This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features one of many media efforts to question the legitimacy of President-elect Trump’s victory by highlighting concerns that the Russians influenced the election on his behalf.
On CBS Face the Nation, for example, Slate’s chief political correspondent, Jamelle Bouie, raised the specter that the “election was In some sense illegitimate.”
Host John Dickerson: Jamelle, as Michael [Duffy of Time magazine] points out, that the distinction here on the CIA and what they seem to have found, what’s new here. We heard about Russian involvement potentially while the election was going on, but what seems to be new is that it was targeted to help Donald Trump. That seems to be the new development – that in order to just update people on where things are.
Slate’s Jamelle Bouie: Right, exactly. We’ve sort of had to acknowledge and suspicion that the Russian government has been involved in, you know, helping leak documents like and engaging in election interference that way, but that’s different. That’s materially different than the suggestion that, hey, they were doing this specifically to help Donald Trump.
I’m sort of in this place right now where I’m not entirely sure, beyond investigations, beyond sort of serious scrutiny of this, what we do about this, because it really is unprecedented. And if — if it is true, if we have further verification of this, then what it suggests potentially is that the election was in some sense illegitimate. And I don’t know where you go from there.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains the pick: “Question is: Who did more to interfere in the integrity of the U.S. election? The American news media which forwarded its own ‘fake news’ to discredit Trump or, if Russia really is behind the hacking, Putin’s regime which disclosed some emails that revealed truths about what Clinton’s team thought of her opponents?”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
