‘Hear For Yourself’: Networks Cutaway from Racist, Unhinged NYC Rally
MSNBC host explains the decision to broadcast distasteful rhetoric to viewers
While Fox News and its competitors among right-wing media carried Donald Trump’s long, intolerant and racist campaign rally Sunday, other mainstream networks also had the event in real-time, as well.
Ultimately, however, CNN and MSNBC both eventually cut away from the event from Madison Square Garden in New York City with words of explanation for their respective viewers.
With a little more than a week to go before Election Day, Trump held a massive event in his hometown. Lasting more than five hours, the rally featured multiple speakers who made various racist comments, compared Vice President Kamala Harris to a prostitute, and more unhinged and untrue rhetoric.
CNN broke away from its coverage of Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally to report that the former president was telling “scores of lies.”
Host Jessica Dean said the GOP presidential nominee “had come on stage and said a number of things that are just not true, starting with a number of things on immigration.”
Dean went on to list some of the other issues that Trump had lied about, including hurricane relief, the US economy, and a claim that Harris was planning to bring back a compulsory military draft.
Meanwhile, on MSNBC, host Ayman Mohyeldin offered viewers a rationale for carrying the Trump rally live.
“We have been listening to Donald Trump speak for about 45 minutes or so at Madison Square Garden. A lot of violent rhetoric there about migrants, rambling at his rally as he normally does,” Mohyeldin said. “Again, for our viewers who have been watching this, perhaps some questions as to why we would be airing Donald Trump at this moment in the race.
“It is not something we do very often or frequently on this network,” he added. “We did want to play for our viewers Trump’s remarks, not to platform his policies, but rather the opposite, so you, the viewers and the voters in this country, can hear for yourself the vision that Donald Trump and all of his speakers today have outlined if he is given a second term as president in this country.”
Mohyeldin went on to characterize remarks at the rally as “dangerous language” and “ugly rhetoric.”
He also went to MSNBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard, who reported live from inside the Trump event.
“Ayman, I think that this evening here at Madison Square Garden has been more reflective an representative of today’s Republican Party under Donald Trump than even the Republican National Convention was a couple months ago,” Hillyard said.
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