative information. Just today we put out a study showing two months of the war in Iran, 88% negative coverage. It's just, it is what they do. They are incapable of producing anything else. And so that's where it's like. It's not that the news doesn't have facts in it, but facts are subordinate to the messaging. We will sculpt the facts into a picture by which you will be extremely discouraged that Donald Trump has not been removed from office yet. That's their tone, exactly.

[Matt Kittle]

I think that study that you mentioned, you tracking how the coverage has been presented, the coverage of the war in Iran is interesting to me because I know for 40 years, you folks have been looking at, okay, how, how is the story presented, what are the facts and how, how is the story presented? And you know, I have, like a lot of Americans, I have questions and concerns about what we're doing in Iran, where we're heading from here to there. All of that said, I can see that it doesn't matter what we do in Iran. It's always going to be presented in A dark, shadowy narrative. They never, never seem to change. And I think that's a perfect example of what you're talking about.

[Tim Graham]

Yeah, I mean, it's just the latest example of many. But I think that we have looked at this and thought the liberal or left wing narrative is always, oh, state run media, that especially at wartime, you know, you have to be patriotic. There's been none of that. There's been no rah rah cheerleading. Not that we expected it, but again, just in terms of them being able to describe how Iran's defenses have been degraded, they don't even want to focus on that. They wanted to focus overwhelmingly on death and on, quote, unquote, soaring gas prices at all times. And yeah, there was really nothing ever positive accomplished. And it's not over yet. So it's. You can you say, we want it? You know, okay. But it is just the latest example of how whatever the president isn't doing, it's negative. If he wants to build a beautiful new ballroom, that's a scandal. You know, everything is a scandal.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah. A ballroom, by the way, that would protect the President and his administration and the journalist so called who attend the White House correspondence dinner annually. It's just amazing. But just back to the Iran thing. You know, I think it really is telling that you have a regime in Iran, an evil regime. There is no other way to describe these folks. A regime that is capable of mowing down what, 35, 45,000 of its own people simply for going out and protesting and saying, we've, we've had enough of this evil regime. But that's what evil regimes do. So no one should be surprised at that. This is an evil regime that clearly we all know. World monitors know it's not only going after nuclear weaponry. They were lying through the years about this. And we had previous administrations paying pallets of cash so that, you know, effectively they would play ball. And of course, they didn't. So Donald Trump does what the corporate media and their friends on the left have screened about for years. And Trump won't do anything to take on the evil regime of Iran. When he does do that, all of a sudden he's more evil than the ayatollahs over there. Americans have to see the disconnect, don't they? I mean, still, they're still sane. Americans aren't. Aren't there, Jim?

[Tim Graham]

Sure. Well, a lot of times, though, again, we can go into the war right now and say, how is it going? You know, we're not sure. And so then it's like, again, NBC was the least negative at 79%. And the reason for that is they were actually relaying more to the audience of how the Joint Chiefs of Staff explained what was going on and what they had been doing and what they felt they had accomplished. It just shows you they didn't want to. The other two really didn't want to go there. And probably to me, the most interesting finding was ABC was 93% negative. CBS was 92% negative. And you'll recall that when Paramount bought CBS and installed this Bari Weiss as editor in chief, they all had a fit that it was going to become CBS Newsmax. Honestly, when we watch this on a daily or nightly basis, you're going to find an exciting exception to the rule here or there. They had an interview with Erica Kirk. Oh, my goodness. But it is. The rule remains. It is still sounds like the Dan Rather network. It is still remarkably negative toward Trump, as you could see again, when Norah o' Donnell sits down with him and starts reading the manifesto of the guy that wanted him dead.

[Matt Kittle]

Yes,

[Tim Graham]

I doubt that that's exactly the way that 60 Minutes would have ever questioned Obama. And they have a big history, 60 minutes and a big history of all these softball interviews that Steve Kroft did with Obama. They were so positive in the 2008 campaign that CBS News made a promotional DVD for Obama voters.

[Matt Kittle]

Not this shouldn't be surprising, but, but it is disgusting, that is for sure. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's really, I think after Saturday night, what we saw, as we have often seen from corporate media, from the major broadcast networks in particular, is the whataboutism. You know, the guy, again, I take you back to Butler, Pennsylvania. I take you back to Mar a Lago and the guy hiding in the shrubbery, you know, and then this guy on Saturday who burst in, thankfully, he is stopped after he moves through the checkpoint. But they can all see this guy and, you know, he's, he's shooting the gun and it isn't. But what. It's rather quick. And the usual suspects in corporate media start saying, well, sure, we should condemn political violence, but isn't it really Donald Trump's fault? That's the narrative, isn't it?

