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Analysis: Vast Majority Of Media Coverage Following 2nd Trump Attack Plot Negative

By Updated: MEDIA

According to a Media Research Center (MRC) analysis, establishment media coverage of former President Donald Trump was 95 percent negative following the second attempt on his life. The analysis found that ABC, CBS, and NBC News all provided predominantly negative commentary about the Republican presidential candidate after the thwarted shooting at Trump International Golf Course in Florida on Sunday.

“A look at the first 72 hours of coverage on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts — Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights — finds that while the attempted assassination dominated campaign coverage, these networks’ anti-Trump spin was nearly as bad as it could be: 95 percent negative, vs. just five percent positive,” wrote MRC contributing editor Rich Noyes.

The attempted assassination, allegedly carried out by 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, dominated 70 percent of campaign news airtime on ABC, CBS, and NBC. Despite this extensive coverage, 20 out of the 21 evaluative comments reviewed by the Media Research Center were negative toward the former president. After Secret Service agents thwarted Routh’s by shooting at him as he allegedly waited to get a shot at Trump, he said that “communist left rhetoric” was to blame.

“The Rhetoric, Lies, as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC Debate, and all of the ridiculous lawsuits specifically designed to inflict damage on Joe’s, then Kamala’s, Political Opponent, ME, has taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust. Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse! Allowing millions of people, from places unknown, to INVADE and take over our Country, is an unpardonable sin,” he noted on the X platform.

Over on NBC, Lester Holt related the “apparent” assassination attempt to Trump’s “rhetoric” just hours after the would-be gunman was taken into custody. “Today’s apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign trail itself. Mr. Trump [and] his running mate JD Vance continued to make baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio,” the anchor said.

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For the better part of a year, both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as most members of their joint administration, have called Trump a “threat to democracy” and strongly suggested that electing him will mean the end of the republic. Others have claimed that Trump will immediately become a “dictator,” though Trump has never exhibited such tendencies and willingly left office after he lost to Biden in 2020. Nevertheless, during CBS’s Monday night broadcast, Norah O’Donnell fired back at Trump’s claim that leftist rhetoric is what fanned the flames of violence against him.

“Donald Trump is blaming Democrats for inflaming political rhetoric, but the former president’s own words seem to be increasing the threat of political violence in Springfield, Ohio,” she said. “That’s where a false and ugly accusation against Haitians, thousands of whom are legal permanent residents, is impacting everyday life.” Similarly, NBC reporter Garrett Haake argued that Trump “has also used incendiary language against Democrats.”

“These networks gave relatively little time to the accusation that these attempted shootings might have been influenced by Democratic rhetoric painting Trump as an existential threat,” MRC said. “Out of 48 minutes of coverage of the attempted shooting, the three networks spent less than two minutes (1 minute, 53 seconds) on the possibility that Democrats could share the blame.”

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