Two major cable TV news channels cut away from President Trump’s event Friday with families of people killed by illegal immigrants, switching to coverage of illegal immigrant families complaining about treatment at the border.
CNN and MSNBC pivoted to the family separation issue even as parents on stage with Mr. Trump said their plight was ignored by the news media.
“The mainstream media does not let you know what is really happening,” said Mary Ann Mendoza, who lost her son, Mesa, Arizona, Police Sgt. Brandon Mendoza, in 2014 following a vehicular accident with an illegal alien allegedly driving drunk at three times the legal limit.
When CNN cut away from the event, the network’s midday host Brooke Baldwin questioned why the parents were complaining about the news media’s lack of interest in their stories.
CNN then went to a live shot from outside a Texas detention facility for illegal immigrant children.
The chyron read: “Thousands of kids in limbo as Trump’s order sparks confusion.”
MSNBC returned to its continuing coverage of the family separation issue under the banner “families torn apart.”
The banner topped a chyron that read: “Trump offers changing stories and false flames on separation of immigration families.”
“It’s typical CNN and MSNBC,” Ms. Mendoza told The Washington Times after the event. “They don’t want to face the truth, they don’t want their views to see the truth.”
She said she checked Twitter afterward and saw that as the president and families were speaking, the networks were running scrawls challenging what they were saying.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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