[Tim Graham]

Well, they always do want to go back. And some of these things, of course, go back to the 2016 campaign. There's a difference between saying, punch a guy in the face and somebody, you know, somebody's Hitler and they need to be eliminated. I mean, but I think that the, the problem here is if we had a Truly nonpartisan networks instead of networks they could easily suggest we're going to have a single standard, and that is we think political violence is bad no matter who commits it, no matter who talks about it, with, with a lust for violence, you know, like this Margaret Cho, the comedian who said we need feral, bloodthirsty Democrats. I mean, that's, they're not going to talk about that on ABC or cbs, you know, and you could say, well, she doesn't matter anymore. She's starring on an ABC show now called Will Trent. So it's not like she's totally a. Has been, but it's that whole notion of you could be against violence of all kinds. They were very much against the rioting on January 6th, and they were very much sort of supportive of the rioting in the streets in 1990 after George Floyd's death. They wanted to call that a rebellion. So I mean, it's, there is such a double standard there. Just the same way that they, you know, that they will let you call Donald Trump anything you want, a fascist Hitler pedophile, but you can't call Kamala Harris a communist. They all jumped down Trump's throat for saying Kamala Harris is a communist. Then they did it when Trump called Mom Donnie a communist. And in this case Mom Donnie literally talked about seizing the means of production, right? And they still decried like, how dare Trump say such a thing? So there's also, so there's a double standard on violence. There's a double standard on so called fact checking. And of course we're also seeing right now there's a complete double standard on gerrymandering. And that is that we're for it when we do it in blue states. And it's horrible when Texas does it. You know, it's great when Virginia does it, and then now it's horrible when Florida does it. And it's just people have to be able to look at that if they're really paying attention and say these, these people, their standard is Democrat. Everything is about the Democrats winning. It's all about the Democrats having maximum power over the country. And that's really what the purpose of journalism is, to serve one party. It sounds like state run media, except they're not always in charge of the state, but they seem to always be in charge of the press.

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[Blue Square Alliance Spokesperson]

Here's a thought that shouldn't be controversial. You can think someone is completely wrong and still not hate them. I know, wild. But somehow we've turned disagreement into a personality and hate into something people are way too comfortable with. And it's not just happening in one place. Hate is rising across communities in different ways. And Jewish communities are getting hit especially hard right now. And hate doesn't just stay in one lane, it spreads. So even if you think this isn't your issue, give it a minute. You don't have to agree with people. You just have to decide you're not okay with hate. That's it. The blue square is a simple way to say that out loud. Go to bluesquarealliance.org, get a pin, share it or don't, but at least don't pretend this isn't happening.

[Matt Kittle]

Just a note to the Pravda press, by the way, and I say that relevant to related to what I'm about to say. If someone is not only quoting Trotsky and Stalin, but doing what Trotsky and Stalin did, they're probably a communist. I think there's a Jeff Foxworthy bit in there somewhere. If you're talking about seizing the means of production, you might be a communist. See, that's the thing. But I think that the American viewer is getting tired of it, I would have to think. But yet there is obviously some impact here. What are the numbers, the ratings numbers look like for these players, particularly an increasingly diffuse media landscape?

[Tim Graham]

Well, obviously now the. You know, when, when I started at the MRC in 1989, shortly after George H.W. bush was inaugurated, you know, these people probably had 50 to 60 million viewers, the three networks on an average weeknight.

[Matt Kittle]

But remember, Tim, it was a kinder, gentler conservatism then.

[Tim Graham]

Well, it was a kinder, gentler receiver. Tax hikes, as I recall. But yes, yes, indeed, I hear what you're saying Now. It's maybe 20 million on a good night. So it's. The audience has gotten much smaller just because in some level, part of that is people tune out because they don't trust it anymore. But part of it is just the nature of how dramatically diffuse our choices are now. You know, you got all these 24 hour cable news channels so you don't have to tune in in the evening to get your news. You can get your news whenever you want. You've got news all over your phone if you need news. So it's just, you know, it's not the same where everybody tunes in at 5:30 to listen to the news. So it's all of that. But the fact of the matter is these networks still set the agenda. They still are the place where the national discussion begins. And especially there's what they decide they want to discuss and then there's everything they want to bury and not allow people to discuss.

