Fox News and CNN react to Trump’s historic crime sentence

President-elect Donald Trump is officially a convicted felon.

There is a headline and, as with most headlines, there is much more to the story. Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump to unconditional release, meaning Trump, who takes office in 10 days, will avoid prison or any serious punishment after being convicted on Thursday, January 10, of 34 felonies related to falsifying business records. It was a case in which testimony related to hush money paid to a porn star to silence her about her alleged affair with Trump, and introducing her to the sordid world of “catch and kill,” the practice of buying the rights to a story and then never publishing it.

Another day in Trump’s world. But Friday was a little different.

Fox News complained about the Trump case

“He will be the only president in the history of this country convicted on criminal charges,” Ana Cabrera said on MSNBC.

“This means that it is now official that Donald Trump has been convicted of a crime,” CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said after the verdict was announced. – This is the moment.

It did, and it seemed to hurt Fox News’ John Roberts, who lamented the merits of the case all morning. “Now he is branded with, ah, Donald Trump, the scarlet letter of a capital F on his forehead that he is a convicted felon.”

Dramatically very much?

Sure, why not? This is, after all, a more questionable story that we are practically accustomed to because it seems to happen all the time. At some point, outrage becomes almost routine, which is part of the point if you’re the one causing the outrage.

No image or sound transmission was allowed from the courtroom

When Merchan issued his ruling, it was strictly a cable news “analysis” the entire time. It had to be this way – no sound or image was allowed in the courtroom during the hearing. Instead, we got news anchors reading text messages from reporters inside, along with the words appearing in a frame on the screen. It was as you might imagine that correspondents telegraphing messages from the battlefront in the 19th century might have worked.

Even though MSNBC put Lisa Rubin outside the courtroom as its official reader, and she looked pathetic and cold. That was it a strange end to a strange casealthough reports on this subject remained predictable.

For example, Fox News turned its show over to Mark Levin, a first-rate right-wing tyrant, and he did what he had to do. It was one of the worst cases in history, “disgusting”, etc. You know the drill.

Indeed, Fox News spent the entire morning preparing its viewers for what its contributors and even anchors seemed to consider an outrage. “There is no doubt that so many people across the country and almost every legal expert we had on the air believe that this was politicized to discredit Donald Trump,” Roberts said before the verdict was announced, “and that it was all Juan Merchan and (District Attorney) Alvin Bragg are looking for a trophy head to hang on the wall.”

ON your air, sure. While CNN and MSNBC legal analysts also weighed in on the merits and strength of this case, and everyone on every network raised Trump’s right to appeal, though no one was as cheerful as Jonathan Turley, who can always be counted on to see Trump’s glass-half-full decision full, and if not, pour some water into it.

“I was shocked by his rulings. I thought they went way beyond the strike zone and showed a lot of bias,” he said of Marchand. “The good news is that this case is fully appealable.”

Good news indeed! If you’re Trump or, I guess, Roberts and Turley, who can still complain about it.

Trump Addressed Court ‘Like a Truth Social Post’

Trump was allowed to speak to the court, which we only heard after the proceedings ended when Merchan released the audio recordings. In real time, we just received snippets of what MSNBC says “reads like a Truth Social post or a rant from one of his rallies.” Hearing it later, it sounds pretty good.

Can we take a moment and try to provide some context here? He’s the next president of the United States, and his time in the courtroom has become routine, not scandalous (he appeared virtually on Friday). But as Turley and Trump noted on Friday, the American people elected Trump nonetheless.

Madness has become normal, at least in some people’s minds. As the new Trump administration approaches, it is critical that journalists fight this instinct.

“Judge Marchand said, what is the understatement of his life, that this is a truly extraordinary case,” said Laura Coates, a CNN legal analyst.

It is important that we never think about it differently.

Reach Goodykoontz at [email protected]. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Subscribe weekly WatchList newsletter. Listen to Valley 101.