[Matt Kittle]

Ah, yes, and you know, very important point because you know, the, the sins of their actual coverage are sometimes much less than the sins of omission.

[Tim Graham]

Yes. And the problem with bias by omission is half the time people don't know what they're not being told. And this is where the conservative media is so important, obviously, because we come in and say, well, here's a story that's happening that you probably haven't heard about because they don't want you to know about it, but you can know about it. So if you're, you know, conservative by disposition, you're going to know a lot more than the average person who maybe just tunes into the Today show in the morning because they need the weather forecast and they're going to get a very limited diet of what's going on in the news. And some of these things are of massive national importance. And some of them are just stories, narratives that they don't want you to talk about. Like the brewery in Wisconsin that has free beer day for the day that Donald Trump dies.

[Matt Kittle]

Yes, I'm quite familiar with that. Wrote a piece on that at the Federalists today. This guy has been saying this kind of stuff. By the way. We'll break a little news here, Tim, while we're talking. I did reach out to the FBI and the US Secret Service and they are very aware of said Brewer, who the evening, on Saturday evening, right after the first reports of the shooting come out, the gunmen storming into the, the White House correspondence dinner, this guy once again in his usual form, puts out on his social media that o basically, isn't it a shame that our brothers and sisters in the resistance aren't better marksmen? But we'll, we'll get him next time, basically. And when we do, it's free beer for everybody. Now, you see, that to me isn't just a matter of the First Amendment. There is not only, as Wisconsin Congressman Derek Van Orden said, there's not only, you know, a, a sentiment of, of threat in there. There also seems to be a bounty in there in Wisconsin, free beer that means a great deal. Let me tell you something. The only thing that would be more inducing is bratwurst and cheese curds. So I mean, in all seriousness, that is, that is an issue. But I think it leads us to, and I want to get to this in just a moment, what we've seen over the, the last several years in this country and how it's radicalized people and the media role in this. Tim Graham, the inimitable Tim Graham, executive editor of NewsBusters at the Media Research center, joining us in this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. What do you say about that, Tim, when you hear these messages all the time, you know, you see studies out there that 50 for 55% of, of liberals, people who identify as liberals say, you know, at some level it's acceptable to, you know, for political violence to assassinate the president of the United States, the vice president, his admin. How culpable is the corporate accomplice media in all of that?

[Tim Graham]

Well, when they do polls like this, I mean, first of all, to me the answer is so obviously no, like there's not a place for political violence in a nice established democracy. I think sometimes if you, for example, poll your average National Rifle association member and you ask them is there potentially a time at which we will need political violence? And they're thinking about the descent of tyranny or the invasion of a hostile army, and they're saying, well, in that case, we're going to need to use our guns. And so they'll say yes to the political violence question. To me, the context really matters. But I think generally we should all say no in that we need a nice civilized place now. So, for example, does this gentleman with the Minocqua Brewing Company, with free beer for Trump being dead, does he have to fear that somebody's gonna set a fire to his establishment? I think that what upsets me sometimes is conservatives don't get the credit for we generally don't do this stuff, you know.

[Matt Kittle]

Exactly.

[Tim Graham]

January 6th aside, generally conservatives don't settle their things by. Well, you said a very inflammatory thing, so now you have a very inflammatory Bar Brewing Company. And that's the problem is that political violence begets more political violence and that the same thing can happen with the Tone and tenor of the rhetoric. You call the guy, I voted for Hitler. You're basically saying to me that I voted for Hitler. Well, you're a communist and you don't deserve to live in this country. You should be deported with all the Mexicans, la la la, you know, and you get all hyped up. And to me, for me, the only restraint on that is my own Christian belief system. I have to, you know, you have to lead with love and not with hate. And you've gotta, when you, when you make messages for social media, you better think twice before you hit send. And there's way too much of that today that people are, I mean, the algorithm rewards anger. There's nothing wrong with anger. There's nothing wrong with division in politics, because politics is about dividing. But, and there's nothing that I love dropping a good zinger when I can drop a zinger. But it's, it's all a matter of what does the larger picture look like. So when Brian Stelter comes out after the shooting and he says, well, this is just another sad day in America with the Second Amendment or there's too much access to guns. Right? So my answer is just to go, okay, so no Second Amendment pocket squares for your suit. Right.

[Matt Kittle]

That is the problem, isn't it? Is that, you know, we have these cherished bill of, this cherished Bill of Rights, we have these cherished liberties and we, we should fight for them, we should stand up and defend them. The problem is there are people who want to use those rights, those, those liberties against the free Americans, against a free country. And, and that is, it's, it's a difficult balancing act. And it has been, by the way, for 250 years as we celebrate the birth of this country, this republic. But all of that said you, you mentioned the, you know, the, the signs, you know, those, those powerful messages that members of the left like to send, you know, especially when they're beating the hell out of ICE agents. Let love rule. You know, love lives in our house and these things don't live in our neighborhood. You know, racism and all of these sorts of things. And then of course, they go around exhibiting the opposite of that behavior. And that's what I guess I struggle with all the time, is we're being told by the, the, the media in general and by the, the leftist in America that love is love. And then they exhibit so much hatred. Which brings me to Jimmy Kimmel. Let's talk about the late night landscape and Jimmy Kimmel in particular. Obviously, we, we've and of course, NewsBusters has covered this area extensively. The, the amount of liberal indoctrination, basically what these shows have turned into, particularly Colbert and Kimmel, nightly Democratic Party talking points. But Kimmel, there he is just a couple of days before the latest attempt on the president's life. And what is he saying? I know it didn't age well, Tim.

[Tim Graham]

Well, yeah, because he was upset, as all the leftists were, that there wasn't going to be a comedian at this event, that Kimmel had to do his own. Let's make pretend that I'm there and I'm going to make my remarks in Trump's face. And so he had these video clips, you know, and so they show this video clip of Melania and He says, oh, Mrs. Trump, so beautiful with the glow of expected widowhood.

[Matt Kittle]

Jeez.

[Tim Graham]

You know, and once again, these people all have a death lust for Trump, whether he is shot, whether he has a heart attack from eating too many hamburgers. They just want him to die. And they seem unhappy every day that he has not died yet. Well, he says all this, the Trump, there's a shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner. And that really ages badly. And then they're all like, well, that's not what he meant. And Jimmy Kimmel comes out and says, I meant the age difference between Donald and Melania. That was what I said. Now, if you made that joke in 2017, and a lot of people did, that's one thing. The president was actually shot in the ear. This is the third assassination attempt, but there were two before, while he, after, you know, before he made this joke. When you make jokes about Trump being dead, a lot of Americans are going to think about the assassination attempts.

[Matt Kittle]

I did.

[Tim Graham]

It's not funny. No, but they. That's not the point. So, yes, Alex Christie here at Newsbusters, he's the junior member. And this was. He just decided, I'm going to start making a spreadsheet of jokes. And here's what we found. Let's go back to 2024, the last president, last presidential election year. Kimmel show in 2024 had 3,333 jokes, and 92% of those were about Republicans and conservatives.

[Matt Kittle]

Wow, that's great research right there.

[Tim Graham]

I mean, and he was the worst. But they're all like this. Yeah. And then there's measuring the guests, which we also have a spreadsheet for the guests. And as you know, Colbert and Kimmel, this is why you were making this point, are constantly having on and now four segments With Bernie Sanders. You know these sorts of shows. So you have the Democratic jokes about how Trump needs to die soon and then four segments with Bernie Sanders. Yes, you can understand. There's a lot of people. It's like, yeah, no, I think I'll watch sports. But I just thought it was fascinating that Kimmel's show had, like, almost 1700 jokes about Trump, 146 about Biden, 10 about Kamala Harris in all of 2024. Now, if you want to try to tell me that Kamala Harris doesn't have anything that would inspire you to make a funny. But again, Jimmy Kimmel has always been very forthright. He says it on television. If you're a Republican, don't watch this show. That's the nature of it. Johnny Carson was gentler back in his day because he really was speaking to a broad mass of Americans. He was the king of late night. These guys are like, no, no. This is just. This is by Democrats for Democrats. And if you're not a Democrat, get out of my club.

[Blue Square Alliance Spokesperson]

Here's a thought that shouldn't be controversial. You can think someone is completely wrong and still not hate them. I know, wild. But somehow we've turned disagreement into a personality and hate into something people are way too comfortable with. And it's not just happening in one place. Hate is rising across communities in different ways. And Jewish communities are getting hit especially hard right now. And hate doesn't just stay in one lane. It spreads. So even if you think this isn't your issue, give it a minute. You don't have to agree with people. You just have to decide you're not okay with hate. That's it. The blue square is a simple way to say that out loud. Go to bluesquarealliance.org, get a pin, share it or don't, but at least don't pretend this isn't happening.

[Matt Kittle]

You raise a good point. And it brings back a memory of mine as. As a youth, and it was early into President Reagan's first term, and we all hopefully know the history. The president was. Was shot in an assassination attempt. There's a strange bit of reasoning behind it by the man who pulled the trigger, who apparently had quite a crush on Jody Foster at the time. But that's all part of the background. But if I remember correctly, Johnny Carson was the host of. What was it at that time? The Oscars? The Emmys, one of the award shows. I don't remember what it was, but he came on hosting that show. I believe it was the night after and he referenced the assassination attempt and he talked about how, you know, America is watching and praying for the President, United States, something to that effect. And the people in that crowd, all of those Hollywood glitterati celebrities, you know, without their, you know, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free signs, they all stood up and they clapped in unison because they were concerned about the President of the United States. My God, what a different world we live in now, Tim. And that has so much to do with the Jimmy Kimmel's of the world, what has turned out in late night television. But the, the news, the corporate news media that we've, we've been talking about this this entire podcast.

[Tim Graham]

Well, I think you have to include social media as well. This is obviously one of the things that's very different. Yeah, absolutely. And here we were with the, with this shooter from the other night and they found his blue sky messages or what he decided to repost. And yeah, it's a remarkable listing of all the Trump haters on social media from Bill Kristol and David Fromm and all of the people who are the, you know, put out the nastiest mentions about Trump. And, and so when you spend your whole day in that environment, again, you have just an exaggerated sense of alarm. And I think in the. Yeah, back in the 1980s, you didn't necessarily walk around all day thinking about the president. Yeah, right. Now if you're a White House reporter, that's a little different. But I'm just saying most Americans, the presidency was something like, yeah, you might read, read about it in the paper or see 5 minutes of news about it, but it was not the dominant fact of our lives. And I think that's where it's a little different now is that. And people get much more agitated about it because they're constantly thinking about it and talking about it then the way it, it maybe it was back then, at least for really politically involved or politically aware people. So it's, it is a different world. And it, yes, it's, we have much less civility now than we did, you know, when we were young.

[Matt Kittle]

Well, let's face it, when Reagan began his first term, most Americans were thinking about how am I going to pay for my mortgage? Because they were dealing with the four years previous malaise of the Carter administration. Which brings me to Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live launched in, in 1975. It has never been, you know, it's, it's never been a right of center show comedy show for sure. But at that time they did were much More of an equal opportunity show when it came to lampooning politicians because, you know, politicians are funny. And so that's what I don't, I guess I, I don't understand how much that has changed and what has happened driven that because really, Kimmel has lost half of his potential viewership. And like you said, he simply does not care more so though, ABC seems to not care why. There's money here, isn't there?

[Tim Graham]

Yeah, I mean, this is the interesting thing about late night that these shows do not make money, you know, and that's why Colbert is going away. It's not about the, you know, CBS wants to shut down Colbert because they don't like his politics. There is just spending an enormous amount of money we starting with his salary. But it's like in a staff of over 100 people making an hour of TV. And it's not a drama with 37 cameras. It's. It's a chat show. And so one answer would have been, let's make a much cheaper talk show, but they decided not to do that. But the interesting thing about Saturday Night Live is again, just a few weeks ago on their fake Weekend Update news, Michael Che had this joke about President Trump went to the Kennedy Center. What could possibly go wrong at the theater? And this was considered humor. And that's where we are. And so, yeah, I remember as a kid, Dan Aykroyd doing his Jimmy Carter impression, which was pretty good. And yeah, they played it for laughs. Alec Baldwin playing Trump was not for laughs. I mean, this, the new guy, James Austin Johnson. His Trump is actually a good impersonation, unlike Baldwin's. And they're at least making some humorous observations in there somewhere. But even under Biden, all of their aggression at Saturday Night Live was against Trump. You know, there was no. The guy that, you know, they didn't do these cold open skits mocking Biden. They were still, they spent, I mean, like the rest of the news media. It's like Biden wasn't really President. It's like Trump was still president in terms of who people were paying attention to in these news and entertainment programs. It's like Trump never left the White House because, I mean, what was Biden doing? Biden was hiding his, his team was hiding them from the press and hiding him from the people because he was declining. Faculty were leaving him. So they, Everybody was on the team. Once again, everybody was on the team. You know, and then afterwards, Jake Tapper was like, oh, whoops, gosh, guys, I think behind the scenes, everybody was upset yeah, you hit it. You tried very aggressively to hide it. It's the absolute opposite of the way they cover Trump. And that's where, to me, I really lose my patience is when they now they spent the first term saying he was losing his mind. They're back to now saying he's losing his mind. And it's like, you really don't get to talk to us about people losing their mind.

[Matt Kittle]

Yeah. If this were a court of law, the judge would say, you have no standing. And that is the thing. They have no standing. After four years of hiding this president who had the cognition of a bowl of KFC mashed potatoes and gravy. I, I'm sorry, I'm. I'm calling it like it is. We all knew something was wrong, but we keep hearing from, you know, the Joe Scarboroughs of the world. This is the best version of Joe Biden I've ever seen.

[Tim Graham]

Really?

[Matt Kittle]

Because that's really sad for you and for the president, Joe Biden. But I mean, let's close on this point. Why? I know they've lost a lot of their standing, but they still have some standing. If we all saw what we saw with Joe Biden and they're still polling this stuff with Donald Trump. One of two things going on here. First and foremost, corporate media does not recognize. I think they do, but I think they should be a little more appreciative because they make money when they talk about Trump. They didn't make money when they talked about Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. That wasn't interesting to people. But that said, their interest is tied into this just insane Trump derangement syndrome death cult that is playing out in real time in America. So where does this media landscape go from here, Tim?

[Tim Graham]

Yeah, I mean, I. Look, I think it was a better business proposition during Trump's first term. Like the Washington Post brought out Democracy Dies in Darkness. La la la. And they made money. Washington Post now is losing money. They were laying people off en masse. It's harder now. There's one of the reasons these companies are being bought by Paramount or whatever is because, yes, the economics are not as good as. But, you know, the fact of the matter is there's still a dominant media. You know, I Remember in the 90s where they would say, hey, guys, there's not going to be evening news casts anymore in the next 10 or 15 years, and they're all still here. And so I would not try to say to anyone, this is all going away. And obviously they would say, well, what would you Do Media Research Center. If these networks went away, you know, we'd find something else to do. But the fact of the matter is we're, we have even a more urgent problem today of not just media bias, not just media negativity. But as we've discussed, the level of negativity is so virulent, it doesn't compare to the way they covered the Bushes. You know, but one of the reasons why the Republican voters got tired of the Bushes and picked Trump instead is because they called George W. Bush Hitler. They were perfectly fine with Cindy Sheehan, the protester, coming up and saying that George W. Bush was the world's number one terrorist and this sort of thing. And so Trump basically said, you know, I'm not taking any of this guff. I'm not taking this lying down. You insult me, I'm going to insult you right back to your face. They're not used to that. This is one of the reasons they get so upset, because they honestly expect the Republicans to say, thank you, sir. May I have another?

[Matt Kittle]

Exactly. And I think you put it all very well. We forget because we are in the eye of the hurricane right now. Every, the chaos is surroundings, which by the way, way I found very interesting from Chuck Todd. I'll close with this. Chuck Todd, of all people, jumps on a podcast and says he doesn't feel safe anymore. He's not going to go where Donald Trump is. Because chaos surrounds Donald Trump. Violence surrounds Donald Trump. Well, Chuck, how do you. Why do you think it got that way? Do you think you might have some responsibility in that, some culpability in that? But they're either really obtuse or they simply don't care. Because as you mentioned before, Tim, the narrative is the most important thing. The truth isn't even secondary the narrative. And then the narrative used by the power seeking is used for power. Thank you so much as always. Great perspective on an interesting area of our society, a critical area of our society. I appreciate that.

[Tim Graham]

You know, this is why I always say Chuck Todd's basically saying, I don't trust my own side.

[Matt Kittle]

Yes, exactly. Because again, as we started out this conversation, we are now reaping what corporate media for a long time has sown. Thanks to my guest today, Tim Graham, the inimitable Tim Graham, executive editor of Newsbusters at the Media Research Center. They've been tracking media bias for, for a very long time. Nyanda to 40 years, if I can say nyan to. You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.

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